Role covered: Front desk assistant
WhatsApp Business Agent
Answers customers on your WhatsApp Business number and hands the chat to your team when a person is needed.
Connects to your number through WhatsApp's official business service. It answers common questions from your own information, collects enquiry and booking details, and passes discounts, complaints and anything unclear to your team in a shared inbox, with a summary.
WhatsApp Business Agentonline on WhatsApp
- New message, after closing time
Customer: Hi, do you have the oak desk in 140 cm? And do you deliver to Kowloon?
Agent: Hello, I am the shop's AI assistant. Yes, the 140 cm oak desk is in stock, and we deliver to Kowloon.
Customer: Good. Can I get a discount if I buy two?
Agent: A colleague decides discounts. I have passed your question on with the details, and they will reply here.
- Handed to your team inbox with a summary
- Starts when
- A customer messages your WhatsApp number
- Asks you before
- Discounts, complaints and anything outside your rules
- Works in
- WhatsApp Business
- Shared team inbox
- Your information
How it works
One run of the WhatsApp Business Agent, step by step
Green steps are done by the agent. The yellow step is where you check the work. Press play, or pick a step.
WhatsApp Business Agent: one run
Step 1 of 5: Starts
A customer sends a message
To your WhatsApp Business number, at any hour of the day.
- Handled by
- Your tools
- Touches
- WhatsApp Business
Division of work
What the agent takes, and what stays with you
The routine work goes to the agent. The judgment stays with your team.
The agent handles
- Answering common questions from your own information
- Replying outside opening hours
- Collecting enquiry, order and booking details
- Passing each chat to the right person, with a summary
- Pre-approved messages, such as order updates and reminders
You keep
- Discounts, complaints and exceptions
- What your information says
- Conversations with key customers
Guardrails
You stay in control of every agent
An agent is a new team member with a narrow job, limited access and a manager. These four rules apply to every one I build.
Approval first
Customer-facing or costly actions wait for a person until you decide a step can run on its own.
Only what it needs
The agent gets its own login with only the access the job needs. No shared passwords.
Full log
Every read, decision and action is recorded, so you can see what it did and why.
Off switch
Pause the agent at any time. Your tools keep working exactly as they did before.
Getting started
From first call to an agent you trust
Every agent starts supervised. It earns more freedom only after it has done the job well on real work.
- 01
Map the job
We write down the task as it is done today: the inputs, the rules, the exceptions and what good looks like.
- 02
Build on your data
I build the agent and test it on real past cases until its work matches your standard.
- 03
Supervised launch
It runs live with every action approved by you, and the rules are tuned on real work.
- 04
Run and improve
Approvals are relaxed where the agent has earned it. I monitor it, report on it and keep improving it.
Questions
About the WhatsApp Business Agent
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Put the WhatsApp Business Agent to work
Tell me how the job is done today. I will tell you what the agent can take over, what it needs access to, and what should stay with a person.