Make a WhatsApp chatbot without coding

The app's tools have limits worth knowing. The greeting message goes out on a customer's first message, and again only after 14 days with no chat. Away messages can run always, on a schedule, or outside your business hours (which must be set in your business profile), and they need your phone to be online. You can save up to 50 quick replies. Greeting and away messages pause while Meta's own AI agent (Meta Business Agent) is connected to the number. | Drag-and-drop flow builder | You draw the conversation as boxes and arrows: buttons, questions, answers | A business with clear, repeated paths, such as booking or menu choices | You build and maintain every branch. Customers who type instead of tapping a button often fall off the path | | AI that builds the flow from your description | You describe your business in plain words; the AI drafts the conversation and answers from your FAQs | Owners who have no time to draw a flow, and customers who type freely in Malay, Chinese or Manglish | You still need to check its answers and test it before going live |

Many businesses start with the free auto-replies, then move to a builder or an AI tool when the same questions take up hours of staff time every day.

The exact buttons depend on the tool, but the order is the same everywhere:

1. Start with the free auto-replies if you have nothing yet. In the WhatsApp Business app, open the Tools tab and set a Greeting message, an Away message for outside your hours, and Quick replies for your most common answers. This takes ten minutes and helps immediately.
2. Choose a tool for real conversations. If your customers mostly tap through fixed choices, a flow builder works. If they type full questions in their own words and languages, look for an AI tool that understands free text.
3. Connect your WhatsApp number. Tools that go beyond the app use the WhatsApp Business Platform. Ask whether you can keep using the WhatsApp Business app on the same number: on Mampu AI, a number connected through the official WhatsApp API keeps working in the app alongside it.
4. Add your FAQs and files. Paste in the questions and answers you prepared, and upload your price list or menu.
5. Build the conversation. In a builder you draw it; in an AI tool you describe it ("greet the customer, ask what they need, answer from our FAQs, collect their name and preferred time, then pass to our team").
6. Set the handover. Make sure every path ends with either a clear answer or a person.
7. Test, then go live on a small scale. See the next section.

A good chatbot knows when to stop. Hand over when:

• The customer asks for a person, in any wording ("nak cakap dengan orang", "can I talk to someone").
• The customer is ready to pay, book or sign, and a person closes better.
• There is a complaint, a refund or anything urgent.
• The question is not in your FAQs. A wrong guess costs more than a short wait.
• The customer has asked the same thing twice and still has no answer.

Tell the customer what happens next, for example "Our team will reply within 30 minutes during office hours", and make sure your team sees the handed-over chat quickly.

There are two separate costs. The first is the tool: the WhatsApp Business app is free, and other tools charge a monthly fee or offer a free start. The second is Meta's own charge for WhatsApp template messages sent through the WhatsApp Business Platform, which applies on every platform. Our WhatsApp API pricing guide explains which messages are free and which are charged.