Two kinds of work that fill your week
When owners talk about automating the business, they usually mean one of two things, and it helps to keep them apart. The first is answering: customers ask, and someone has to reply. The second is chasing: things you are supposed to start yourself, and often don't get to.
- Answering. “Is it in stock?”, “anything free on Thursday?”, “where's my order?”. This is the AI agent's job, and it can only answer what it can look up: in your store, your diary, a spreadsheet or your own system.
- Chasing. The abandoned cart nobody messaged. The customer who stopped ordering. The lead who went quiet after the price. The appointment reminder that never went out, the reorder nobody suggested. Nobody asks you to do these, which is exactly why they slip. They are automated with messages that go out on their own at the right moment: journeys, follow-ups and reminders.
Answering saves you time. Chasing brings back money that slips away today without anyone noticing: a customer who doesn't hear from you doesn't complain, they just don't come back.
Below, business by business: what answers, what chases, and what should stay with you. Most businesses are two of these at once, so read the one closest to yours too.
Online stores: answering, and bringing carts back
A store shows both kinds of work most clearly. The questions repeat all day, and the money is in the chasing: carts left halfway, customers who bought once and never came back.
Answering. Stock, price, size, order status. Every answer already sits in your store's admin.
With WooCommerce the keys are read-only: the agent looks things up and never changes a product, a price or an order (Connect your WooCommerce store has the steps). Wix connects the chat, not the catalog, so the agent learns products and prices from your website or from a catalog you keep with us. Whether the agent shares order details at all is your call, and one of the limits we set together in the meeting.
Chasing. This is where a store on Shopify gains the most: automatic WhatsApp messages that go out on their own to groups of customers pulled from the store.
In AssistantLabs these are customer journeys, part of Sales. The lists come live from your store (abandoned carts, VIPs, lapsed buyers) and update on their own, so a journey always goes to the right people. A step can carry a message the AI writes, a product card or a discount code, and while the chat is open, a one-tap link back to checkout with their items already in the cart. The moment the customer replies, the sequence stops and the agent takes over: answering, checking stock and closing the sale on the same number.
Appointments: the diary, and the no-shows
Clinics, salons, trainers, consultants: anyone who sells time. The answering is “anything free on Thursday?”. The chasing is the reminder that keeps a chair from standing empty.
Answering. The answer lives in your diary.
Chasing. The work nobody asks for, until the chair is empty.
The reminder is the automation that stops no-shows. Someone who doesn't turn up has usually forgotten, then felt too awkward to call; they didn't change their mind. One message with a link to move it turns that into a new time instead of an empty chair.
If your diary lives in Google Calendar, it stays there. Booking syncs with it both ways: appointments appear in your Google Calendar, and the personal events already in it (the school run, the dentist) block those times. Your rules hold everywhere: opening hours, a gap between appointments, how much notice you need, how far ahead people can book.
No booking system yet? Booking is ours: services with their length and price, opening hours, a booking page you can share, reminders, and the agent booking inside WhatsApp. It can be set up in the same meeting. See how it works.
Leads and quotes: real estate, contractors, B2B services
Here the conversation rarely ends in a sale. It ends in a lead: someone who wants a viewing, a quote, a call back. The answering is the first few questions. The chasing is everything after, and that is where leads get lost: nobody got back to them.
Answering. Some answers live in a list you keep; some live with you.
Chasing. This is where a business that runs on leads wins or loses.
For listings or units, keep them in a Google Sheet: “3 rooms with parking” finds the right rows, and when an apartment is rented you mark it and within minutes the agent stops offering it (Connect a Google Sheet). A quote usually needs you, and that is fine: the agent makes sure the request doesn't sink into the chat list (Never miss a quote request, Set up WhatsApp notifications). And the lead who went quiet gets a follow-up; for a longer sequence, the same customer journeys a store uses can nudge a stalled deal from a list in your CRM.
Where should the lead land? Already working in Monday? Contacts and conversations go to your boards. No CRM at all? The AssistantLabs CRM fills itself from the conversations, with no import and no forms. Using a CRM we don't connect to directly? See No way in.
Your own system: management software, ERP, clinic software
Many businesses run on software nobody outside their trade has heard of: a garage's job system, a clinic's management software, a distributor's ERP. It will never be a logo on an integrations page. It can still connect, if it has an API.
An API is a door your software leaves open for other software. If yours has one, we set up a custom integration in the meeting: the agent gets a new ability, say “check a repair's status”, and asks your system directly while it answers. Nothing is copied or imported; the answer comes from the system your team already updates.
That last row is chasing, done by your own system. It already knows the moment an order ships, a repair is done or an invoice is ready. Instead of waiting for the customer to ask, it can send the WhatsApp update itself, through our API, as an approved WhatsApp template. WhatsApp charges for every template message, so send the ones customers actually want. Whoever runs your system fills in three things in a webhook form, and the rest is in Send a WhatsApp update from your own system.
One email before the meeting. Ask your software provider: “do you have an API, and can we get access?” The answer decides whether this is a job for the meeting or one that stays with a person, and it is much better to know before the hour starts.
No way in, and what should stay with you
Some systems are not on the integrations page and have no API: an old program on one office computer, a supplier's portal, a paper diary. The agent cannot look anything up in them. Two things are still possible.
- Send out what happens in the conversation. Webhooks send a message to any address the moment something happens: a new conversation, a tag added or removed, a contact updated. Make picks that up and passes it on to more than 1,000 apps, including CRMs we don't connect to directly, like Pipedrive, HubSpot or Zoho. The agent still can't look things up this way, but the lead gets where it needs to go.
- Leave it with a person. If nothing reaches the system, the questions that need it stay with you, and the agent passes them to you instead of answering without the facts.
And some things should stay with you even when every system connects:
- Complaints. An upset customer wants a person. The agent tags the conversation, and you get a WhatsApp message while it is still fresh.
- Refunds. Money going back is your decision, so the agent passes the request to you without promising anything.
- Price exceptions. A discount beyond your usual offer, a special price for a big order. The agent answers from your price list, and anything off the list goes to you.
- A customer asking for you by name. Some people want the owner, and they should get the owner.
Your map, in five minutes
You don't need to know any of the names on this page to get this right. You need last week, and two lists.
- List one: questions you answered three times or more. Scroll back through last week's WhatsApp. Next to each, write where you went for the answer: the store, the diary, a spreadsheet, your own system, or your head.
- List two: things you meant to start and didn't. The cart you didn't chase, the quote nobody followed up, the customer you meant to check in with, the reminder you didn't send.
- Circle the one that cost you the most, in time or in money. That is what gets connected first.
- Mark anything that should never go out without you. Those are your limits.
Bring both lists to the meeting. Part two of the integration meeting is exactly this map, done together with an AI expert, and whatever you circled is what we connect first, in the same hour.
Two items tied for first? Pick the one you would be relieved never to think about again. For another way to choose, Which job to automate first has a simple method.
One hour with an AI expert. We check your WhatsApp, go through your store, leads and bookings, and switch on the first automation while you watch. Anyone can book it, no commitment.
Pick a time