An old advertisement is not automatically a current offer
When a customer arrives on WhatsApp with a screenshot of an expired discount, do not start by defending the current price. First identify the exact ad, its dates and conditions, and whether an order or payment was made while it was active. Skipping those checks can turn a small price discrepancy into a trust problem.
Seasonal ads survive as screenshots, shared posts and saved links long after paid distribution stops. A public promotion that expired is also different from an individual quotation with its own validity period.
Verify the source of the price
Ask for the ad link or screenshot, the relevant product, and when the customer encountered the promotion. Marketing should verify the original creative, start and end dates, and eligibility conditions. Do not assume a screenshot is fake or that stopping a campaign removes every shared copy.
Separate three situations: someone who merely saw an old ad; someone with a still-valid individual quotation; and someone who ordered or paid during the promotional period. The third case needs a review of order evidence and terms before anyone accepts or rejects a claimed entitlement.
Explain the current offer without inventing exceptions
Once the facts are checked, a useful response is: “The promotion shown in your screenshot applied during a defined period and has ended. Here is our currently approved price. If you placed an order or made a payment while the offer was active, please share the order reference so our team can review that case separately.”
Do not promise an exceptional discount without approval, and do not deny that a genuine advertisement existed. This is an operational response, not a legal ruling. Escalate disputes about previous commitments to the responsible team.
Fix the source, not just the message
Keep a campaign register with the ad ID, approved copy, eligible products, start and end dates, terms link, approval owner and post-campaign price. Marketing, sales and customer-facing automation should draw from the same maintained source.
Before a campaign ends, review landing pages, order links, saved replies and the knowledge base. After it ends, test a direct question such as “I saw the old discount. Can I still get it?” If an assistant cannot verify eligibility, it should state the uncertainty and hand the case to a person.
Google's official merchant-listing guidance explains how to mark the duration of a sale price on web pages, including priceValidUntil and validThrough. That is structured-data guidance, not a legal rule governing every WhatsApp conversation. Read the source.
What should the manager measure?
Track inquiries that originated from expired campaigns, the time to a verified current-price answer, and the share requiring exception review. An old-ad inquiry is not automatically a lost sale. Determine why the customer did or did not proceed.
Illustrative scenario, not a customer result: An electronics retailer receives a screenshot of a seasonal discount after it ended. The team checks the dates and whether an order already exists. It then shares the current price or escalates a possible earlier commitment. It does not invent a discount or turn the reply into an unrelated sales pitch.
According to its current published product information, Mr. AI supports knowledge-based replies, follow-up, next-step tracking and conversation summaries across WhatsApp, Messenger and website chat. Those tools can support a maintained campaign record, but they do not mean the platform automatically authenticates every external advertisement or decides contractual rights.
For a related operational problem, see Keeping AI chatbot prices and policies current. Audit the most recently expired campaign before launching another.
