How to answer WhatsApp calls automatically, for businesses

WhatsApp calls are built for people. When a customer calls your WhatsApp Business number, the phone and any linked devices ring until someone picks up or the caller gives up. There is no setting that answers for you, no greeting played to the caller, and no way to have a second call answered while the first one is in progress.

Some phones have accessibility options that pick up incoming calls on their own, but that only opens a microphone on one device: nobody speaks to the caller, and the number still takes one call at a time. Answering automatically, in a way that helps the customer, needs software on the other end of the line.

Picking up is the easy part. What customers want is an answer: where their order is, whether Thursday at 10:30 is free, what time you close on Sunday. An automatic answer is only useful if it can deal with the request or pass it to someone who can.

• Every call picked up straight away, day and night, including several at once
• A natural conversation in the caller’s language, not a recorded menu
• Answers taken only from your own information, prices and policies
• Real tasks done during the call: orders confirmed, appointments booked, callbacks created
• A clear handoff to a person when the caller asks or is upset
• A written summary and outcome for every call, so nothing gets lost

Meta’s WhatsApp Business Calling API lets a business receive WhatsApp calls in software instead of on a phone. Meta’s documentation requires the number to be in use with Cloud API, not the WhatsApp Business app, and calling to be enabled on the number. Customers still call from WhatsApp exactly as before, and Meta states that user-initiated calls are free.

Once the number runs on the platform, each call can go through a call flow. That flow decides who answers: an AI agent, a team, a keypad menu or a queue. This is the step that makes automatic answering possible.

Dialaunch is an AI agent for WhatsApp calls, with your team in control. Connect your WhatsApp Business number and the AI agent answers every call, in any language your customers speak, using only what you taught it: your website, your catalogue and your own answers. It says it is an AI at the start of the call, then gets on with it.

It confirms orders, books appointments in Google Calendar, checks deliveries and creates callbacks, and it can call your own systems through an API you connect. When a caller asks for a person or is upset, it transfers the call to your team. Every call ends up in the history with a summary, key moments and an outcome.

You decide where the AI sits. It can answer every call, only outside opening hours, or only when the team is busy, and keypad menus, queues with hold music and voicemail stay available in the same flow.

Automatic doesn’t mean hands off. Your team can listen to any call live, whisper to a colleague without the caller hearing, take over in one click and hand the call back to the AI, which carries on with the full context. When a call reaches a person, it rings on the phone your team already uses: their own WhatsApp, a SIP desk phone or softphone, or the browser.

Setup takes about 15 minutes on your side, and Meta’s approval of the number can take 1 to 3 days. Before you start, check these points.

• Pick the number: once connected, it stops working in the WhatsApp Business app and the app’s chat history doesn’t move over
• Gather what the AI should know: website, catalogue, prices, opening hours, policies
• Decide which tasks it may do on its own and which go to a person
• Choose who receives handoffs, and on which device they answer
• Decide whether calls are recorded, with a consent message and a retention period
• Make a few test calls before going live