Orders from WhatsApp

Connect your WhatsApp Business number and Bottle reads each customer’s messages, checks the order with them and writes a draft order. You approve the draft from Orders, so nothing reaches a round or an invoice until you say so. Staff keep using the WhatsApp Business app on the phone as they do now.

WhatsApp orders are on the Round and Depot plans.

Connect your number

You need the WhatsApp Business app on the phone, not ordinary WhatsApp. Moving an ordinary WhatsApp number to the WhatsApp Business app keeps your chats.

Open Settings, then WhatsApp.
Choose Connect WhatsApp. A Meta window opens.
Sign in to Facebook, choose or make your business, and choose your WhatsApp Business number.
Meta asks you to confirm on the phone, in the WhatsApp Business app. Follow the steps there.

When the window closes, Settings shows the connected number. Only an owner or admin can connect or disconnect WhatsApp.

How a message becomes a draft order

Bottle waits until the customer stops typing, then reads the whole conversation. “19s please”, then “make it 3”, then “usual address” make one draft for 3 cylinders, not three drafts. Replies sent from the WhatsApp Business app are read too, so “We can do Thursday” sets the day.

The customer is found from their phone number, the customer’s own or any of their contacts’. When more than one customer has the number, Bottle uses the name or address in the messages. When it still can’t tell, it asks you.
The products come from the customer’s own words. “19s” from a customer who always has 19kg propane is 19kg propane. When two products fit, such as propane or butane, Bottle asks you.
The day is set when the customer names one, such as “Thursday” or “tomorrow”.
Anything for the driver, such as “leave by the shed”, goes in the order’s notes.

Messages that aren’t orders make no draft. Questions are answered, as below.

How Bottle checks the order with the customer

Bottle replies from your number as a person at the counter would. It reads the whole conversation, works out what the order still needs, and asks for it in its own words:

The product, when it can’t tell which one they mean. It uses what they said: “3 19kg propane” gets “Is that the Flogas 19kg Propane?”, not “What would you like?”.
The address, when it can’t tell which customer or which address. When more than one customer has the number, Bottle never names an address. It asks them to say it.
Empties, with Yes and No buttons when that is all it is asking.

It also replies to a hello, answers questions in the same message, and takes a change of mind: “actually, make it 4”, or “cancel that” for an order it is still taking. An order it is still taking is dropped straight away; an order already placed follows the settings below.

When the order is complete, Bottle reads it back in fixed words, such as “3 × 19kg Propane to 17 Woburn Hill, KT15 2AA, collecting 3 empties, on Thursday 12 November, £194.40 including VAT. Is that right?”, with Confirm order and Change order buttons. The read-back is always Bottle’s own wording, so a yes is a yes to exactly that order.

The price is the customer’s own: their price list, agreed prices, and trade or consumer prices by the customer’s type. Trade customers are quoted before VAT (“£162.00 plus VAT”), as they’re invoiced. On a number more than one customer shares, the address is read back only after the customer has said which one.

Customers can press the buttons or type their answer. When the customer presses Confirm order or replies yes, the draft shows Confirmed by the customer, and you approve it.

To skip that step, go to Settings → WhatsApp and under What should Bottle do with orders that come in on WhatsApp?, choose Place the order when the customer says yes. Bottle then places the order as soon as the customer says yes to it being read back, the same as pressing Confirm order. Anything Bottle couldn’t work out still waits for you as a draft, and nothing is placed without the customer’s yes.

Bottle asks for the same thing twice at most. It never states a price, a delivery day or stock in its own words; the price comes with the order read back. If Bottle’s assistant cannot be reached, it asks the fixed questions instead, so the customer is never left waiting. When a customer writes again half an hour or more after their last message, and their earlier order isn’t finished, Bottle asks whether they want to carry on with it or start a new one, with Carry on and Start a new order buttons. A new order starts a new draft; the earlier draft stays in Orders for you to keep or delete. Bottle never discards a draft by itself. It says nothing once someone on the phone has replied, so staff can take over at any point. Voice notes and photos get one reply asking the customer to type their order instead.

Bottle writes in the customer’s language: the language set on the customer, or the language they wrote in. Orders shows the English beside every message in another language, so you can follow the conversation.

Once somebody at your business has replied from the phone, Bottle stays out of the chat. It only joins in for an order or a question.

If a reply does not send, the conversation shows Needs you in Messages with “Bottle’s reply did not send”, and Settings → WhatsApp says the number could not send. Disconnect the number and connect it again.

To have Bottle only read, go to Settings → WhatsApp and answer No, only read the messages to Check orders with the customer on WhatsApp?

Questions customers ask

Bottle answers a customer’s questions about their own account, in their language:

Deliveries: where an order is, which day it’s coming and the delivery window, with their tracking link. It says the same as their tracking page.
What they owe: the total, their unpaid invoices and due dates, and the link to pay by card when you offer card payment.
A copy of an invoice: Bottle sends the invoice as a PDF in the chat. “My last invoice” is the newest one; a customer can also ask by invoice number. Only someone who may be told what the customer owes is sent it.
Past orders: what they ordered and when, and whether it was delivered.
Invoices: which invoices they have, the dates and amounts, and which are paid.
Cylinders: how many of your cylinders they are holding, by product.

Bottle looks up what the question needs, so a customer can ask in their own words and follow up: “what did I have in March?”, then “and the invoice for that?”.

Amounts, dates and links are taken from the customer’s records. A question about your prices or opening hours, or a request to change what is on an order, gets a reply saying the team will answer, and the conversation shows Needs you in Messages so you can reply there or from your phone.

Letting customers move or cancel an order

Both are off until you turn them on. Go to Settings → WhatsApp:

Let customers move an order to another day on WhatsApp?
Let customers cancel an order on WhatsApp?

Owners and admins can change these. With one on, a customer can ask in their own words: “can you bring it Thursday instead?” or “please cancel my order”. Bottle replies with the order and two buttons, such as Cancel order and Leave it as it is. Nothing changes until the customer presses the button.

Bottle only makes the change when all of this is true:

The phone number is the customer’s own, or an everyday contact’s.
The order is placed and not on a round yet.
To cancel: nothing has been paid on it. Money back is for you to deal with.
To move: the new day is after today, and no more than 60 days ahead.

Anything else gets a reply saying the team will be in touch, and the conversation shows Needs you in Messages. With a setting off, every request of that kind comes to you the same way.

A cancelled order is cancelled the way it is from Orders: stock goes back and an unpaid invoice is voided. A moved order keeps everything but its day, and you plan it onto a round as usual.

A phone number is only told what it’s entitled to:

The customer’s own number is told about their deliveries and what they owe.
A contact’s number is told what that contact is sent anyway: deliveries, past orders and cylinders for an everyday contact, money and invoices for a billing contact, both for a contact set to both.
When more than one customer has the number, Bottle asks which account it’s about before saying anything.
A number that isn’t on the customer’s record is told nothing, even if you chose the customer for the conversation.

The same goes for an order’s address and price. Bottle reads an address back only to a number that is on that one customer’s record, or after the customer has typed its postcode or first line themselves. A number you picked a customer for is read the order without the address or the price.

To answer questions yourself, go to Settings → WhatsApp and answer No, leave questions to us to Answer customers’ questions on WhatsApp? Questions then show in Messages for you.

Try it on a few customers first

In Settings → WhatsApp, under Whose messages should Bottle read?, choose Only these numbers, while you try it and list the numbers, one per line. Bottle reads and replies only to those numbers. Messages from everyone else stay on your phone as before.

Read and reply in Messages

Messages appears under Deliveries once your WhatsApp number is connected, with the number of customers whose messages need you beside it. It shows your WhatsApp messages from the last week, laid out like a messages app, with one conversation for each customer:

On the left, each customer with who it is, the last thing said and when. A customer who has ordered more than once still has one conversation, with every message in it. Needs you lists the ones waiting for somebody, with how many; All lists every one. A conversation with a message nobody has opened yet is in bold with a blue dot. Search by name, number or anything that was said.
In the middle, the conversation itself. Your customer’s messages are on the left, yours and Bottle’s on the right, under the day they were sent. Bottle’s replies say Bottle; yours say You. It opens at the newest message.
On the right, who it is and what Bottle read: the customer, the order, the empties, why it needs you when it does, and whether Bottle is still replying. A draft still waiting for you is the order shown; the customer’s other orders from the week are listed under Other orders from this chat.

To reply, type in the box under the conversation and press Send or Enter. Shift and Enter starts a new line. The reply shows straight away and goes from your WhatsApp number, as if typed on the phone. If it does not send, it says why, with Try again and Edit. A reply you have half written is still there when you come back to the conversation.

WhatsApp only lets a business reply within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. After that the box says so; reply there once they write again, or reply from your phone.

Once one of you has replied, Bottle stays out of that conversation unless there is an order or a question. Replies on the right says whether Bottle or your team is replying. To hand it back, choose Let Bottle take over: Bottle answers anything the customer wrote that nobody replied to, and carries on from there. Replying again takes it back.

A takeover never stops an order. Bottle still takes an order or answers a question in a conversation you are in, and from the customer’s first message the next day Bottle replies as usual. Their messages stay in the same conversation.

Scrolled up a long conversation, new messages do not move it. Jump to latest counts them, such as “2 new messages”, and takes you to the newest. The End key does the same.

Orders shows one line when conversations are waiting, such as “2 WhatsApp conversations need you”, with Open Messages.

Approve the drafts

Draft ready: in Messages, choose Open draft order, check it against the messages, then approve it.
To approve them all at once, go to Orders, choose Show all draft orders, tick the box at the top of the list, choose Select all, then More → Confirm drafts.
Needs you: Bottle couldn’t tell the customer or a product, or the customer asked something it couldn’t answer. Choose the customer, reply to them, or choose Not an order or Dealt with to take it off the list. For a product, make the order yourself.

A draft you have changed is never overwritten. If the customer sends more messages after you change it, the conversation shows Needs you so you can check the draft against them.

Voice notes and photos can’t be read. When a conversation has a voice note, it shows Needs you so you can listen to it in WhatsApp.

Turn it off

In Settings → WhatsApp, choose Nothing for now to stop Bottle reading messages but keep the number connected. Disconnect WhatsApp stops Bottle reading messages altogether. The WhatsApp Business app on the phone isn’t affected, and drafts already made stay.

Your customers’ messages

Bottle keeps each message for 90 days, then deletes it. When a customer’s last message goes, so does their chat in Messages. Orders made from it stay. A customer’s messages are deleted with the rest of their details when you forget them.

To delete a chat sooner, such as when somebody asks you to, open it in Messages and choose Delete chat on the right. It deletes every message with that number, including from people who are not your customers. Messages on your phone are not affected. Only owners and admins can delete a chat.

Disconnecting WhatsApp deletes Bottle’s access to send from your number. To read the messages, answer questions and translate replies, Bottle sends them, and the account details an answer needs, to its AI provider, Anthropic, which processes them in the United States.