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Replying to a subscriber in Viber

Screen: Dialogs, address /dialogs. Its own item in the left menu, next to the address book.

That placement is deliberate. A Viber conversation needs no short number and no keyword: it starts from a message you sent through Viber, and it carries on in Viber.

Access to this section

This section opens with the matching permission on your account. If you do not see it, ask whoever invited you to your account, or write to support — access is granted in a couple of clicks.

Where a conversation comes from

A conversation appears in the list as soon as a subscriber answers a Viber message of yours — an ordinary send from the Viber screen, /create-sms/viber. That answer opens the thread, and from then on the two of you write in it.

The list

Four filters above the table: the subscriber's number, the sender name, the status and the period. The two text filters apply by themselves shortly after you stop typing.

The status filter has three values: all conversations, unread only, and those with an incoming message — the last one is the useful one when you are looking for people who wrote and are still waiting.

ColumnWhat is in it
NumberThe subscriber
Sender nameThe name your side writes under
MessagesHow many there are, with a badge of the unread ones next to it
DateThe last activity in the conversation

Conversations are ordered by the last activity, the freshest at the top. The page size selector under the list sets how many of them fit on a page. A badge holding a great many unread messages shows 99+.

Reload the list to pick up new conversations

The list shows what was there when you opened it, so reload the page after a while. An open conversation behaves differently: it re-reads itself, so a reply that arrives while you are typing shows up on its own.

Unread is a one-way door

Opening a conversation marks everything in it as read at once — the whole thread, not only the part you scrolled past. The badge goes for good.

The practical consequence: unread works as a signal, not as a to-do list, because opening a conversation to see what it is about already takes it off that list. When you work through several of them, use the with an incoming message filter, or answer the conversation while it is open.

Answering

Reply box

The reply box sits at the bottom of an open conversation. Three types, chosen by the three icons on the left:

TypeWhat you fill inWhat the subscriber sees
TextThe message textA message
PictureAn image file — PNG, GIF or JPEGA picture
ButtonText, an image, the caption of the button and its linkA card with a picture, a text and a button

The sender name is chosen from the list of your Viber senders. The number is already filled in from the conversation and accepts digits only.

The cabinet checks the fields the chosen type needs before it sends, and outlines an empty required one in red. Switching the type clears the fields the new type does not use, so a picture attached "just in case" stays out of a text message.

Next to the text field there is a button that inserts a saved template into the message — it works for the text and the button types, and it saves retyping the answers you give every day.

The conversation opens on the most recent messages, and the button above the thread loads the older ones.

A reply is an ordinary message

Sending from here costs the same as sending the same Viber message from the campaign form, and it goes into the same reports.