Automate the answers that do not change with who is asking: hours, address, payment methods, catalog. Keep a person on anything that shifts with the customer: a quote, a complaint, an order with special instructions. If you read the chats from outside Mexico, that same line decides what your away message can promise.
In short:
- Automate anything whose answer is the same for whoever asks; send quotes, complaints and odd requests to a person.
- The greeting and the away message run on their own; quick replies are shortcuts you trigger.
- Settle the language of each automatic message before you turn it on.
- Count the conversations that still needed a person, not the messages that went out.
Two questions to settle before you turn anything on
Answer these before the first message goes out. Who picks up when the automatic reply is not enough, and during which hours? In which language does that person answer? Whatever message you set can only promise what those two answers can deliver.
The hours are the easy ones to get backwards from a distance. The away messageanswers whatever comes in outside your business hours, so set those hours against the clock where the business sits, not the one where you read them.
What to automate, and what to hand to a person
An automatic message works when the answer is the same no matter who asks. WhatsApp Business ships with a welcome message and an away messagefor that, and the customer gets something back while someone on your team gets to the chat.
Anything that shifts with the customer needs a person reading it: a quote, a complaint, special instructions, someone who already wrote three times without getting what they came for. A fixed reply there makes it worse: the customer feels like they are talking to a brick wall.
| Message that comes in | Who handles it | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| Hours, address, payment methods | The automatic message | Same answer for whoever asks |
| A price list you already publish | The automatic message | It does not change case by case |
| A quote, a discount, a complaint | A person | It depends on who is asking |
| An order with special instructions | A person | Fixing the mistake costs more than the reply |
Picture a dive shop in Puerto Morelos: the hours and the meeting point fit in an automatic message, the booking for a group of eight does not. For wording to adapt, see these WhatsApp Business automatic reply examples; for turning them on, the step-by-step guide.
Running the same replies in two languages
If your chats come in more than one language, settle that before you write the greeting. Keep one answer per question per language, so the two do not drift the day a price or an opening hour changes, and put both in the same message, a couple of lines each. Quick replies help, because you pick which one to send.
Then decide what happens to the message that arrives in a language nobody on the team reads. That one is for a person, not for a fixed text.
Where the built-in replies stop
The built-in replies cover the first filter, but the message sends fixed text and stops there: it does not turn what the customer wrote into a logged order or pass it to another system. Once orders get lost between chats, that is the ceiling.
Taking orders over WhatsApp rather than answering questions about hours? See how to take orders on WhatsApp without losing any.
That is where a system like Walabi's comes in: it can turn a voice note into a logged order and open the customer's file as soon as they write, building on the judgment of what to automate instead of replacing it. For what that costs, see this WhatsApp bot pricing guide.
Two numbers worth counting every week
Do not count the messages that went out. Count the conversations that ended without anyone stepping in, and the times someone asked for a person. The first tells you the message is resolving questions; the second tells you which one it is not.
To track both without extra tools, use the labelsin the app to tag the conversations that needed a person, and count them weekly. If a week brings fewer than ten on that topic, count two weeks together.
Still unsure which questions to move? Book a free 30-minute call with Walabi. It runs in Spanish, with actual people, and you leave with a map of what an existing product already solves, what needs building and what is not worth it yet, not a closed quote.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know I automated the wrong question?
Two signals, both visible in the chat: the same question comes back rephrased, or the customer asks for a person. When either keeps happening on the same topic, answer it by hand for a few weeks before automating it again.
Should the automatic message go out in English, Spanish or both?
Look at what your chats bring in, not at what you expect. If both show up, put both in the same message, a couple of lines each. What you want to avoid is two separate messages that drift apart after your next price change.
Who should own the phone if I am not in the country?
Whoever answers during the hours the away message promises. Decide that before you write the messages, because the reply sets an expectation and somebody has to meet it. Write down which questions the message answers and which come to you, so whoever answers does not repeat what the customer already read.
What happens to these replies if I later build a system of my own?
The criteria travel even if the messages do not. Deciding which questions have one answer for everyone is the same work whether the reply goes out from the app or from something built for your business.
Want your customers to get an answer even when nobody is at the phone? See how WhatsApp automation for your business works: what it includes, what it costs and how long it takes.
