Small businesses · WhatsApp
WhatsApp AI lead capture: turn chats into useful enquiries
Understand campaign links, human handoff and BSP integrations before building your WhatsApp lead capture flow.
WhatsApp is a familiar place for customers to ask a business about prices, opening hours or a product they have seen. The challenge is turning that interest into a record your team can act on.
Before buying automation, separate three different needs: answering questions, handing a conversation to a person, and recording what happened.
A WhatsApp link is not a native WhatsApp bot
A link shared in a WhatsApp message can open a hosted AI conversation in the browser. A website handoff button can open a conversation with your team on WhatsApp. A Business Solution Provider integration can capture supported WhatsApp activity.
Those are different flows. Do not assume a WhatsApp icon means an AI assistant automatically replies inside every WhatsApp chat.
The routes, side by side
| Route | Where the conversation happens | Who replies | What gets captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native WhatsApp AI add-on (paid, Growth/Scale) | Your configured AI agent, with team takeover | Conversation and captured enquiry details; replies use the plan allowance | |
| Tracked agent link shared in WhatsApp | Browser, hosted agent | The assistant | Question, details the visitor shares, campaign source |
| Website widget | Your website | The assistant | Same, plus page context |
| Human WhatsApp handoff (Growth) | Your team | Whatever your staff record | |
| Supported BSP integration (Scale) | Depends on the supported workflow | Supported events only |
A tracked agent link opens browser chat; human handoff opens a chat with your team; the native add-on answers inside WhatsApp. Choose the route you need rather than treating every WhatsApp icon as the same capability.
Start with a clear route
Choose the route that matches your team:
- Share a tracked Serviti agent link when customers need business information before speaking to someone.
- Let the website assistant answer from approved content and offer a human handoff when available.
- If you use a supported BSP, confirm the integration and its supported events before relying on it for conversation capture.
A click-to-WhatsApp ad opens WhatsApp. With the WhatsApp AI Agent add-on connected to that business number, Serviti can reply inside WhatsApp. Without the add-on, a person or your existing system handles the message. A tracked agent link remains a separate route to Serviti's browser-based chat.
A pre-launch test script
Run this on a phone, not a desktop, before you put a link in any campaign. Fifteen minutes here prevents the most common launch failures.
- Open your own link from a WhatsApp message. Does it load quickly on mobile data? Is it obvious what this is?
- Ask a price question with a condition — a product that costs different amounts in different sizes. Does the answer keep the condition attached?
- Ask about something not in your content. Does it say what needs checking, or does it produce a confident guess?
- Type a single vague word, like "price" or "delivery". Does it ask a useful clarifying question?
- Share your details when asked. Then check what your team actually received — the question, the product, the contact detail, the source.
- Trigger the human handoff if you are on Growth. Does the visitor understand they are moving to WhatsApp and talking to a person?
- Ask for something it cannot do, such as cancelling an order. Does it decline clearly and offer a real next step?
Failures on steps 3 and 7 are the ones that cost you customers. A wrong confident answer is worse than no answer.
Capture context, not just a number
When a visitor is willing to share details, preserve the question, product or service of interest, preferred next step and contact information.
Ask one useful question at a time. A person typing "price?" may need a particular product, not a generic price list. If the product is unclear, clarify it before quoting.
Prices and delivery promises should come from current business content or be confirmed by staff. A chat transcript is not proof that stock has been reserved.
What Serviti provides
Serviti combines a website or hosted AI assistant with lead capture and a lead CRM. Tracked links can be shared through WhatsApp campaigns and QR codes.
Starter includes a daily missed-lead summary and weekly digest email. Growth adds real-time email and WhatsApp lead alerts and human WhatsApp handoff. Scale adds supported bidirectional BSP integration and Lead Intelligence.
Native replies require the separate WhatsApp AI Agent add-on on Growth or Scale and a connected business number. Alerts, handoff and BSP integration do not enable native AI replies by themselves. Nor do team follow-up reminders mean automatic outbound customer messages. See the WhatsApp feature guide and plan comparison.
Matching the plan to how you work
The plan difference that matters most is not a feature list, it is how quickly a person finds out a lead exists.
On Starter, captured leads are available in the dashboard, with a daily missed-lead summary and weekly digest email. These are scheduled summaries, not instant alerts. If enquiries need an immediate staff response, consider Growth or Scale.
On Growth, real-time email and WhatsApp alerts reach the team as enquiries arrive, and the assistant can hand a conversation to a person on WhatsApp. If your enquiries are time-sensitive, this is the line worth crossing.
Scale adds Lead Intelligence and supported BSP integration — relevant once you have enough enquiry volume that prioritising between them is a real problem.
Keep the human handover practical
Tell visitors who will contact them and avoid promising a response time your team cannot meet. Give leads an owner and record the outcome after the conversation.
A stated response window you consistently meet builds more trust than an ambitious one you miss. "We reply during business hours, usually within a few hours" is better than "instant response" if instant is not true.
Common questions
Can Serviti reply automatically on our WhatsApp number? Yes, with the separate WhatsApp AI Agent add-on on Growth or Scale and a connected WhatsApp Business number. The AI replies inside WhatsApp, and your team can take over. Website chat, tracked links, handoff and alerts remain distinct capabilities; the base plan does not include native replies.
Our ads use click-to-WhatsApp. Does that feed the assistant? A click-to-WhatsApp ad reaches the assistant when the destination business number is connected with the WhatsApp AI Agent add-on. Otherwise it reaches your existing WhatsApp conversation flow. A tracked Serviti link can instead open the website agent. Test the actual ad destination and do not assume every DM includes campaign attribution.
Will it send follow-up messages to customers who go quiet? No. Reminders go to your team, prompting a person to follow up. There is no automatic outbound customer sequence, and you should not describe one to your customers.
What if the assistant gets a price wrong? Check the source content, retrieval and configuration as well as the answer. An old page or a price without its conditions can cause errors, but the model can also misread valid evidence or retrieve the wrong subject. Correct the cause and re-run steps 2 and 3 of the test script.
Do we need a QR code as well as a link? Only where people are physically present — a counter, a package, a vehicle, a standee. The QR is just a way of delivering the same tracked link. Use a distinct one per location if you want to compare them.
Read next: stop losing enquiries and organise follow-up.
