Set up a Support Assistant

A Support Assistant reads incoming messages and answers them for you, using documents you supply. It handles the questions you answer twenty times a week so you can deal with the ones that need a person.

What it can and cannot do

It can: answer questions covered by the documents you give it, in the language and tone you set, at any hour, instantly.

It cannot: know anything you have not told it, look up a live order, take a payment, or make a judgement call about a refund. When it does not know, it says so rather than inventing an answer.

It works alongside you, not instead of you

Every conversation still lands in Chatbox, and you can take over at any point. The assistant handles the first response; you handle what matters.

Steps

Open AI Assistants and create a Support Assistant.
Persona — how it sounds. Pick the one closest to how you talk to customers.
Primary language — what it answers in.
Writing style — how formal or brief the replies are.
Business model — what kind of business it is speaking for, so its answers are framed sensibly.
About the business — a short description in your own words. Worth writing properly; it is the assistant's basic orientation.
Auto-reply cap — the maximum number of automatic replies one customer gets in 24 hours. A safety limit; leave it at something modest.
Give it a knowledge base — see Give your assistant a knowledge base.
Attach it to a WhatsApp number and activate it.

It starts answering new incoming messages on that number immediately.

What it costs

You are charged per AI reply. A conversation where the assistant answers three times costs three AI replies.

The messages themselves are free — they are replies inside an open 24-hour window. The charge is for the AI, and it shows in your ledger and on the dashboard spend breakdown as AI replies. Rates are on the pricing page.

The auto-reply cap is what stops a stuck conversation running up a bill.

Getting good results

Feed it real documents. Its answers are only as good as what you gave it. See the knowledge base article.
Test it as a customer. Message your own number and ask your five most common questions. Ask two things it should not know, and check it declines gracefully rather than guessing.
Read what it sends for the first week. Every wrong answer points at a gap in the documents.
Keep the cap low to start. Two or three replies per customer per day is plenty while you are learning what it does.

Turning it off

Deactivate it from AI Assistants and it stops immediately. Conversations carry on as normal, answered by people.

If something goes wrong

It is not replying. Check it is active and attached to the right number, and that your balance is not empty — no balance, no AI replies.
The answers are wrong. Its documents are wrong, out of date or missing. Fix the source, not the wording.
It answers things it should escalate. Put the boundaries in the "about the business" description: "Never quote prices for custom orders — ask the customer to wait for a person."
The same customer got a lot of replies. Lower the auto-reply cap.
It replies in the wrong language. Check the primary language, and note that it will often mirror the language the customer writes in.