Automate WhatsApp answers safely: starter FAQs, flows and CartWhizz AI

Short answer: WhatsApp Shop lets you automate the questions customers ask most, in three layers you switch on one at a time. A starter set of FAQs, store pages, forms and flows arrives as drafts filled with your store's details. Flows handle short journeys such as returns or a call-back request. CartWhizz AI answers the questions a menu cannot, but only when its answer is built on your store's data. Underneath all of it, STOP and consent are handled automatically, and your team can take over any chat.

Read on for how each layer behaves. The FAQ and AI log guide and the flows guide have the settings, and the WhatsApp Shop page has the overview.

Layer 1: starter content, as drafts

Switch WhatsApp Shop on and a starter set is copied into your store:

• 25 FAQs in five groups: orders and delivery, payments, returns and refunds, products, and store and contact. A store that does not offer cash on delivery gets 24.
• 7 store pages: shipping, returns, payment, contact, about, privacy and terms, each added only where your store has no page on that topic.
• 2 WhatsApp forms for the delivery address and contact details.
• 7 short chat flows, each started by a keyword: hours, tracking, returns, delivery area, call me, wholesale and feedback.

Everything is filled in with your store's name, contact details, shipping methods and rates, payment methods and opening hours. Where a fact cannot come from your store, the draft uses a common default and carries a note such as Check: the return window is set to 7 days. The privacy and terms pages carry a reminder that they are general text, not legal advice.

Why drafts? Your WhatsApp FAQ is the same FAQ your website's shopping assistant uses, so a generic answer switched on by default would reach web shoppers too. Nothing answers anyone until you turn it on, one item at a time or with Turn on all. An item you edit stays yours: when the library improves, you are offered the new version and can keep yours.

Layer 2: the WhatsApp FAQ and flows

When a customer types one of an FAQ entry's keywords as whole words, or asks something close to its question, the bot answers at once and shows its menu underneath. A few rules keep it predictable:

• The bot's own words come first: menu, cart, checkout, my orders and your menu labels always do what they say.
• The FAQ is not used while the bot waits for an answer of its own, such as a quantity or an order number, so those answers are never mistaken for questions.
• Switching an entry off keeps it without the bot or the AI using it.

Starter flows start when a customer types their keyword while the flow builder is on, and a customer who types menu or hi leaves the flow. For a conversation of your own, the visual flow builder lets you draw it with messages, buttons, lists, questions, conditions and shop actions. Its problem list checks that every exit leads somewhere and every text fits WhatsApp's limits, and you can test a draft before publishing. Flows and forms come with the Flows part of your plan.

Layer 3: CartWhizz AI, only when it is sure

With AI answers questions switched on, CartWhizz AI answers typed questions the bot does not understand, such as is the blue mug dishwasher safe? Here is what keeps it safe:

• It answers from your store. It looks up your products, policies, help pages and FAQs, and it cannot change the cart, prices or orders. Products it suggests are sent as the bot's own product cards.
• It is checked before it is sent. An answer goes out only when it passes the assistant's checks (no price, stock level or date that did not come from your store) and meets your answer confidence. At the default of 0.7, only answers built on your store's data go out.
• It steps aside. Otherwise the customer gets the bot's usual reply plus a Talk to us button. If the AI is busy, over a limit or slower than 12 seconds, the bot answers as if AI were off, and the customer sees no error.
• Voice notes and photos. A voice message is written down and handled like typed text, so a spoken stop unsubscribes. A photo without text is described in a few words and searched in your catalog; nothing is ever added to the cart without the customer's tap.
• You can see everything. The AI log lists each question, the AI's answer, how sure it was and whether it was sent, with the reason when it was not. A question that keeps falling back is a good new FAQ entry.

AI answers are off until you switch them on, and every question, voice note and photo counts against your store's CartWhizz AI limits. Try a few questions in the bot simulator first.

Consent and STOP, handled for you

When a customer sends STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE (you can change the words), their WhatsApp consent is withdrawn for order updates and offers alike. They get one confirmation, never a second. They can still write to you, and your bot and team answer in the chat they started; what stops is everything your store would start itself.

WhatsApp Shop does not send broadcasts. Beyond replies, it starts only two kinds of message, and both are off until you switch them on:

• One cart reminder for a cart left in the chat, sent as an approved marketing template, only to customers who opted in to offers, outside your quiet hours and never for a cart that became an order.
• Back-in-stock and price-drop alerts, sent once per subscription. With a promotions template only customers who opted in to offers get them; with a utility template, every customer who has not unsubscribed.

A monthly budget with the hard cap on pauses both, along with the bot's optional messages, once the budget is used.

A safe order to switch things on

1. Read the starter FAQs and fix anything marked Check, then turn them on.
2. Publish the store pages you were missing.
3. Try the bot and a few questions in the simulator.
4. Switch on AI answers, then read the AI log after the first week.
5. Add flows, reminders and alerts once the basics are working.

Frequently asked questions

Will the AI invent a price or a delivery date?

Answers with a price, stock level or date that did not come from your store fail the checks and are not sent; the bot's own reply goes instead.

Do starter FAQs answer customers straight away?

No. They arrive as drafts and answer nobody until you turn them on.

Can a customer opt back in after STOP?

Yes, on your store under My account, in their notification preferences.

See it all on the WhatsApp Shop page, or start your store.