Answer Customer.io Subscription Questions on WhatsApp
This recipe answers subscribers who ask in chat what they are signed up for, and unsubscribes them or narrows what they get when they ask. Part of connecting Customer.io to WhatsApp and AI chat.
What happens today
Users reply on WhatsApp or in your web chat to ask why they get your messages, which updates they are signed up for, or to stop them. Someone has to log in to Customer.io, find the person and change it by hand. When that waits, some people mark your emails as spam instead, which hurts delivery to the rest of your audience.
The flow that works
- AeroChat asks for the email they use with you, if it does not have it.
- It looks them up in Customer.io.
- It tells them whether they are subscribed and which topics they get.
- If they ask to stop all marketing, it unsubscribes them straight away and confirms.
- If they only want fewer messages, it turns off the topic they no longer want and keeps the rest.
- It records the request in Customer.io as an event.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When someone asks whether they are subscribed, why they get our emails, or asks to change or stop them, follow these steps.
- If we do not have their email, ask: “Which email address do you receive our emails on?”
- Look up the person in Customer.io by email.
- If there is no match, tell them we could not find that email and ask whether they use another one.
- Tell them whether they are subscribed and which topics they have turned on in their subscription preferences.
- If they ask to stop all marketing messages, set unsubscribed to true on the person in Customer.io and confirm: “Done. You will not receive any more marketing messages from us.”
- If they only want to stop one kind of message, such as product news (example), turn off that topic in their subscription preferences instead.
- Send an event called chat_subscription_request (example) with what they asked for.
Do not try to talk them out of unsubscribing. Never subscribe anyone or add them to a list in this workflow. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the example names and values to the ones your Customer.io account uses before you paste it.
What to connect
- Customer.io. An admin opens the API Credentials page in Customer.io’s settings and creates a key for sending people and events and an App API key for lookups. Paste them in when AeroChat asks.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect Customer.io, then switch it on. If it built the connection from Customer.io’s public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- Whether AeroChat offers fewer emails before a full unsubscribe, or acts on the request straight away.
- Which topics count as ones a person can switch off on their own.
- Who gets the handover if someone has a complaint about an email.
The result to expect
Subscribers get an answer about their emails in the chat they already use, and unsubscribe requests are done in Customer.io the moment they are made. Fewer people reach for the spam button, and nobody on your team has to search Customer.io by hand.
Measure it with your own numbers: unsubscribe and preference requests handled in chat, and your spam complaint rate, for a month before and after.
Next: add chat contacts to your list with consent.
Works on every chat channel
This workflow runs the same way on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, the chat on your website and email, with the same Customer.io connection behind it. See what each channel does on the Customer.io integration page.
Handle your next subscription question in chat
Paste the recipe, add your Customer.io keys, and ask the chat about your own subscription.