Guides
WhatsApp Chatbot for Business: Types, Examples and How to Build One
Menus, keyword replies or AI — which WhatsApp chatbot fits your business, with real examples and a step-by-step build that needs no code.
By the wbm.link teamUpdated 11 September 2026 3 min read
Most WhatsApp enquiries are the same ten questions: price, location, timings, availability, how to pay. A chatbot answers them in seconds, day or night, and hands the conversation to a person the moment it needs one. Done well, customers get faster answers and your team spends its time on the chats that actually close.
Three kinds of WhatsApp chatbot
| Type | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword auto-replies | Replies when a message contains words like “price” or “menu” | Quick wins: menus, price lists, address |
| Flow (menu) bots | Guides the customer through buttons and questions, branching on answers | Qualifying leads, booking, collecting details |
| AI assistants | Understands free-form questions and answers from your own information | Varied questions in the customer's own words |
They work best together: a welcome message for first-time customers, keyword replies for the obvious questions, a flow for anything with steps, and an AI assistant for everything else — with a person always one step away.
Examples from Indian businesses
- Real estate: “Which city and budget?” → buttons for 1BHK / 2BHK / 3BHK → sends the right brochure → assigns the chat to the salesperson for that project.
- Clinic: keyword “timing” replies with OPD hours; a flow collects the patient's name and preferred slot and hands over to the front desk to confirm.
- Coaching institute: welcome message with batch timings and fees PDF; AI answers questions about syllabus and faculty; “talk to counsellor” goes to a person.
- Restaurant: keyword “menu” sends today's menu image; a flow takes the order details for the counter to confirm.
- E-commerce: AI answers delivery and return questions from your policy; anything about a specific order goes to support.
Build one without code
- List the questions you get most — read last week's chats and write down the top ten.
- Start with a welcome message that says what you can help with, in one or two lines.
- Add keyword replies for the three or four most common questions.
- Draw a flow for anything with steps: buttons for choices, questions to collect details, conditions to branch.
- End every path with a person — an assign step that hands the chat to your team.
- Test it from your own phone, then switch it on for everyone.
Drag-and-drop flows, keyword replies and AI
wbm.link includes a visual flow builder, welcome and keyword automations with media, and an AI assistant that answers from your own questions and answers — in English, Hindi and Hinglish.
See the chatbot builderRules that keep customers happy
- Always offer a way to a person. A customer who types “agent” or “kisi se baat karao” should reach your team, not a loop.
- Stop the bot when an agent replies. Two voices in one chat confuse everyone.
- Keep messages short. Two or three lines, then a button or a question.
- Speak your customers' language. In India that often means Hinglish — “Price kya hai?” should work as well as “What is the price?”.
- Don't pretend. It is fine for customers to know they are talking to an assistant.
What a chatbot costs to run
A chatbot replying inside the 24-hour window after a customer messages you sends service messages. These are free until 30 September 2026; from 1 October 2026 Meta charges for them at the utility rate — ₹0.115 per message in India — so a chatty bot now has a small running cost. Keep flows short, and let the bot hand over instead of sending ten messages where one person would send two. See our WhatsApp API pricing guide for the details.
Measuring whether it works
Watch three numbers: how many chats the bot resolves on its own, how many hand over to a person, and how quickly those handovers are answered. If most chats hand over at the same step, that step needs a better answer — or a new button.