How to create a WhatsApp Chatbot (for free)

You know that your customers are rather active over WhatsApp. Now, you have three questions on your mind.

• How do you improve your customer experience on WhatsApp?
• Can you engage customers over WhatsApp manually, or do you need a chatbot?
• How do you create a chatbot on WhatsApp?

Well, we’ve got all the answers you are looking for.

We’re going to help you decide whether you need a WhatsApp business bot, then show you exactly how to?create a bot, and walk you through all the steps involved in deploying it on WhatsApp in just 5 minutes.

Grab on to your seats. We’re getting started!

Steps to create WhatsApp chatbot (at a glance)

Here’s where we show you how to make a WhatsApp bot in 5 steps.

• Building a chatbot
• Requirements
• Setup
• Configuring WhatsApp
• Test it

1. Building a chatbot

When it comes to creating a chatbot, you’ve got two choices.?

• Code it
• Use a powerful, no-code chatbot platform (hint, this is the better choice)

Building it with a no-code chatbot platform like Engati is the wiser choice. After all, why would you make the effort to painstakingly code a chatbot when you can build your WhatsApp chatbot visually?

We can help you get your bot up and running and start delighting your customers much faster than if you chose to code it yourself.

Also, we gives you in-depth analytics about your conversations with customers, helping you measure the effectiveness of your WhatsApp messages.

Bonus: You can even automate the training of your bot with the help of our?DocuSense technology. It can parse through the documents you upload and assimilate 12 pages of data every 8 seconds.

2. Requirements to deploy chatbots on WhatsApp

After you create your WhatsApp bot, there are a few things you need to deploy it. First, you need to have access to?WhatsApp Business APIs. WhatsApp grants access to these APIs themselves through their partners. To receive WhatsApp Chatbot API access, you’ll also need a verified business on Facebook.

You also need to register a phone number as your WhatsApp Business phone number. WhatsApp will call this number up to confirm and activate it for your WhatsApp Business Account, so you need to make sure that the number can receive calls from the USA.

3. Setup

In the Engati portal, navigate to the Deploy tab and select WhatsApp. Now you’d want to choose your provider from the drop-down menu. To set up your WhatsApp bot in the fastest way possible, choose 360Dialog as your WhatsApp provider (doing this also allows you to create?WhatsApp message templates?that can be used for broadcast messages directly from the Engati portal).

Now, you’re going to have to update a couple of fields:

• Phone Number
• API key

4. Configuring WhatsApp

You’d want to log into your 360Dialog account. Now, you need to navigate to the ‘WhatsApp account’ section.

You’ll be able to find your WhatsApp business phone number here.

Copy your registered and approved WhatsApp Business phone number and paste it into the phone number field on the Engati portal. Make sure to add the country code without any spaces or a ‘+’ sign.

Enter your Business phone number

Now, go back to the ‘WhatsApp account’ section on the 360Dialog portal. Click on ‘Generate API key’.

Generate your WhatsApp API key

You can only generate your WhatsApp chatbot API key once, so copy it and store it in a secure manner.

Now paste your API Key in the Engati portal.

Set up your WhatsApp bot with your WhatsApp Business phone number and API key

Now, if you want to use voice interactions on your WhatsApp business chatbot, enable voice input (use the checkbox in the bottom left corner, as depicted in the image above) and upload your JSON voice file.

5.Test it

Now that you’ve entered all your details, you’re ready to test the Engati chatbot that you created on WhatsApp.

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