Build a WhatsApp chatbot on the official WhatsApp Business API. Customers tap through the steps you design, the AI agent answers whatever they type along the way, and a person on your team takes over when the chat needs one.
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A WhatsApp chatbot is software that answers customers on your business's WhatsApp number. Some are scripted flows of buttons; others are AI agents that read what people type. HiQBot runs both on the same number, so the steps you care about stay predictable and the questions you didn't plan for still get an answer.
A WhatsApp business bot built only from buttons stalls the moment someone types "is there parking?". One built only on AI can wander away from the booking you wanted. Guided flows give you the route; the AI agent covers everything between the stops, and live chat brings in a person when it matters.
HiQBot is a conversational platform for customer service, with AI agents and live chat on website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram and LINE.
A guided flow is a short scripted conversation you build once. Here is what your customer sees, step by step.
One flow greets anyone who messages your number for the first time, and again when they come back after a quiet spell. Their first message counts as an answer, so "I want to book" can skip straight to booking.
Up to three answers show as reply buttons under the message. Four to ten become a list behind an Options button. Owner-written cards with a photo and buttons can sit in a swipeable row.
A step can ask for an email, a phone number or a name, check the answer and save it on the contact, with a Skip option if you allow one.
Offer free times and book the one they tap, tag the contact, set a contact field, log a request for the team or open a support ticket, all inside the same chat.
Hand back to the AI agent, hand to your team, or start over. If the customer goes quiet, the flow can close after a silence you set, and it always ends when WhatsApp’s 24-hour window does.
Reply buttons and lists that feel native
Tapping is fastest. A customer can also type the number of an answer or the answer itself, and you can number the answers on any step for people who prefer to type.
WhatsApp chatbot buttons have limits of their own: three reply buttons per message and ten rows in a list. HiQBot builds each step inside those limits, so what you design is what the customer sees.
Halfway through booking a class, Chloe asks whether there is parking. A button bot repeats the question it already asked. With the AI allowed to step in, the WhatsApp AI agent answers from your own documents and adds a Continue button, and one tap puts her back on the step she left.
You decide per flow who may step in: the AI, your team, or both. Each step allows up to three AI answers by default before it asks again, so a side conversation never swallows the booking. Replies are sorted into an answer, a side question, an unclear reply, a request for a person or a stop, and you set where each kind goes.
The same agent answers the chats that never touch a flow, in the customer's own language. See what the AI agent does.
The AI answers, then offers Continue.
Goes to your team by default.
Asked again, or sent where you choose.
Ends the flow quietly.
Live chat on WhatsApp
Any answer in a flow can lead to your team, and so can "I want to talk to someone". When a teammate is at their desk, they take over the same WhatsApp chat and see everything said so far. When nobody is free, the request is logged with the details the flow collected and the customer is told your team will reply here.
Outside working hours, the customer gets your out-of-office message, and when the AI agent hands over it tells them when the team is back, worked out from your opening hours. You can also require details first, such as a phone number, so nothing reaches the team without a way to follow up.
How live chat and handovers workLarkspur is a gym and studio that gets most of its new members through WhatsApp, usually in the evening when the front desk has gone home. This is the whole WhatsApp bot example, start to finish.
Chloe messages "do you do trial classes?". The every-new-chat flow opens and offers Mornings, Evenings and Weekends as reply buttons.
She taps Evenings, then types "is there parking?". The AI answers from the studio’s own notes and adds Continue.
Back in the flow, a list shows the evening classes with space. She picks Thursday 6:00 PM.
The flow asks for her name and phone, books the class in HiQBot’s calendar and confirms it in the chat.
An automation sends her a WhatsApp reminder the day before. The booking sits in the dashboard against her contact, and on the team’s Google Calendar if it is connected.
On the owner's side, the flow canvas shows how many conversations reached each step, how many left there and which answers people tapped, over the last 7 or 30 days, with the latest runs one click away.
The WhatsApp chatbot builder is a canvas of steps. Each step does one job, and you connect them by answer.
Text, a photo or a row of cards, with reply buttons, a list or numbered answers.
Email, phone or name, checked before it is saved to the contact.
Free times from your HiQBot calendar, booked in the chat.
Branch on an answer, a contact field or working hours, or split people A/B.
Label the contact and store the answer that matters to your team.
Log a follow-up for the team, or open a support ticket with every answer attached.
There are 20 recipes, filtered to what WhatsApp supports. A few of them:
Flows handle the conversation. Automations handle what happens next: when a booking is made, coming up, moved or cancelled, when an order is placed or shipped, or when a lead is captured. Start from a booking confirmation, a reminder the day before, an order confirmation or a shipping update, each sent as a WhatsApp template or written into the existing chat.
To message many people at once, use WhatsApp broadcasts. Replies to a broadcast land in the same inbox, where the AI agent or your team answers them.
The AI agent comes tuned to your trade, from aesthetics clinics and gyms to estate agents and event planners, and the flows follow the outcome your business wants. A few starting points:
A WhatsApp flow for a table request or a takeaway question.
A WhatsApp flow for a reservation request for the dates a guest taps.
A WhatsApp flow for a test drive booked with the model and a phone number.
A WhatsApp flow for a trip quote with destination, dates and party size.
A WhatsApp flow for a demo request that qualifies before it books.
A WhatsApp flow for order status, then a person when something went wrong.
See every industry HiQBot covers, and how the same guided flows run on Instagram, Telegram and LINE.
Sign up for the WhatsApp Business API without leaving HiQBot, and keep the number your customers already use.
Price lists, opening hours and policies become what the AI agent answers from.
Choose one of the recipes, edit the wording and links, and decide who may step in: the AI, your team, or both.
The test tab shows where each reply would go before a real customer sees it.
New to the API itself? Start with the WhatsApp Business API, then come back to build the flow.
Last updated
A WhatsApp chatbot is software that answers customers on your business's WhatsApp number. On HiQBot it is two things working together: guided flows with tappable buttons for the journeys you want to control, and an AI agent that answers anything typed, from your own documents, with your team one step away.
Yes. Automated replies on WhatsApp run through the official WhatsApp Business API, not the free WhatsApp Business app. You connect it from the HiQBot dashboard in a few steps and can keep the number your customers already message.
Yes. A customer can tap a button, type the number of an answer or type the answer itself. When they ask something the step does not cover, the AI agent can answer it and offer a Continue button that takes them back to where they were.
Yes. Any answer in a flow can go to your team, and a customer who asks for a person is sent there. If someone is at their desk they take over the same chat; if not, the request is logged with the details and the customer is told the team will reply.
Yes. A flow can offer free times from your HiQBot booking calendar, take the slot the customer taps and ask for any missing name, email or phone. The same flow can move or cancel a booking later, and the booking lands in your dashboard.
Yes. There are 20 recipes, such as a lead magnet, price questions, a product picker, a review request, a test drive and a reservation enquiry. Each one is filtered to what WhatsApp supports, and you edit the wording and links before you switch it on.
It answers from your own material instead of guessing, understands people who type instead of tapping, books or takes the order inside the chat, and hands over to a person with the whole conversation attached. It should also stay inside WhatsApp's rules, such as the 24-hour reply window.
The AI agent replies in the language the customer writes in. Guided flow messages are written once, in the language you choose, so if your customers write in several languages, keep the flow short and let the AI handle the open questions.
Start from a recipe, let the AI agent cover the questions in between, and keep your team one tap away.