How it works
From 'Are you free Saturday?' to a confirmed booking
Connect your number, tell the assistant about your business and let it book. Three steps, no workflows to maintain.
Live in three steps
Connect your number
Link your WhatsApp Business number. Instagram, Messenger and Telegram are coming soon.
Teach it your business
Add services, prices, working hours and FAQs, then choose how the assistant sounds.
It answers and books
Customers get replies in seconds, bookings land in Google Calendar and you get a notification for each one.
Setup guide video · 2 min
Watch NextReply go live on WhatsApp in 2 minutes
A short walkthrough of the real app, from creating your account to the AI answering customers on WhatsApp. You can follow along during your 7-day free trial.
What the video shows
- Create your account at app.nextreply.io
- Connect your WhatsApp number through Meta
- Set up your AI receptionist: name, tone, language, opening hours and handover to a person
- Add your services
- Add your knowledge and FAQs
- Choose a plan ($29, $59 or $99 a month) and start the 7-day free trial, with checkout by Stripe
- You’re live: the AI replies 24/7 and books appointments into your calendar
How to automate WhatsApp bookings without building anything
If you have searched for how to automate WhatsApp bookings, you have probably found tutorials that chain an automation tool, a language model API, a calendar connector and a WhatsApp gateway together. They work in a demo. They also need someone to fix them every time one of those parts changes. NextReply takes a different route: you connect your number, describe your business and the assistant starts booking. No workflows, no code, no recipes to maintain.
This page walks through the three steps in order, explains what you need for each one and shows what your customers see once the assistant is live. It takes most owners well under an hour from sign-up to the first test booking.
- Customer message: “Any slot tomorrow afternoon?”
- AI receptionist: Reads service, date and time
- Checks your calendar: Offers only free slots
- Confirms in the chat: Name, service and time
- Booked: In Google Calendar, owner alerted
Step 1: Connect your WhatsApp number
You start in the NextReply dashboard and choose the number to connect. Most businesses use the number already printed on their shopfront, website and Instagram bio. Thanks to WhatsApp Coexistence, that number can stay on the WhatsApp Business app while NextReply connects through Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform.
Meta's own sign-up window guides you through linking a business portfolio and confirming the number from your phone. You will need:
- The phone that has your WhatsApp Business app, with the app updated.
- A Facebook login that can manage your business portfolio, or permission to create one.
- About ten minutes without interruptions.
If you use a brand-new number instead, the same window registers it directly on the platform.
- WhatsApp Business app: Keep chatting from your phone
- Same number: Nothing to delete
- NextReply AI: Answers through the platform
Step 2: Set up the WhatsApp AI agent with your details
This is where the assistant learns your business. You fill in four areas in plain language, no technical knowledge needed.
Services
List what you offer, how long each service takes, what it costs and who performs it. Use the words your customers use. If people ask for a "skin fade", call it that.
Hours and team
Add opening hours, days off and each team member. Link Google Calendar so the assistant can see real availability. If each person has their own calendar, link each one.
Knowledge base
Write answers to the questions you get every week: parking, payment methods, cancellation policy, what to bring, whether walk-ins are accepted. Short, direct answers work best.
Personality and handoff
Give the assistant a name and tone, and choose when it should hand a chat to a person: complaints, refunds, special requests, anything clinical or legal. The features page lists every setting.
Step 3: It books appointments on WhatsApp for you
Once the assistant is switched on, every new message gets an answer within seconds. When a customer asks for a slot, the assistant checks your calendar, offers free times, collects the name and service, and confirms. You get an instant notification and the booking appears in your dashboard.
Here is a real-style exchange for a physiotherapy clinic:
Customer: hi can i book a sports massage this week? evening if possible
Assistant: Hi! Happy to help. This week I have Wednesday at 18:00 or Thursday at 19:00 with Daniel. Each session is 45 minutes. Which works for you?
Customer: thursday
Assistant: Great. Could I take your full name?
Customer: Priya Shah
Assistant: All set, Priya. Sports massage with Daniel, Thursday at 19:00. Reply here if anything changes.
That is the entire process for the customer. Read more about WhatsApp appointment booking, including how it handles several staff calendars.
Test it before customers do
Before you announce anything, message your own number from a friend's phone and try to break it. Ask about prices, ask for a slot on your day off, send a voice note, switch language halfway through, ask for a manager. Read the replies in the dashboard and adjust the knowledge base wherever an answer is vague. Ten minutes of testing saves a week of awkward chats.
Ask a colleague who does not know the set-up to test it too. They will phrase things the way real customers do, with typos, half sentences and three questions in one message, and that is exactly what the assistant needs to handle well on launch day.
Then decide the hours the assistant should cover. Many owners start with evenings and weekends only, which is where after-hours replies recover the most lost bookings, and widen the hours once they trust the replies.
Five setup mistakes that slow the assistant down
We see the same few problems in early setups. Each one is quick to fix once you know to look for it.
- Durations that are too short. If a service really takes 90 minutes including clean-up, enter 90. The assistant fills gaps exactly as you describe them.
- Price lists with no ranges. "From 150" is better than nothing, but "150 for short hair, 220 for long" lets the assistant answer the follow-up question without a handoff.
- A calendar full of old blocking events. Blocks you created months ago and forgot about will hide free time. Clear them before you go live.
- Handoff rules that are too broad. If every message containing "price" goes to a person, the assistant cannot help with the most common question. Hand off complaints and special cases, not routine questions.
- FAQs written like a legal policy. Customers read replies on a phone. Two short sentences beat a paragraph, and the assistant quotes your tone back to them.
Fix these and most chats end in a booking without anyone on your team touching the phone. The ones that do reach your team arrive with the whole conversation attached, so your colleague can see what the customer wants without asking again.
Why not build it yourself with n8n or Make?
You can. Plenty of agencies and freelancers sell custom builds. Before you go that way, weigh what you take on:
| DIY workflow | NextReply | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Days to weeks | Under an hour |
| Maintenance | You fix breaks when an API or token changes | We maintain it |
| Calendar checks and double-booking | You design the logic | Built in |
| Voice notes, photos, languages | Extra modules to wire up | Included on every plan |
| Human handoff | Custom build | Settings you switch on |
| Monthly cost | Several tool subscriptions plus usage | One plan price |
If you already run automation tools for other work, you can still connect them: the Business plan sends every booking out by webhook to Zapier or Make.
Instagram, Messenger and Telegram: coming soon
WhatsApp is where NextReply works today, and it is where most bookings happen anyway. Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger and Telegram are coming soon. When they launch, the plan is to connect them from the same dashboard, each through the platform's own login, using the same services, FAQs and calendar you set up in step 2. Nothing you build now will need redoing.
Until then, point customers from those apps to WhatsApp: add the WhatsApp button to your Instagram profile and Facebook Page, and pin a WhatsApp link in any Telegram channel you run. Keep in mind that Instagram and Messenger only let businesses reply freely for 24 hours after the customer's last message, and Telegram bots can only reply to customers who message first. See channels for the status of each one.
- WhatsApp: Live / Instagram: Coming soon / Messenger: Coming soon / Telegram: Coming soon
- NextReply AI agent: Live on WhatsApp
- Google Calendar: No double bookings / CRM by webhook: Business plan / Your team: Takes over when needed
After launch: what to check each week
Spend fifteen minutes a week in the dashboard. Look at three things. First, the bookings calendar: are services and durations landing correctly? Second, handoffs: which chats went to a person, and could a better FAQ answer have handled them? Third, questions the assistant could not answer: add them to the knowledge base. On Pro and Business you can review full conversation history and edit services, hours and FAQs at any time.
When you are happy, tell customers. Add "Book on WhatsApp 24/7" to your Instagram bio, Google Business Profile and shop window. Compare plans on the pricing page, find your sector on the industries page or read setup guides on the blog. For a quick summary of everything, see the home page.
Questions people ask
Is there a free trial?
Yes. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, which is enough time to work through all three steps, test with your own phone and watch the first real bookings come in.
How long does setup take?
Most owners connect their number and fill in services, hours and FAQs in under an hour. Testing and tweaking answers over the first few days makes the biggest difference to quality.
Do I need coding skills to set up the WhatsApp AI agent?
No. Everything is done through forms in the dashboard and Meta's own sign-up window. There are no workflows or scripts.
Can I keep using my current WhatsApp number?
Yes. With WhatsApp Coexistence your existing WhatsApp Business app number connects to NextReply and stays on the app as well.
What does the customer need to install?
Nothing. Customers message your number on WhatsApp as usual and book inside the chat.
How do I book appointments through WhatsApp if I have several staff?
Add each team member and link their Google Calendar. The assistant offers times for the person the customer asks for, or anyone qualified for that service.
Can I switch the assistant off?
Yes. You can limit it to certain hours or turn it off, and reply from the WhatsApp Business app yourself.
Can I connect Instagram and Messenger as well?
Not yet. Instagram DMs, Messenger and Telegram are coming soon. Today NextReply works on WhatsApp; add a WhatsApp button to your Instagram and Facebook profiles so those customers can book.
Every WhatsApp message answered, every free slot offered
Start your 7-day free trial, connect your WhatsApp number and add your services and hours. NextReply answers and books around the clock.