WhatsApp chatbot
for business

Who a WhatsApp chatbot for business suits

A WhatsApp chatbot for business makes most sense when WhatsApp is already where your customers talk to you. That's common with trades and repair shops, cleaning companies, beauty studios, restaurants that take catering orders, and many businesses serving immigrant communities in Canada, where WhatsApp is often the default way to message family and businesses alike. If you've ever found yourself replying to quotes from your personal phone at dinner, this is for you.

The bot doesn't replace you on WhatsApp. It takes the first minutes of each conversation: greeting, answering routine questions, collecting photos and details, offering times. When the customer is ready for a real conversation, it hands over to you or your team in a shared inbox, with everything they've said so far.

The WhatsApp app versus the Business Platform

The free WhatsApp Business app on a phone has basic automation: a greeting message, away message and quick replies. It's fine for a one-person shop with a handful of chats. A proper chatbot runs on the WhatsApp Business Platform, the official API that Meta offers through approved providers. That's what allows:

• full conversation flows with buttons and lists;
• several team members answering from one business number;
• connections to your calendar, booking system or CRM;
• approved templates for reminders and updates.

The platform comes with rules. Your business is verified by Meta. The customer usually starts the conversation, which opens a 24-hour window for free-form replies. After that, only approved templates can be sent, and only to people who opted in.

Consent and CASL

WhatsApp's own policy requires opt-in for business-initiated messages, and Canada's anti-spam law applies to commercial messages on any electronic channel. In practice that means a clear checkbox or link where customers agree to hear from you on WhatsApp, a record of that consent, and an easy way to stop. Transactional updates, like 'your appliance repair is booked for Thursday', are treated differently from promotions, but both should respect the customer's choice. I set up the opt-in points on your site and forms as part of the project.

Examples of flows

• Auto repair: customer sends a photo of a dashboard warning; the bot asks for make, model and year, offers inspection times and confirms. A template message tells them when the car is ready.
• Cleaning company: the bot asks for the type of clean, square footage, pets and preferred day, then hands the quote to the owner.
• Catering: dates, guest count, dietary needs and budget, collected before the first call.

Each flow is short. If the customer types something the bot doesn't understand, it offers a person rather than guessing.

Languages

WhatsApp bots can work in several languages. I write bot scripts in English, and I also speak Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, which helps when your customer base includes those communities and you want the bot's wording to sound natural rather than machine-translated. French is not one of my languages, so a French flow would need its text from your own team.

How the project runs

I deliver WhatsApp bots together with a trusted partner. You deal only with me: the brief, the script, the agreement, deadlines and support. Number setup and Meta verification sometimes take longer than the build itself, so I start those early. The price is $2,500 in Canadian dollars, with Meta's message fees billed to your account. If you'd like to understand the platform before deciding, my guide to WhatsApp Business in Canada covers the basics, and if a lot of your traffic comes from ads, Messenger and WhatsApp ads can open conversations straight into the bot.