By KYN AI Advisory Team — AI implementation specialists, Singapore
A WhatsApp reply agent answers new enquiries at once with facts you approved, asks the questions a rep would ask, and hands over to a named person when the enquiry is ready or the agent is out of its depth. Set your own first-response target in minutes, measure it weekly, and write the handover rule in plain terms before you build anything. The agent speeds up the first answer. A person still owns the sale.
What should a first-response target be?
Pick a number you can keep, then measure it. Public benchmarks vary by industry, and a target copied from another business may not suit your team. Start from your own data.
- Export the last 90 days of enquiries with the time received and time of first reply.
- Calculate the median and the slowest tenth.
- Set a target for the agent: for example, an acknowledgement within one minute at any hour, and a substantive answer within five minutes in working hours.
- Set a separate target for the human handover: for example, a named rep responds within 30 minutes in working hours.
Two targets matter because they measure two things. The agent controls the first. Your team controls the second. If you set one blended number, you cannot see which half is failing.
What should the agent answer?
Limit it to facts you can state in advance and check.
- What you offer, in one or two lines per service.
- Where you operate and your working hours.
- How to book, and which slots are open.
- Which documents the customer will need.
- Whether a price is fixed or quoted, and where the published price list is, if you have one.
Everything else is a handover. Put the approved answers in a table the agent reads, not in free text. A person can then edit an answer without touching the code. See managing WhatsApp enquiries across a sales team for how the inbox is shared.
What questions should the agent ask?
Three to five, one at a time. Each should change what happens next.
- What do you need help with? (Offer buttons for the main services.)
- Which company or location is this for?
- When do you need it by?
- What is the right number or email for a follow-up?
Stop asking when you have enough to route. A long form in a chat loses people. Save each answer to the CRM record as it arrives, with the time and the channel.
When should the agent hand over?
Write the rule as conditions, not as "when it seems right".
| Condition | Handover | |---|---| | Enquiry has service, company and timing | To the owner of that service, with a summary | | Customer asks for a person | At once | | Customer asks about price outside the list | To a rep for a quote | | Complaint, legal or safety language | To a named senior person, flagged | | Agent has asked three questions and got no useful answer | To a rep, with the thread | | Outside working hours | Acknowledge, then queue for opening time |
The summary matters. A rep who opens a chat must not have to read forty messages. Give them five lines: who, what, where, when, and what has been promised. The agent writes it from the thread, and a rep can correct it.
Tell the customer what is happening: "I have passed this to Dewi, who handles installations. She will reply within 30 minutes." Never promise a time the team cannot meet.
What must the agent never do on WhatsApp?
- Quote a price or term that is not on the approved list.
- Promise a delivery date or a result.
- Reply to a complaint beyond a fixed holding message.
- Collect identity numbers, card details or passwords in the chat.
- Message a contact who has not messaged you first, or who has opted out.
Marketing messages to phone numbers are governed by law and by the platform's own rules. In Singapore, the PDPC publishes Do Not Call Registry guidance for businesses. Check the rule for each recipient's country. Outbound messages that carry your name should wait for a named person until you have measured the agent.
How do you measure the agent?
Report five numbers weekly.
- Time to first response, median and slowest tenth.
- Handover time, from the agent's passing it on to a person's first reply.
- Handover rate, the share of chats passed to a person.
- Wrong-answer rate, from a weekly review of 50 chats.
- Enquiry to booking, the share that became a call or a quote.
The last number is the one that matters to the business. A fast agent that does not raise bookings is a cost. Track enquiries lost between the agent's answer and a person's reply, because that gap is where handover design fails.
What does a worked example look like?
Take an illustrative air-conditioning servicing firm. A customer writes at 21:40 on a Tuesday: "Need aircon servicing for my office, 3 units."
- 21:40. The agent acknowledges within a minute and states the working hours.
- 21:41. It asks which area the office is in, and when the customer needs the visit.
- 21:43. The customer answers: Tampines, this Friday.
- 21:44. The agent records service, location, units and date in the CRM, and queues the chat for the servicing coordinator at opening time.
- 08:30 next day. The coordinator opens a five-line summary, confirms the slot and replies. The handover clock starts at 08:30.
The customer got a first answer in minutes and a human answer at opening time. The firm measures both times separately, so a slow coordinator does not hide behind a fast agent.
How do you keep the agent from over-promising?
Over-promising is the common failure on chat. Build these controls in code:
- a list of phrases the agent may never use, such as "assured", "free" and specific delivery dates;
- time promises that read from the rota, not from the prompt, so "within 30 minutes" appears only when someone is on shift;
- a holding message for any topic not in the approved answers table;
- a weekly review of 50 chats for promises that the team did not keep.
If the review finds a broken promise, fix the table or the rota first. Changing the prompt rarely addresses the cause.
Where KYN fits
KYN builds WhatsApp reply agents inside a sales system running in your own cloud account, connected to your CRM so every answer and every handover is logged with the actor. The agent has its own restricted account and cannot send marketing messages without approval. In a manufacturer's system we run a 06:30 report to each department on WhatsApp for about S$0.05 per report, which uses the same channel and logging. See integrations.
We open with a 14-day review of your WhatsApp setup and a set of interviews with the people who answer enquiries today. The full build ships in under 90 days. The price is a one-off build fee plus a monthly retainer of at least twelve months, quoted once the review is done.
Frequently asked questions
Can the agent reply outside working hours?
Yes. It can acknowledge, answer approved facts and collect details. It should queue anything that needs a person and say when a person will reply.
What if the customer writes in another language?
Test each language you sell in. For Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia that often means English, Chinese and Bahasa. If the agent has not been tested in a language, hand the chat to a person.
How many enquiries justify an agent?
There is no fixed threshold. The case is strongest when enquiries arrive outside working hours, when the first answer is repetitive, or when a rep spends more time typing than selling. Count your own volume and first-response times first.
Checked 30 October 2026.
Curious whether Marketing agents fits your business? Talk to KYN on WhatsApp — no forms, just a conversation.
