WhatsApp receptionist bot
AI-powered automated assistant integrated into a WhatsApp Business number and assigned to the first professional of the business to manage appointments, reminders and confirmations autonomously 24 hours a day.
Technical definition of the term
|What Marai’s WhatsApp bot does
Marai’s WhatsApp Receptionist Bot automates scheduling and customer conversations 24/7.
- Replies to clients in natural language with no human intervention.
- Checks your calendar in real time and proposes available slots.
- Confirms bookings, reminders and cancellations automatically.
- Drastically reduces the workload of your front desk team.
How a WhatsApp receptionist bot works
Connection to the official WhatsApp Cloud API
The bot operates on the business’s WhatsApp Business number through Meta’s official API. It is not a parallel channel: clients keep writing to the same number they already know.
Assignment to the first professional of the business
In products that implement this model, the receptionist bot is bound to a single professional in the business (typically the first one created, or the one marked as receptionist in the dashboard).
Natural-language understanding and live calendar lookup
When a message arrives, the bot infers the client intent (book, move, cancel, check availability), reads the professional’s calendar in real time and suggests the closest available slots.
Confirmation and reminder management
It confirms the booking in seconds and, depending on the configuration, schedules automatic reminders before the appointment. If the client cancels, it frees the slot and optionally activates the waitlist.
Why the receptionist bot matters
In service businesses the first touchpoint is usually a WhatsApp message. Every unanswered message is a conversation that goes cold and, often, an appointment lost to a competitor who replied first.
A receptionist bot solves that friction point: it turns the most-used messaging channel in Spain into a continuous booking agent. The professional is no longer the bottleneck at peak hours, and clients get instant replies outside business hours.
Real example
A physiotherapy practice with 1 main professional receives ~80 monthly messages from patients. Before the bot, the professional replied when possible and lost 25% of requests outside business hours. After enabling the receptionist bot, messages are handled in under 3 seconds and conversion to booked appointments exceeds 90%.
What it costs to NOT automate your WhatsApp
Businesses that don’t automate their WhatsApp lose revenue every month from unanswered appointments and slow replies.
- Up to 30% of inbound messages go unanswered.
- Clients abandon the channel in under 5 minutes without a reply.
- Bookings shift to the first competitor who answers fast.
- Losses pile up month over month and never come back.
95% recoverable
Frequently asked questions
How is a WhatsApp receptionist bot different from a traditional chatbot?
A traditional chatbot usually relies on predefined button trees. An AI-powered WhatsApp receptionist bot understands natural language ("do you have a slot tomorrow afternoon?") and reads the business’s real calendar in real time, with no menus to navigate.
In which Marai plans is the WhatsApp receptionist bot included?
It is included in every paid Marai plan (Starter, Pro and Business). It is not available on the Free plan. The difference between plans is the monthly per-professional message quota: 75 on Starter, 350 on Pro and 800 on Business.
Can a business have several receptionist bots?
No. By design, each business has a single receptionist bot assigned to the first professional. To add bots to other team professionals, individual bots are used as an add-on, each with its own independent monthly quota.
Which API does the receptionist bot use to connect to WhatsApp?
Marai connects directly to Meta’s official WhatsApp Cloud API. It does not use middlemen like Twilio or MessageBird. This approach reduces latency and per-message cost.
Appears in
Marai product pages where this concept applies:
Create your account without a card and connect your WhatsApp Business number. The free plan does not expire.
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