AI · Ventures
How to use AI for customer service on WhatsApp
Start with a script of answers, use quick replies and automate only what's simple. A customer with a problem wants a person on the other end.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
The safest way to use artificial intelligence for customer service on WhatsApp is to start behind the counter: use AI to prepare answers, organize frequently asked questions and write difficult messages, and only then think about automation. WhatsApp Business already has free features such as greeting messages, away messages, quick replies and a catalog. AI comes in to make those messages good. A robot that answers everything on its own, without review, usually annoys more than it helps.
The golden rule: what's repetitive can be automated; anything involving a problem, a complaint or money needs a person.
Why AI is not a chatbot
WhatsApp is full of bad chatbots, the ones that reply "I didn't understand, press 1." That's not what this text is about. AI used well doesn't pretend to be you: it helps you answer faster and better.
In Bairo's view, AI is "an extension of the human, not the problem." He sees the tool as an extension of whoever is serving the customer, never as a wall between the business and the customer.
Step by step today
- Gather the questions you get most. Scroll through last month's conversations and note the 15 most repeated (without copying anyone's name or number).
- Ask the AI to write quick replies:
I have a [type] business in [city]. These are the questions
my customers ask most on WhatsApp: [list them]. Write a
short answer for each, friendly and direct in tone, at most
3 lines, and mark with [CHECK] anything that depends on me.
- Save the answers in WhatsApp Business as quick replies (shortcuts). Check prices, hours and deadlines before saving.
- Improve the greeting and away messages:
Write a welcome message and an away message
for my business's WhatsApp. I want the customer to know how soon
I'll reply and what they can send ahead while they wait.
- Prepare the difficult conversations. Delays, payment reminders, returns, complaints:
I need to let a customer know their order will be [x days] late because of
[reason]. Write an honest message that apologizes without
overdoing it and offers [what you can offer].
- Organize the catalog. Ask for short, clear descriptions for each product, with size, material and price, to add to the WhatsApp catalog.
- Only then think about automation. There are services that connect AI to WhatsApp to answer on its own. Before hiring one, check: does the company use the official API? What does it do with the conversations? Can the customer be handed over to a person at any moment? Test it for a while with you keeping an eye on it.
- Say when it's automatic. If an assistant answers for you, tell the customer clearly and offer human service.
- Review every month. Take the new questions that came up to the AI and update the answers.
How Bairo did it
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez knows counter service: he says he started from zero in Brazil, opened a salon with his partner and later a cosmetics brand, always close to the customer. Later, without knowing how to code, he spent six months at home, in front of the computer, and built the foundation of the platform and the artificial intelligence of CEASA Bank, a financial platform for agribusiness.
In every front he founded, the design he advocates is the same: AI organizes and prepares, and a person validates. In health, the clinical assistant works with validation by a professional. In law, SOSPROCESSOS's analysis is led by a lawyer. On your business's WhatsApp, the logic can be the same.
Precautions
WhatsApp conversations are personal data: don't copy entire conversations with names and phone numbers into AI tools; follow Brazil's General Data Protection Law (LGPD) in automated service too; check every piece of price and deadline information; never let a robot give your customers health, legal or financial guidance; and notice whether the automatic replies treat everyone with the same respect, without assuming anything from the way a person writes.