WhatsApp Customer Service That Answers From Your Own Records
WhatsApp customer service is every question customers send to your business number: where is my order, what does this cost, can I change my booking, who do I speak to. AeroChat answers each one from your own systems, such as your CRM (HubSpot, Freshsales or Zoho CRM), your Shopify or WordPress store and your Google Sheets. It looks the customer up, answers or acts, writes the outcome back to the record and passes anything outside your rules to your team.
What happens today
Most businesses answer WhatsApp from the WhatsApp Business app on one or two phones. Whoever holds the phone opens the store admin or the CRM in another tab, finds the customer, types a reply and moves on to the next chat.
Messages that arrive in the evening or at the weekend wait until someone is back. The conversation rarely makes it into the CRM, so the next person to talk to that customer starts from zero.
How it runs on WhatsApp
- A customer messages your WhatsApp number. AeroChat replies in their language.
- It finds the customer by phone number in your CRM. If the number is not available, for example because the customer uses a WhatsApp username, it asks for their email or order number.
- It reads what it needs: the contact in HubSpot, the order in Shopify, or the row in your Google Sheet.
- It answers the question, or does what was asked within the limits you set, such as booking a callback or sending a payment link.
- It writes the outcome back: a note on the CRM contact with a short summary, and any field you want updated.
- When the request is outside your rules, or the customer asks for a person, it hands the conversation to your team in the AeroChat inbox with the summary attached. Your team replies from the desktop or the mobile app.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer messages us on WhatsApp, follow these steps.
- Search HubSpot for a contact with their phone number. If there is no phone number, ask for their email or order number and search with that.
- Answer questions about products, prices, opening hours and policies from our knowledge base.
- For order questions, look up the order in Shopify and tell them its status and tracking link.
- If they want to change or cancel an order, collect the order number and what they want changed, then hand over to the support team.
- When the conversation ends, add a note to the HubSpot contact with a two-line summary and set Last contact channel to WhatsApp (example).
- Hand the conversation to the support team if they ask for a person, if they are upset, or if they ask for a refund above S$100 (example).
Do not promise delivery dates that are not in the order record. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the field names and the refund limit to the ones your business uses before you paste it.
Connect the systems behind it
- HubSpot: finds the contact, adds the conversation summary as a note and names the owner for handover.
- Freshsales: looks up the contact and logs each WhatsApp conversation against it.
- Zoho CRM: reads the customer record and updates it after the chat.
- Google Sheets: holds price lists, stock or policies AeroChat reads from, and a log of requests it writes to.
Shopify and WordPress are built in, so order lookups and product answers work once your store is connected. Google Sheets and Google Calendar connect by signing in with a Google account.
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 it costs on WhatsApp
Messages customers send you are free. AeroChat’s replies inside the 24-hour customer service window are service messages: free up to 1,000 a month per business phone number, then charged per message. Anything you send after the window closes needs an approved template, which is charged per message. Rates vary by country and are set in Meta’s rate cards. AeroChat passes Meta’s WhatsApp fees through at cost. Since replies past the free tier are charged one by one, settling a question in fewer replies now saves money.
Also on Instagram, Messenger, TikTok and web chat
Customers who ask on Instagram or your website get the same answers from the same records. The same workflow runs on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok (direct messages and TikTok Shop buyer chat), Telegram, the chat on your website and email, with the same connections behind it. You describe it once and switch on the channels you use. See this workflow on Instagram and on Messenger.
Who uses it
Retail and service businesses run it, including fashion stores, beauty stores, dental clinics, hair and beauty salons, spas, hotels, restaurants and caterers, tuition centres, property agents, aircon and home services and B2B suppliers.
Read more: how to automate Shopify support on WhatsApp.
Questions
Can WhatsApp customer service be automated?
Yes. AeroChat answers on the WhatsApp Business Platform, looks up the customer in your systems and acts within the limits you set. Your team takes over any conversation from the AeroChat inbox or the mobile app.
How much does WhatsApp customer service cost?
Customer messages are free. Replies within 24 hours of the customer’s last message are free up to 1,000 a month per business number, then charged per message. Messages after that window need a paid template. Rates vary by country. AeroChat passes these fees through at cost.
Can my team still reply on WhatsApp?
Yes. Everyone works from the shared AeroChat inbox on desktop or the mobile app, with each conversation’s history and summary in front of them.
Which plan do I need?
Workflows via Skills are on every plan, Free included. Starter gives 500 AI responses and 3 seats. Growth gives 2,000 AI responses and 10 seats, and adds payment links and broadcasts. Advanced gives 5,000 AI responses and 25 seats.
Answer your next WhatsApp question from your own records
Connect your number and your CRM, paste the recipe, and test it with a message from your own phone.
Start your 7-day free trial. No credit card needed.
On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.
Related: auto-replies that answer the question and human handover and team inbox.