Customer segments and WhatsApp campaigns: how a restaurant CRM works.

This tutorial is about marketing: splitting your customers into the right groups, and sending each group a WhatsApp message that fits it.

First you build segments three ways: from scratch, from a ready-made template and from a hand-picked list. Then you send three kinds of campaign: right away, scheduled for later, and saved as a draft. Every example uses a working restaurant's customers.

A segment is a group of customers defined by a condition: those who haven't ordered in three weeks, those whose birthday is this month, or those who keep ordering pizza.

Sending each group a message that matters to it works better than sending everyone the same thing. To start, open the menu at the top left and go to Customers CRM → Segments.

WhereCustomers CRM → Segments

At the top is the lifecycle strip: six segments the platform builds itself and refreshes every hour. New, Repeat, Loyal, Lapsing (customers coming less often), Lost, and Won back (those who drifted away and came back). Each tile also shows this week's change. Below the strip are ready-made segments for RFM, churn risk and loyalty tier.

Further down is the table of saved segments, each with two counts: Members, the customers who match, and Sendable, how many of them can be messaged on WhatsApp. System segments are marked read-only. You can't change them, but you can duplicate one and make it your own.

At the top are the three ways to make a new segment: Build Segment, Templates and Manual List.

WhereCustomers CRM → Segments

Press Build Segment. On the left are 92 fields in 11 groups: spend, how often they order, menu, order type, birthday, area, feedback and more. To find customers who like pizza, type category in the field search and click Ordered from category.

The new condition appears in the middle. Choose this restaurant's Pizzas category, in the last 90 days, at least twice. On the right, the live preview counts how many customers match and how many of them can be reached on WhatsApp, with a few sample customers. Below, In plain words writes the whole condition as one simple sentence.

Name it, here Pizza Lovers, and leave Refresh on Hourly so customers who order pizza later join automatically every hour. Press Save Segment and confirm once. The segment is saved and its count refreshes straight away.

WhereSegments → Build Segment

Now a segment with more than one condition: regulars who have ordered at least five times but haven't come in the last two weeks. First condition: Total orders, at least five. Second: Days since last order, has not ordered in the last, two weeks.

All of is chosen above the group, so both conditions must be true together. Choose Any of and one condition is enough.

WhereSegments → Build Segment

Add group adds a second group of conditions, and at the top you decide whether the groups combine as All or Any.

At the very bottom is Exclude, which always keeps another segment's customers out of this list. Here Pizza Lovers are excluded because they will get a separate offer. Name the segment, here Regulars gone quiet, and save.

WhereSegments → Build Segment → Add group / Exclude

Press Templates at the top. There are 42 templates in eight groups: Win-back, Reward, Occasion, Menu, Channel, Care, Growth and Geo. Each card says what it is for, gives its condition in plain words, and shows how many of your customers match it right now. Some templates need one value from you, like festival dates; those have a Pick value button.

Example: birthdays. Under Occasion, choose Birthday this month. Use Template opens the same builder with the name, description and condition already filled in. Change anything you like, or just save. Each refresh looks at the current month, so next month it shows that month's birthdays on its own.

Second example: win-back. Lapsed 1 month means customers who haven't ordered in 30 days but came at least twice before. Adjust it to your needs, here 21 days instead of 30, and the preview count changes at once. Rename it, here Win-back 3 weeks, and save.

WhereSegments → Templates

A manual list is for customers you pick yourself rather than by a condition, such as the special customers who get a Diwali hamper. Open Manual List, use New Manual Segment and name the list, here Diwali Hamper List. Tick the customers you want in the list below and press Add.

You can also add customers by pasting phone numbers or uploading a CSV file. Those are only matched first: how many numbers matched your customers, how many didn't, and how many are already in the list. They are added only when you press Add. A number that isn't one of your customers doesn't create a new customer, and customers you added by hand stay in the list through every hourly refresh.

WhereSegments → Manual List → New Manual Segment

Sometimes you need to merge two segments. On the Segments page, open the three-dot menu and choose Combine Segments. Here segment A is Pizza Lovers and segment B is Birthday this month.

There are three ways to combine: A AND NOT B removes B's customers from A; A OR B joins both; A AND B keeps only those in both. Here the first is chosen, so customers with a birthday don't also get the separate pizza message.

WhereSegments → three-dot menu → Combine Segments

The second tab on the same page is Holdout split, an A/B test. Pick a segment and set the test share, say 20 percent. Two new segments are made from it: a 20 percent test group and an 80 percent control group. Send the campaign only to the test group, then compare the two groups later to see whether the campaign really made a difference.

To look inside any segment, open it, for example Lapsing. At the top are the total members, how many can be messaged, and how many joined in the last 24 hours. The chart shows how the group grew or shrank day by day. Press Why next to a customer to see which condition put them in this segment, and Export gives you the full list as a CSV.

WhereSegments → three-dot menu → Combine Segments → Holdout split tab

With segments ready, open Campaigns, also under Customers. Campaigns go out on WhatsApp, and every message is paid from your WhatsApp credit. The balance shows at the top, with the daily marketing cap: the most marketing can spend in one day. If either runs out, a campaign stops midway. Below is the last 30 days: messages sent, delivered, read and the amount spent.

Press + New Campaign. Step one is the template. WhatsApp marketing messages only go out in pre-approved templates, so the structure is fixed and you fill in the blanks. There are three: Simple message, for any news; Offer with order button, an offer with an Order Now button that takes the customer straight to online ordering; and Offer, show at the counter, an offer redeemed at the restaurant. All three carry a Stop offers button.

Below is Attach an image, a photo above the message at no extra cost. When this video was made, the screen said WhatsApp was still reviewing the photo templates, so messages went without a photo; the option switches on in the same place once they are approved.

WhereCustomers → Campaigns → + New Campaign

First campaign: a birthday message. Leave Simple message selected and press Next. Step two is the message. The campaign name is only for you; customers don't see it. Write your message below. The preview on the right shows the green parts filling in for each customer, like the customer's name and your restaurant's name. You can't press Enter for a new line inside the message; that is a WhatsApp rule.

Step three is the audience. Choose Birthday this month as the segment. Three counts appear: customers in the segment, how many are eligible (they have a WhatsApp number and haven't tapped Stop offers), and the estimated cost. A green strip below confirms your balance is enough for this campaign.

Step four is Review: template, segment, number of customers and cost at a glance, with three buttons: Send Now, Schedule and Save as Draft. Send Now asks once more, this many customers for about this many rupees. A sent message can't be taken back, so check before you press it.

WhereCampaigns → + New Campaign → Template → Message → Audience → Review → Send Now

The campaign now appears in the list. Click it to open its report. At the top is the whole journey: messages sent, delivered and read. These counts grow as WhatsApp reports each message delivered and read.

The cost card shows what was spent. You are charged only for delivered messages, not for ones that failed or were skipped. Below is a line per customer: when they were sent the message, and what happened.

WhereCampaigns → open a campaign

Second campaign: an offer for customers who haven't come in three weeks. This time the template is Offer with order button. In the message, choose Attach an offer. Only offers running today show here, the ones created in the offers engine. Pick one, here Weekend Special, and the message and Valid till fill in themselves; you can change both. The preview says Order Now opens your online menu with this code applied.

For the audience, use the win-back segment made from the template earlier. In Review, press Schedule this time, pick a date and time, say Saturday at 11 am, and press Schedule it. The campaign goes out by itself at that time. No money is set aside when you schedule; the balance is checked again when it sends. Customers who use the offer after getting the message are counted as Converted in the report.

WhereCampaigns → + New Campaign → Offer with order button → Attach an offer → Review → Schedule

Third campaign: an offer redeemed at the counter. Choose the template Offer, show at the counter. This time, without attaching an offer, write free text, such as your Diwali hamper is ready, with the last date in Valid till. For the audience, use the hand-made Diwali Hamper List.

It isn't going out yet, so press Save as Draft. The draft is saved and nothing has been sent to anyone.

WhereCampaigns → + New Campaign → Offer, show at the counter → Review → Save as Draft

A campaign can't be edited once it is created. To send the same one again, open it and press Duplicate: a new draft is made with the same template, message and segment.

To send any draft, press Send campaign at the top. It sends immediately, without asking again.

To stop a scheduled campaign, open it and press Stop sending. It becomes Cancelled and none of its messages go out.

WhereCampaigns → open a campaign → Duplicate / Send campaign / Stop sending

First build the right group: from scratch, from a template, or as a hand-made list. Then send that group the right message (a simple message, an offer with an order button, or a counter offer), now, later or saved as a draft.

Birthdays or customers who haven't come in a month: one template segment and one campaign.