WhatsApp Chatbot for Ecommerce: An AI Chat Agent for Online Stores

Many shoppers would rather send a quick message than fill in a contact form or wait for an email. In a lot of markets WhatsApp is the app people already have open, so a question about sizes, delivery or an order arrives there. If nobody replies for hours, the shopper may buy from a store that did.

Most of those messages are the same few questions asked again and again: Is this in stock? How long does delivery take? What is your returns policy? Do you ship to my city? A chat agent answers those straight away, so your team can spend its time on the conversations that need a person.

• Answers product, delivery, returns and store-policy questions using the information you give it.
• Replies at any hour, including when your team is asleep or busy with packing and orders.
• Captures order enquiries and leads: name, number, what the customer wants and how to reach them.
• Asks a small number of questions to understand what the customer is looking for before your team steps in.
• Hands the chat to a person, with the conversation so far, when the customer asks or the topic is outside its instructions.
• Sends your team a summary of new enquiries so nothing sits unnoticed in an inbox.

You decide what it may say. If it does not have the answer, it says so and passes the question on instead of guessing.

• It does not take payments, issue refunds or change orders.
• It does not invent product details, prices, stock levels or delivery promises it has not been given.
• It does not read your store data unless we have confirmed and tested that connection with you.
• It does not replace your customer service team. It handles the routine questions so the team can handle the rest.

Business messaging on WhatsApp has rules that shape how any chatbot is set up. We go through the current version of these with you before building, because they change over time.

• A business phone number set up for WhatsApp’s business messaging platform.
• Customer opt-in for messages the business starts, and clear ways for customers to stop.
• A limited window after a customer’s message in which free-form replies are allowed, and approved templates for messages outside it.
• A way for the customer to reach a person.

None of this should surprise you later. If something would stop your use case working, we tell you in the review rather than after the build.

These are illustrative examples of the flow, not real customers.

1. Review: we go through your store, your most common customer questions, your policies and how your team handles chats today.
2. Scope: we agree what the agent will and will not do, what it can connect to and what it costs, before anything is built.
3. Build and test: we set up the agent and test it against real questions with you.
4. Go live: it starts answering customers, with your team able to take over at any point.

Already thinking about phone calls too? See how our AI receptionist compares with a live answering service, or read about after-hours call answering.

Tell us what you sell, where your customers are and what they ask most. Request a free automation review and we reply by email with an honest view of whether a WhatsApp chat agent is worth it for you.