The Smart WhatsApp chatbot guides customers through a structured conversation flow designed to replicate the ordering process in a natural chat format. The steps are:

• Greeting: The chatbot welcomes the customer and shows available menu categories.
• Product Selection: Customers browse menu items, choose customizations, and confirm quantity.
• Upselling: The chatbot suggests complementary products or promotions.
• Delivery or Pickup: The chatbot asks for the customer’s location (for delivery) or provides branch options (for pickup).
• Payment: The chatbot generates a secure payment link or confirms cash-on-delivery options.
• Order Tracking: Customers receive notifications such as “Order confirmed,” “In preparation,” and “Out for delivery.”

This conversational structure minimizes effort from the customer and makes the ordering experience faster and more intuitive than traditional methods.

The ordering process begins when the customer initiates a conversation with the restaurant’s official WhatsApp number. Upon receiving the first message, the Smart WhatsApp chatbot automatically recognizes the intent and triggers the onboarding flow. It greets the user with a personalized welcome message, which can include the restaurant name, current offers, and a short introduction to the available services (e.g., “Order Delivery,” “Self Pickup,” or “Track Order”).

The chatbot leverages WhatsApp’s interactive messaging framework to ensures an intuitive, guided experience for all customer segments, including those less familiar with online ordering.

Behind the scenes, the chatbot communicates with the restaurant’s POS system or menu API to fetch the latest menu categories, featured products, and promotions dynamically. This ensures that every user always receives accurate data synchronized with current inventory, pricing, and seasonal offerings.

Each incoming message from the user is processed through the chat intent parser, which validates context and maintains the state of the conversation. This enables the chatbot to resume incomplete orders, recognize returning users, and continue seamlessly from where the last interaction stopped. For example, if a customer previously added items but didn’t finalize payment, the chatbot can automatically ask, “Would you like delivery or pickup ?” to proceed with the checkout.

The initial stage concludes once the customer selects a preferred menu category or begins browsing items. This structured initiation flow reduces friction, increases engagement, and ensures consistent data exchange between the chatbot interface, WhatsApp API, and the back-end ordering engine.

Once the digital menu is displayed within the WhatsApp chat, customers can select items using predefined inputs such as numeric replies or button interactions. Each menu item dynamically loads its details, including product name, description, base price, available sizes, add-ons, and modifier options. These details are fetched directly from the integrated POS or menu management system via secured API calls, guaranteeing synchronization between in-store and digital menus.

After a selection is made, the chatbot responds in real time with contextual prompts to refine the order. For instance, it may ask: “Would you like to add a drink?”, “Add extra cheese for 7 ?”, or “Select drink size: Small, Medium, or Large.” This step leverages the upselling logic, an internal recommendation model configured by the restaurant administrator which intelligently promotes complementary or high-margin items based on category rules and customer preferences.

After an order is completed, the chatbot then displays the order summary showing all chosen items, quantities, and subtotal.