Customer Service Automation for B2B Suppliers and Wholesalers
A retail store has one price per item. A supplier has a list price, a few tiers of trade pricing, some negotiated accounts and a rule for orders below the minimum quantity. So “how much are these” has no answer until the system knows which customer is asking. For a supplier, identifying the account comes before the catalogue.
This page is for B2B suppliers, distributors and wholesalers. It starts with the six workflows worth automating first, each linked to its own page with a description you can paste into AeroChat. Then it covers the messages that arrive, the channels trade buyers use, the public data, two recipes you can copy in today, and the plan a supplier of your size typically fits.
Workflows you can automate
Each one links to a page with the flow, the description to paste, what to connect and what you still decide. The reasons for this order are on the ranked B2B supplier workflows page.
- Answer stock and lead-time questions from your accounting or ERP system. Sends spec sheets and certificates on request.
- Turn a list of items into a draft quote ready to price. Matches each line to a product code and applies minimum quantities.
- Take a repeat order in the chat. Reads back the last order and creates the confirmed one as a draft in your system.
- Answer “when is my PO shipping” after checking the account. From your ERP or your online store.
- Answer account and invoice questions for known buyers only. Trade prices and order details go only to verified accounts.
- Hand credit terms and special prices to your sales team. With the product codes and quantities already collected.
What automation does for a supplier
- Stock and lead-time answers in minutes. The question that now waits an hour for a salesperson gets answered while the buyer is still on the warehouse floor.
- Quote requests prepared, not just received. Each line is matched to your catalogue, minimum order rules applied, and the request reaches sales as a draft quote ready to price.
- Repeat orders and documents with no staff time. “Same as last time” and “send me the spec sheet” are lookups, and they get the same correct answer every time.
The messages a supplier gets
| Message | What the workflow does |
|---|---|
| “what’s the trade price on 200 units” | Checks the buyer is a known account before giving any trade price. Unknown contacts get list price or a handover |
| “do you have 500 pcs in stock? what’s the lead time?” | Answers both: what is available now and when the rest can arrive |
| “can you quote for the attached list” | Matches each line to a product code, applies minimum order quantities, creates a draft quote for sales |
| “same as my last order please” | Confirms the previous order’s lines and quantities, then creates the order for processing |
| “send me the spec sheet and the cert” | Sends the current document for that product |
| “when is my PO shipping” | Checks the account, then gives the status, or passes it to the team |
| “can we do 60 days instead of 30” | Credit terms are a negotiation. Hands to a person |
Set the workflow to match the buyer’s phone number or email against the customer records in your system before it shares trade prices or order details. The awkward cases need a rule decided in advance: a buyer messaging from a personal phone, a new person at an existing account, an agent asking for someone else. The safe default is list price or no price, plus a handover. Quoting trade price to an unverified contact leaks your margin structure to competitors. Price tiers, minimum quantities and discounts are rules you set, and the system applies them. See AI agent.
Payments and terms
Accounts on credit terms are invoiced, and the conversation should never ask them to pay a link. Prepaid accounts, new customers and small orders can pay in the chat with a payment link, with the money settling into your Airwallex balance. The account’s payment terms must be part of what the workflow reads about the buyer, and your accounting system already holds them.
Channels trade buyers use
Many trade buyers now message suppliers on WhatsApp, which catches suppliers whose systems assume email. The buyer messages from a site or a warehouse, with one hand, and will not open a portal. Email still carries purchase orders and formal documents. AeroChat puts WhatsApp and email (Gmail or Office 365) in one inbox, so the quote discussed on WhatsApp and the PO that arrives by email sit together. See shared inbox. Web chat on your site is mostly new customers, and the right workflow there is qualification: what they need, what volume, which account type, then the right salesperson.
What the data says
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 67% | of B2B buyers prefer a buying experience without a sales rep |
| 45% | of B2B buyers used AI during a recent purchase |
Source: Gartner, Sales Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience, 9 March 2026. Survey of 646 B2B buyers, August to September 2025.
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| Nearly 7 times | as likely to qualify a lead when a firm tried to contact it within an hour, compared with an hour later (1.25 million leads at 29 B2C and 13 B2B companies) |
| 23% | of 2,241 audited US companies never responded to a web enquiry |
Source: Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011. One author led a sales software company.
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 73.3% | of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, 2025.
Trade buyers increasingly want to get answers without waiting for a rep, but they still want a person for decisions about fit and terms. That points to the split on this page: stock, documents and repeat orders handled in the chat, and negotiation with your sales team.
Recipe: stock, lead time and documents
Paste this into AeroChat (Skills, then Build from a description) and change the example values to yours.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a buyer asks about stock, find the product by name or product code in our accounting system. Tell them how many are available now, counting only stock that is not already committed to other orders. If they need more than that, give the lead time recorded for that product. If no lead time is recorded, say sales will confirm it. Never promise a lead time that is not in our system. If they ask for a spec sheet, safety data sheet or certificate, send the current file for that product from the knowledge base. If they ask for price, check whether their phone number or email belongs to a contact on a customer record in our system. If it does, give the price for that customer’s price level. If it does not, give the list price and offer to pass them to sales to set up a trade account. If they ask about credit terms, a special price or a part shipment, hand the conversation to sales with the product codes and quantities they mentioned.
What to connect:
- Your accounting or ERP system. Xero, QuickBooks Online or Oracle NetSuite connect through their APIs. For Xero or QuickBooks Online, approve AeroChat’s access to your company when AeroChat asks. For NetSuite, your administrator creates an access token for AeroChat and pastes it in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat reads products, stock, price levels, customers and payment terms from there.
- Your product documents. Uploaded to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Your channels. WhatsApp and email (Gmail or Office 365). Built in.
If you run a small operation from a Google Sheet of stock and accounts, connect your Google account and approve the access.
Recipe: quote requests and repeat orders
Copy this into AeroChat
When a known account sends a list of items for a quote, match each line to a product code in our accounting system. If a line is unclear, ask which product they mean. Apply our minimum order quantities: 50 units for fasteners and 10 cartons for packaging (examples, change them to ours), and tell them where a line is below the minimum. Show the lines back to them to confirm, then create a draft quote for their account in our system with the lines, delivery address and the date they need it by, and notify their sales rep to price it. When a known account asks to repeat their last order, read back the items and quantities from their last order in our system, ask whether anything changes, and create the confirmed order as a draft for our order desk to approve. For prepaid accounts only, if they ask to pay now, confirm the amount and send a payment link. Never send a payment link to an account on credit terms.
What to connect:
- Your accounting or ERP system. The same Xero, QuickBooks Online or NetSuite connection. AeroChat reads order history and creates draft quotes and orders there. Your team prices and approves them as usual.
- Your minimum order rules. In the knowledge base.
- Your online store. If you sell to trade buyers on Shopify or WordPress, those are built in, and order history comes from the store.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Use it for prepaid accounts only. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
After you paste a recipe, AeroChat builds it as a draft with a checklist: connect your accounts, upload your documents, then switch it on. Any keys are entered in the dashboard and never pass through the conversation.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What a supplier of your size typically invests
AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses, the individual replies the AI sends. A stock or document question takes a few responses, and a quote request takes more. A worked example: a supplier with about 20 buyer conversations a day, at around four replies each, uses roughly 2,400 responses a month.
- A small distributor with a handful of buyer messages a day usually fits Starter: 500 AI responses a month and 3 team seats.
- A supplier with a sales team usually fits Growth: 2,000 AI responses a month and 10 seats, plus payment links for prepaid orders and WhatsApp broadcasts for price updates.
- A supplier at the volume in the example, or one connecting several of its own systems, usually fits Advanced: 5,000 AI responses a month, 25 seats and the full API.
Busy quarters can be topped up with extra AI credit. What the investment does is answer the stock and lead-time question before the buyer asks two other suppliers, and give your salespeople quote requests that are ready to price.
Related guides
Start with your most-asked product
Connect your accounting or ERP system, upload the documents for your top ten products, paste the first recipe, and ask it for 500 pieces and the certificate from a number that is not on any customer record. Check it gives list price only.
Related reading: AI agent, shared inbox, payment link, B2B chatbots for wholesale buyers, B2B wholesale stores on WooCommerce. All B2B supplier workflows. All industries.