The short answer
- Insist on the official WhatsApp Business Platform through Meta's Embedded Signup; unofficial connections get numbers banned.
- Test it in your customers' dialect with your real questions, not the vendor's script.
- Check that handover, lead capture and a shared inbox exist, not only replies.
- Make sure your data is isolated, exportable and never used for training, and that pricing is written down.
1. Is the WhatsApp connection official?
Ask whether the number is connected through Meta's official WhatsApp Business Platform using Embedded Signup. Tools that automate the WhatsApp app or use unofficial gateways violate Meta's terms, and the number can be blocked without warning. An official connection also gives you templates, broadcasts and delivery statistics.
2. Does it speak your customers' dialect?
Paste ten real messages from your inbox, in Egyptian, Gulf or whichever dialect your customers use, including the misspelled ones. A good assistant answers naturally and in the same register. A bad one asks the customer to rephrase.
3. Does it answer from your material or from the internet?
The assistant should learn from your price list, policies and FAQs, uploaded as files or synced from a link, and should admit when something is not in that material. Ask how prices are kept current and how you update the knowledge base yourself.
4. What happens when a person is needed?
Ask to see a handover. The assistant should pause, notify your team, let a colleague answer from the same inbox and resume when handed back. If the answer is "the customer calls you", the tool is a bot, not an assistant.
5. Where do the leads go?
Every conversation should produce a contact with name, phone, interest and status, without a form, visible in a clients list you can filter and export. Ask whether custom fields and pipeline statuses exist and whether the assistant updates them.
6. Which other channels does it cover?
Your customers also write on Instagram, Messenger and your website, and comment under your posts. One assistant, one knowledge base and one inbox for all of them saves you from running four tools.
7. Can it do things, not only talk?
Booking an appointment in your calendar, reading and writing a Google Sheet, checking an order in your system through its API, sending a brochure: these are what turn a conversation into a sale. Ask which tools exist and how calls to your systems are logged.
8. Who owns the data, and where does it live?
Conversations should be isolated per business, exportable at any time and never used to train AI models. If your sector requires it, ask whether the platform can run on your own servers and what remains public.
9. Is pricing written down?
Ask for the full price in writing: implementation, subscription, what the quotas are, what happens when you exceed them, and whether Meta's template fees are separate. Be wary of per-conversation pricing you cannot forecast.
10. Who implements it, and who supports it?
A login and a tutorial are not an implementation. Ask who connects the channels, who trains the assistant on your material, who tests it before going live, and who answers when something breaks.
How aiyourbusiness answers the checklist
Official Embedded Signup; replies in the customer's dialect; a knowledge base from your files and synced sources; handover from a unified inbox with a mood score; automatic lead capture with custom fields and export; WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and website in one place; Google Calendar, Google Sheets and custom API tools with logs; data isolated per workspace and never used for training, in the cloud or on your servers; one implementation fee plus a yearly subscription with clear quotas; and a team that implements it with you.