Use cases
WhatsApp chatbot setup: an AI assistant that answers from your knowledge base
Setting up a WhatsApp chatbot in OrqLabs starts from a ready-made template: the AI Chatbot agent answers messages sent to your WhatsApp Business number from your knowledge base, saves people who share contact details as leads, and hands the conversation to you in the Inbox when it isn't sure.
The challenge
Customers don't keep office hours
People message in the evening and on weekends. When repeat questions about prices, shipping, bookings or opening hours sit unanswered for hours, sales slip away – and checking every message by hand fragments your team's day.
Keyword auto-replies miss the question
Canned replies triggered by keywords break as soon as a question is phrased differently. A general-purpose AI that doesn't know your business, on the other hand, may invent prices, stock levels or return terms.
The bot-to-human handover is broken
When a complaint, refund or complex request comes in and nobody knows who takes over or with what context, the customer has to explain everything again.
WhatsApp has its own rules
A bot built without understanding the Cloud API setup, webhook verification and the 24-hour customer service window either can't send messages or hurts your number's quality rating with unapproved messages.
How OrqLabs handles it
Answers grounded in your knowledge base
For every message the AI Chatbot first searches your knowledge base – FAQs, return and shipping policies, product page URLs or files such as PDFs – and bases its reply only on what it finds. If nothing matches, it says it will check with the team instead of guessing.
Confidence score and human handoff
Each reply comes with an intent and a confidence score between 0 and 1. When the score drops below the Hand-off threshold (0.4 by default), the customer asks for a person, or the topic turns to a complaint, refund or legal issue, the conversation goes to your team with an in-app, email or Slack notification.
Take over in the Inbox
Every WhatsApp conversation lands in the Inbox. Click Take over and the bot goes quiet in that conversation; you can let the AI draft a reply for you. When you're done, Give back to bot and it carries on, reading what you wrote as context.
Lead capture
With Collect contact details on, the bot asks for a name, email or phone number when it sees purchase or booking intent – one field at a time, explaining why – and saves what people share as a lead on the Leads page. With it off, it never asks for personal data.
Costs you can control
The AI cost of every reply is tracked in US dollars. You set a per-run budget for the node and the workflow and a monthly cap for the organization. For FAQ-heavy bots, an economy model such as Claude Haiku 4.5 keeps costs down.
Example flow
The Message received trigger picks up the WhatsApp message (and Telegram, if you like); a conversation opens in the Inbox.
The AI Chatbot reads earlier messages from the same person, searches the knowledge base and produces the reply, intent and confidence score.
If the customer shared a name, email or phone number, the bot saves it as a lead.
An If step checks whether a human handoff is needed.
If not, Send message delivers the reply on the same channel.
If so, Hand off to human sets the conversation to “Human”, pauses the bot and notifies the team; you continue from the Inbox.
Things to keep in mind
The 24-hour window
On WhatsApp you can send free-form messages for 24 hours after the customer last wrote to you; after that, only templates approved by Meta can go out. The Send message step checks the window and asks for a template name when it's closed. The AI Chatbot only replies when the customer writes, i.e. while the window is open. Details: WhatsApp templates and the 24-hour window.
Account and number
You need a Meta Business account, a phone number registered on the Cloud API and a permanent access token (system user token); a webhook delivers incoming messages. WhatsApp's own messaging fees appear on your Meta invoice – OrqLabs only meters the AI cost.
Telling the customer about the handoff
In the ready-made template no automatic message goes out on the handoff branch. If you also want the bot's “a teammate will get back to you” reply delivered, add a second Send message step after Hand off to human.
Personal data
The bot explains why it asks for contact details. Add an instruction to the persona to link your privacy notice, and don't assume that everyone who shares details in a chat has opted in to marketing messages.
Agents used
AI Chatbot
Auto-replies on WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger and more
Report Writer
Weekly digest of everything the agents did
Ready-made templates
Integrations needed
Frequently asked questions
Can I use the number I already have on the WhatsApp Business app?
OrqLabs works through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API. According to our setup guide, if the number is currently registered in the WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business app, that account has to be deleted first – which is why many businesses use a separate number for the bot.
What does the WhatsApp auto-reply bot do when it doesn't know the answer?
It doesn't make up prices, dates or promotions that aren't in your knowledge base. It says it will check with the team and, when its confidence is below the threshold, hands the conversation to you.
Can I message a customer on WhatsApp before they write to me?
Only with a template approved by Meta and the person's prior opt-in. The AI Chatbot itself only replies when a customer writes; campaigns use the broadcast step and approved templates.
Does the same AI assistant work on Telegram?
Yes. The ready-made template listens to WhatsApp and Telegram at the same time and replies on the channel the message came from. You can add Messenger, Slack, Discord and Twilio SMS to the same trigger.
Which language does the bot reply in?
It replies in the language of the customer's last message. To keep it in one language, simply say so in the persona.
Get started with OrqLabs
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