Integrate a Chatbot into WhatsApp Business: The Complete Guide

What is a WhatsApp chatbot?

Definition of chatbot :

A chatbot is a program that can interact with humans through messaging, a web platform, or a mobile application.

This conversational robot , considered as an AI in some advanced cases, “replaces” the customer consultant for users, most often during the first contact. Chatbots are ideal for solving simple problems, answering frequently asked questions or clearly defining customer needs before a human agent intervenes .

In short, chatbots are expert tools to easily improve customer experience through messages.

Using Chatbots in WhatsApp Business

While chatbots are widely used on web solutions and Facebook Messenger, they are not yet widespread on WhatsApp Business. From a user perspective, it works like all conversational chatbots: people communicate with it on WhatsApp through the messaging interface, as if they were talking to a real person. In most cases, the chatbot is simply a set of automatic responses organized in a tree structure that simulates a human conversation.

But to get a truly convincing result and a better customer experience, it is better to opt for a chatbot power by AI . This is the case of the chatbot we offer in collaboration with our partner Dydu, a startup expert in conversational AI that offers a chatbot based on natural language understanding, AI and generative AI, for a seamless customer experience.

While it is “possible” to build a WhatsApp Business response tree yourself, the service has a number of limitations that you should be aware of before embarking on a development that will not offer all the benefits of a true conversational bot. Building the bot yourself can be complicated and time-consuming, so you will need real assistance.

Why create a WhatsApp chatbot?

With the chatbot, you win on all fronts:

Customer relationships involve a fair amount of repetition, so being able to hand these tasks over to a virtual agent is a huge advantage. Chatbots are available 24/7, never tire of answering the same questions , and are impervious to the irritation that can sometimes come from an unhappy customer.

Additionally, WhatsApp Business exchanges are charg per conversation , which means that on this messaging service more than any other, resolving a customer query within 24 hours saves money. From this point of view, using a properly configur chatbot that can respond to messages at any time is also advantageous.

WhatsApp limits commercial approaches and prohibits outbound marketing. The use of messaging for businesses is therefore reserv for customer relations . But not all customers have a problem. Some will contact you looking for a product. If you want to be there for them quickly and at the right time, this is the ideal tool.