Viber Session Messaging: Understanding the 24-Hour Window

If you are using Viber as a messaging service for businesses, it is important to be aware of the session window, especially to save on costs and deliver quality customer support.

The 24-hour session model determines the start and end of conversations, the number of messages sent, and the costs incurred.

Therefore, it is crucial to customer support teams and customer experience managers.

In the following guide, you will learn what Viber session messaging is, how conversations create sessions, and ways to save on costs.

What Is a Viber Session?

A Viber session is a 24-hour period during which you can talk freely with your customers without having to pay for each message.

During this period, you can send messages at a fixed session rate, not a message rate.

Your session will begin as soon as a customer contacts you or replies to your message.

Within a 24-hour period, you can send up to 60 messages during a session, charged as a single conversation.

How Sessions Get Activated

There are two ways in which the session can start:

• Customer-initiated contact: The moment the customer sends the first message to your Viber Business account, the 24-hour timer starts immediately, and you are not charged for the outgoing messages.
• Customer reply to your message: The customer’s reply to your message outside of an existing session starts a new session.

According to Viber, “A session starts when the customer sends a message to your business account or replies to your business message.”

What Happens After 24 Hours?

Once the session is closed, any new message sent by you will be considered a business-initiated message and will incur different charges.

However, if the customer responds to your business-initiated message, a new session will be created, and the 24-hour timer will be reset.

This forms a cycle of customer support: any ongoing sessions will be low-cost, but long gaps between messages will cause later ones to be high-cost.

Understanding Viber's Message Categories

Viber Business Messages are divided into three types.

Understanding what kind of message you're sending will help you determine the costs and set up your customer support. 

Session Messages

Messages exchanged within a 24-hour active chat window:

• Billing: You're billed per session, not per message
• Message limit: Up to 60 messages per session
• Supported formats: Text, images, and files
• Best for: Customer support, order, and account questions, changing bookings, and more

Session messages are best for any customer support interaction that involves a lot of messages with one customer.

This is the normal flow of customer support. 

Business-Initiated Messages

Messages initiated by your business when there is no active session:

• Billing: You're billed per message
• Supported formats: Text, images, videos, carousels, and interactive buttons
• Best for: Proactive support, appointment reminders, order updates, and more

Note: If a customer replies to a Business-Initiated Message, a new session immediately begins, and the next messages are billed at the session rate. 

Welcome Messages

A special type of message:

• Billing: Always free
• Timing: Sent immediately when a customer initiates a conversation with your business, before any messages are exchanged
• Best for: Introduce your support services, set expectations, and encourage customer interaction

Welcome messages are best for encouraging a customer to start a conversation with your support.

This will start a session, and you're not charged for sending it.

The February 2024 Commercial Model Changes

Viber’s commercial model was changed in February 2024, and this affects how you pay for messages sent using this service.

You should be aware of the commercial model used for your account.

For Viber Accounts Created After February 5, 2024

According to the commercial model frequently asked questions page provided by Viber, the commercial model for accounts created after this date is as follows:

• There is a monthly maintenance fee for business accounts, which amounts to EUR 100.
• There is a charge for each message sent, and this applies to all business-initiated messages.
• There are no extra costs for sending messages within a session.

In other words, you will pay a fixed monthly fee and a fee for sending proactive messages.

For Legacy Accounts (Created Before February 5, 2024)

The commercial model for legacy accounts is as follows:

• There is no monthly maintenance fee.
• There is a free message allowance, and this amounts to sending up to 10,000 business-initiated messages.
• There are overage charges for sending messages exceeding this number.

The legacy account commercial model appears to be cheaper for small and medium-sized businesses sending fewer messages, but this model will continue until further notice.

Impact on Different Business Sizes

• Small business owners sending fewer proactive messages may find this commercial model cheaper, especially if the number of messages sent does not exceed 10,000.
• Medium and large business owners sending many proactive messages will find this commercial model costly, especially considering the fact that all messages sent using this service will be business-initiated.
• For business owners who offer customer services, this commercial model remains cheap, irrespective of whether you use the legacy or commercial model, customers make the first move to communicate with you.

Session vs. Per-Message Pricing: When Sessions Save Money

The money case for sessions is apparent when you look at the types of customer support chats that people have.

A session can have up to 60 messages in 24 hours for a fixed price.

Break-Even Analysis

Sessions are cheaper than charging by the message after you send more than a few messages to a customer:

With typical customer support chats involving 5-15 messages, using the session model can reduce costs by 50-80% as opposed to a pay-per-message approach.

Pricing Structure Overview

Viber pricing is influenced by three factors:

• Message type: Transactional, promotional, or session-based messages
• Destination country: Pricing varies considerably by country
• Commercial model: Pricing for new or existing accounts

All active Viber Business accounts are charged a minimum monthly fee: EUR 100 for most countries or EUR 150 for some countries, including Belarus, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Iraq, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and UAE.

At Dexatel, we offer full access to official Viber rates without any markup.

6 Strategies to Optimize Session Messaging Costs

It’s one thing to understand sessions; it’s another to make them work better for customer service.

Here are some ways to reduce costs while keeping the customer happy:

Strategy 1: Encourage User-Initiated Conversations

The most cost-effective messages are those where the customer initiates the conversation.

When the customer makes the first move, you can reply as you wish, and the conversation won’t cost you anything for the first 24 hours:

• Use chat links and QR codes: Place them on your website, order confirmations, product packaging, and customer service documents
• Add Viber contact buttons: Place a "Message us on Viber" button on your website and customer portal
• List Viber as a support option: Place Viber alongside email and phone support

The customer initiates the conversation with a question, and you won’t have to pay the cost of a business-initiated conversation.

Strategy 2: Respond Quickly Within the 24-Hour Window

Speed is important because it impacts cost, not just the customer experience.

If a customer sends you a message, and you do not respond within 24 hours, the session will expire.

If you try to respond, that is a business-initiated message, which is more expensive.

Implement the following basic processes to respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours:

• Develop response time SLAs: respond within 2-4 hours during business hours
• Send automated acknowledgments: immediately send a message acknowledging that you have received the customer’s message
• Ensure coverage: schedule business hours based on the customer’s time zones

You can use the Dexatel platform, “Conversations,” to help manage customer messages.

Strategy 3: Use Welcome Messages Strategically

Welcome messages are free and help set the tone for customer support:

• Introduce your support team and when you’re available
• Provide a list of common issues you can help with via Viber
• Ask a friendly question such as "How can we help you today?" to encourage a response from the customer

If a customer replies to your welcome message with their question, you have initiated a session for free and made a great first impression.

Strategy 4: Time Promotional Messages Strategically

If a customer is currently in an active session, you can provide any relevant updates within that session window, rather than waiting for a new session:

• Order status updates
• Appointment confirmations
• Resolution updates
• Requests for more information

Providing updates within an active session is done at the session rate.

Strategy 5: Segment by Engagement Level

However, not all customers will use the messaging channel in the same manner.

Segment your customers to provide personalized suggestions on the best support channel:

• Active Viber Users: Customers that frequently ask for help via the Viber messaging service
• Multi-Channel Customers: Customers that tend to use many channels
• Email Preference Customers: Customers that tend to avoid the messaging service; respect their preference

Use Dexatel Campaigns to send targeted support messages to the engaged user base.

Strategy 6: Validate Numbers Before Messaging

Spend your messaging budgets on active Viber numbers only.

Use our services to look up your contacts.

Dexatel's Lookup service checks whether the number is active on Viber, so you don't send messages to the void and ensure your customer support messages are actually read by customers.

Viber Sessions vs. WhatsApp Messaging Windows

If you are evaluating messaging services for customer support, understanding how Viber compares to WhatsApp will help you determine the best option.

For customer support, Viber is more suitable because it does not have the need to have templates approved before sending messages initiated by the business.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, is more restrictive, but it helps ensure the quality of the message sent.

For Viber and WhatsApp, the time window is the same, 24 hours, but Viber is limited to 60 messages, which may be a challenge if the troubleshooting process is lengthy and may require multiple windows of conversations.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, does not have such limitations.

If you are serving Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, or the Middle East, Viber is a good option because it is extremely popular in these regions, with over 90% penetration in Ukraine, to name one country.

Best Practices for Session-Based Customer Support

Customer Support is an excellent match for Viber sessions because customers typically initiate a session with a question or problem to be solved and do so at no additional cost to your business.

Build a Responsive Support Workflow

• Set quick response goals: Aims to respond within hours, not days
• Use automation wisely: Send automated messages immediately to keep the conversation going
• Send to the right agents: For complex issues, forward the chat to experts who can resolve it in no time
• Enable handoffs: Allow customer support agents to hand off the chat without interrupting the customer

Create a Knowledge Base Within Conversations

Every time the customer talks to us, the organization learns more:

• Note the common questions and develop response templates for the agents
• Record the solutions to common problems so the agents can solve the problems quickly
• Use the chat and call data to make the FAQ and self-help sections of our website even better
• Identify trends showing problems with the product or the customer experience

Resolve Issues Completely Within Sessions

Having a 24-hour window will provide enough time to fix things in the following steps:

• Ask questions: Ask questions clearly.
• Provide solutions: Provide solutions by giving step-by-step instructions, including pictures and files if possible.
• Verify: Ensure that the problem is fixed.
• Help more: Ask if there is anything else you can help with.

Completing everything in one go will save money and make the customer happy.

Collect Feedback Within Sessions

Once a problem has been fixed, collect feedback from them while the session is still active:

• "Did I fix your issue today?"
• "How would you rate your support experience?"
• "Is there anything we could have done better?"

This does not cost us much since we are already in a session with them, anyway.

Implementing Viber Sessions with Dexatel

Dexatel also makes Viber business messaging for customer support very easy:

• Direct access to Viber's network for better deliverability
• Simple pricing: no hidden costs or markups; just official Viber rates
• Unify all your messages in one inbox: Viber, SMS, WhatsApp, and many more in Conversations
• Team features: assign chats, add internal notes, and more
• API or web: self-serve or API integration
• Reporting and analytics: track your response rates, click rates and more

Getting started with Viber business messaging for customer support in as little as 48 hours.

Dexatel takes care of Viber’s business rates so your business can focus on serving customers.

What you need to know:

• Sessions help you save on costs when you send multiple messages in the course of a customer support conversation
• Customers contacting you start the session, and you do not incur any costs on initiating the session
• Reply to customers within the 24-hour period to get the most out of the session feature and offer excellent customer support services
• Welcome messages are free and can be used to direct the customer to start the support session
• Viber’s session feature is naturally suitable for customer support services

For businesses operating in Viber’s major markets, such as Eastern Europe and Asia, the session feature is advantageous, especially in saving on costs and offering excellent customer support services.

Ready to take the first step towards improving customer support with Viber?

Start a free trial with Dexatel or talk to our sales team to find out more about the benefits of using the session feature and save on costs.