WhatsApp automation by industry — how businesses like yours run on Talko AI
Six playbooks, one platform. The same building blocks — AI replies, chatbot flows, broadcasts, drips and payments — arranged for the way your industry actually sells and supports.
An industry playbook is a documented arrangement of the same platform, tuned to one kind of business. Talko AI has six: D2C and e-commerce, EdTech, healthcare, real estate, restaurants and travel. Each one uses the identical building blocks — AI replies grounded on your own material, chatbot flows, broadcasts, drip sequences and in-chat payments — in the order that sector actually needs them.
They're for businesses whose inbound messages have outgrown the people answering them, and they run on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, YouTube comments, Google Business Profile reviews and website chat. If your sector isn't one of the six, the nearest playbook is still a working starting point — most businesses adapt one rather than starting from nothing.
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From bio link to paid order — without leaving the chat
A skincare brand turns Instagram followers into WhatsApp customers: a keyword link tags and opts them in, a welcome offer lands automatically, and checkout happens on a hosted payment link inside the chat. Carts left behind trigger a recovery message — once, and only once.
- Keyword growth links
wa.me links prefill a keyword, tag the contact, record opt-in and count every click and conversion.
- Cart → payment link
Catalog, cart and checkout in chat — with a hosted payment link and order status synced back.
- Abandoned-cart recovery
Idle carts automatically enter a recovery drip — exactly once, never spamming.
- STOP-safe marketing
Opt-outs are honored across every phone format before any campaign reaches Meta.
Every enquiry qualified, captured and nurtured — automatically
A course academy answers every "courses?" message instantly: the bot walks prospects through program choice (typos and all), validates their email politely, drops the lead into the CRM, and keeps nurturing with a brochure drip until they reply. Real questions mid-form go straight to the AI — grounded in the academy's own prospectus.
- Guided intake flows
Button menus + step-by-step questions that tolerate typos and store every answer on the contact.
- Validated capture
Emails and phone numbers are checked in-chat and retried politely — junk never reaches your CRM.
- Brochure drips
Keyword-triggered nurture sequences that pause the bot and stop the moment the lead replies.
- CRM sync
Name, course and email mirror to LeadSquared as they're captured — no exports, no re-typing.
Triage in seconds, consent you can prove, humans one tap away
A family clinic triages every WhatsApp message: appointments flow through a menu, "talk to a nurse" hands the chat to staff instantly, and after-hours messages get an honest away note. Reminder broadcasts only ever reach patients with recorded consent — and voice notes are transcribed so the front desk reads them at a glance.
- Instant human handoff
One tap escalates to staff in Live Chat — misconfigured menus auto-escalate too, so patients are never stranded.
- Provable consent
Every opt-in is recorded with source, proof and timestamp; broadcasts exclude anyone unconsented.
- Working hours & away notes
Clinic hours respected to the minute — including overnight shifts — with automatic away replies.
- Voice-note transcription
Audio messages are transcribed automatically, so staff never replay a voice note to find the ask.
Every lead qualified, attributed and moving through your pipeline
An agency qualifies property leads in chat — intent, budget, locality, each answer validated — then works them through a visual pipeline where every stage change tags the lead, starts the right drip and updates the CRM. Tracked wa.me links tell you exactly which listing portal every lead came from.
- Validated qualification
Budget must be a number, locality a real city — wrong answers get a polite retry, not a junk lead.
- Pipeline automations
Dragging a lead to a stage fires its tag, drip sequence and CRM stage push — automatically.
- Source attribution
Tracked wa.me links per portal or campaign tell you exactly where every lead came from.
- Slack + webhooks
New leads and messages stream to your own systems and Slack, signed and per-workspace.
Orders in chat, blasts that fill tables — and a number that stays healthy
A kitchen greets regulars by name, walks delivery vs. pickup through buttons, and fires weekend-special blasts to tagged regulars — each message personalized with the customer's name and their own tracked menu link. Built-in rails (daily caps, quality auto-pause, failure cut-offs) keep the WhatsApp number safe while you scale.
- Chat ordering flows
Taps, typed answers or "1"/"2" picks all work; real questions go to the AI without losing the order.
- Personalized blasts
Weekend specials to tagged regulars — every message carries the customer's own name and tracked link.
- Delivery receipts
Sent → delivered → read tracked per recipient, with per-person link clicks on the dashboard.
- Number-health rails
Rolling daily caps, automatic pause on quality drops, and failure cut-offs — on by default.
Trips qualified in chat, answers grounded in your own visa guides
A travel agency qualifies trips message by message — destination, travellers, month — and every reply reflects what's already known: "I'll craft a Bali itinerary for 4 travellers this December." Visa questions get AI answers strictly grounded in the agency's own documents; invented prices or links never reach the traveller, and "talk to an expert" escalates instantly.
- Multi-step qualification
Destination, travellers and month captured step by step — a "2" is two travellers, never a menu mix-up.
- Grounded AI answers
Visa fees, durations and links come only from your uploaded guides — invented facts are stripped before sending.
- Itinerary drips
Keyword-triggered day-by-day itineraries that respect WhatsApp's messaging window automatically.
- Expert handoff + Slack
"Talk to an expert" escalates before any bot reply — and pings your team's Slack instantly.
Questions about the industry playbooks
Which industries does Talko AI have a playbook for?
- Six, each documented on this page and in its own detailed guide: D2C and e-commerce, EdTech and education, healthcare and clinics, real estate, restaurants, and travel. They aren't separate products — every playbook is the same platform's building blocks (AI replies, chatbot flows, broadcasts, drip sequences, in-chat payments) arranged for how that sector actually sells and supports.
What if my industry isn't listed?
- The building blocks don't care what you sell. If your business answers repetitive enquiries, qualifies leads, books appointments or takes orders in chat, the nearest playbook above is a working starting point — most businesses adapt one rather than starting from nothing. Tell us what you do and we'll point you at the closest fit.
How much of a playbook can I run without a developer?
- All of it. Flows are drag-and-build, broadcasts use templates you submit from the portal, and the AI is grounded by uploading your own material. The only technical step in any playbook is pasting an AI provider key, and the website widget's single line of HTML.
Are these playbooks compliant on WhatsApp?
- They're built to be. Every one uses Meta's official APIs, sends promotional messages only to contacts who opted in, and uses templates in the category Meta approved them under. The recovery and re-engagement steps fire once rather than repeatedly, because repeated unsolicited sends are what get a number rate-limited or blocked.
Can one account run more than one industry playbook?
- Yes. A business that both sells products and books appointments can run the e-commerce and service flows side by side in the same workspace, on the same number. Agencies go a step further and run a separate isolated workspace per client, each with its own channels, knowledge base and AI key.
How is a playbook different from the features list?
- The features page tells you what the platform can do. A playbook tells you which of those to switch on, in what order, for a specific kind of business — including the parts most people skip, like grounding the AI on your own policies before letting it answer refund questions.
Not sure which playbook fits? Tell us what you sell and we'll point you at the closest one — or start from the setup guides and switch on one piece at a time.
Sources
- WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy — the opt-in and content rules every broadcast must follow
- Meta — WhatsApp Cloud API documentation — message types, templates and the 24-hour customer service window
- Meta — Instagram Platform documentation — the DM and comment permissions behind Instagram automation
- Google Business Profile Help — review-reply rules for Google listings
Ready to transform your customer conversations?
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