For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://docs.clickmax.io/en/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://docs.clickmax.io/en/llms-full.txt, and this page is available as Markdown at https://docs.clickmax.io/en/features/messaging/ai-agent-answers-whatsapp.md.
  • English

      • How do I put the AI agent to answer on WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram or Webchat?

      Open the agent in Settings → Accounts Hub → My agents, go to the Handling tab and click New assignment. Check the connections where it answers (one assignment can combine WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and Webchat) and pick the pipeline. The assignment starts off; the agent only talks straight to the contact once you turn on the On switch.

      Before you start:

      Steps

      1. Open the agent and click the Handling tab.
      2. Click New assignment.
      3. In Where contacts reach you, check the connections where the agent will answer. Each channel has its own card (WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and Webchat), and you can check connections from different channels in the same assignment. A connection already handled by another assignment shows up locked, with that assignment's name.
      4. In How it leads the conversation (what the agent needs to find out, its tone and what it must never say live in the agent's Persona and instructions, on its Configuration tab):
        • Opens opportunities in: pick the pipeline where the opportunities it opens go, or Don't open opportunities so the agent only talks and fills in the contact's record.
        • Business hours: pick a schedule, or Any time. Outside the schedule the agent neither replies nor follows up.
      5. In When it hands off to a person:
        • Who gets the conversation: pick a team, and someone on it gets the conversation through the team's own rotation. The agent also books meetings on the calendars of the people on this team (see below). With General Live Chat queue, anyone can pick it up.
        • After how many AI messages: past that in one conversation, it goes to a person. The default is 20.
      6. In What the AI can do in the CRM, turn on Create custom fields if you want the agent to create a new contact field when it learns something that doesn't fit any field you already have. It starts off.
      7. In Follow up with quiet contacts, leave the switch on for the agent to reach out again when the contact stops answering. Adjust Follow up after (minutes) (from 5 to 10080; default 60) and At most how many times (default 2). Turn the switch off so the agent never follows up.
      8. (Official WhatsApp) With an official number checked, Official WhatsApp outside the 24h window shows up: pick an approved message template. It is what goes out when the follow-up falls after WhatsApp's 24 hours (see below).
      9. Check the Assignment name. It comes suggested with the agent's name and the checked channels (e.g. "Lia · WhatsApp + Instagram") and is the name shown in the list and in the AI SDR step of automations. Change it if you want.
      10. Click Create assignment. The assignment starts off: use the On switch on the row for the agent to start working.

      Edit an assignment

      On the assignment card, open the More actions menu (⋯), click Edit, change what you need and click Save. The card itself shows what is set up: the channels, the connections, the pipeline, the business hours, who gets the conversation and the follow-up. It takes effect right away, and automations that use this assignment in the AI SDR step keep working — you don't need to remove it and create it again to add a channel, change a connection or the pipeline.

      To remove a setting, pick the option without it when saving: Don't open opportunities, Any time or General Live Chat queue; to stop following up, turn off Follow up with quiet contacts.

      A connection can only have one agent answering. To switch agents, uncheck the connection in the first one's assignment (or remove the assignment) before checking it in the second one's.

      Turn the assignment on or off

      Each assignment has a single switch:

      SwitchWhat it does
      OnThe agent writes straight to the contact in the conversations of the checked connections, with nobody checking first.
      OffThe agent replies to no one. Use it to pause without losing the setup.

      When you turn it on, Clickmax asks for confirmation — it is the moment an AI starts talking to your customer without review. Follow the first conversations closely.

      Even replying on its own, the agent:

      • respects the business hours, when set;
      • stops talking as soon as a team member takes over the conversation — including the reply it was writing at that moment;
      • hands the conversation to a person when the contact asks, when the question is outside what it knows or when the conversation runs too long. After that, it stays quiet until someone on the team picks it up; when that attendance ends, it answers the next messages again;
      • hands the conversation to a person if it can't reply (for example, the AI provider is down or the key was refused). Brief failures it retries on its own first;
      • hands the conversation to a person if the channel refuses one of its messages (for example, the WhatsApp number is disconnected or blocked), with a message in the conversation saying the AI SDR's message was not delivered;
      • understands voice messages when Live Chat automatic transcription is on: it waits for the transcription (up to about a minute and a half) and replies to what the contact said. For photos, videos and documents, it reads the caption;
      • never promises a price, deadline or discount that is not in its knowledge base;
      • says it is an automated service if asked.

      On WebChat, with a Bot flow

      If the WebChat channel has a Bot flow, the agent waits for the flow to finish. While the visitor clicks options and answers the Question, Capture and AI steps, the flow is in charge and the agent doesn't talk over it. It reads what the flow asked and what the visitor answered, and starts talking on the first message the visitor writes after the flow ends.

      When the flow reaches an Attendant step set to Unassigned (queue), the conversation goes to the Live Chat queue and the agent stays quiet until a team member picks it up. With Assign to filled in, the conversation goes straight to that person, and the agent doesn't talk either.

      What the agent does while talking

      • Knows what the CRM already has on the contact. With every reply, the agent receives the contact's email, the origin (the source, medium, campaign and ad of the most recent capture with UTM; without UTM, the contact's origin) and the custom contact fields already filled in — up to 25, most recently updated first. Empty fields are not sent. It is instructed not to ask again for what is already on the record and to confirm the existing email before sending a meeting invite, instead of asking for another one.
      • Saves the contact's email in the Email field when the contact gives or corrects it. It only accepts a complete address (like [email protected]): something like "rafa at gmail" is refused and the agent asks again. The contact's other basic data (name, phone and so on) it only saves when talking through the AI SDR step of an automation.
      • Fills in and updates the contact's record with what it finds out, in each field's format: a number in a number field, a date in a date field, yes/no and one of the options in a choice field. If the contact's answer doesn't turn into an exact value (for example, "around 5k" in a number field), it doesn't save a guess. Values saved by it are marked as filled by AI.
      • Creates new fields, only with Create custom fields turned on in the assignment. It creates text, number, date, yes/no or choice fields, always in the Criados pela IA group of the contact record, so you can review them in one place. It doesn't create a field whose name is similar to an existing one (or to the contact's basic data, like email and phone) and creates at most 5 per day in the workspace. With the switch off, it only saves to fields that already exist.
      • Opens the opportunity in the chosen pipeline when the contact shows interest. If that contact already has an open opportunity in the same pipeline, it updates it instead of duplicating.
      • Creates tasks when it agrees with the contact on a next step a person needs to take, like calling at a set time or sending a proposal. The task goes on the contact's open opportunity and is assigned to its owner. If the contact has no opportunity yet, the agent opens one in the assignment's pipeline; with Don't open opportunities, it only creates tasks for contacts that already have one.
      • Applies tags that already exist in the account.
      • Checks the calendar and books meetings on the calendars of the people on the team picked in Who gets the conversation, only at times free within their working hours. The contact picks the time; when more than one person is free, the meeting goes to whoever has fewer meetings in the next few days, and the agent tells the contact who it will be with. The meeting is linked to the contact's open opportunity in the assignment's pipeline (if there is none, the agent opens one; with Don't open opportunities, it links to the open opportunity the contact already has). The confirmation invite goes to the contact's email. To have the opportunity move to the meeting stage on its own and pass to whoever runs the meeting, see How do I set up the AI SDR from scratch?.
      • Adds notes to the opportunity with what matters and doesn't fit a field, like the context of the need, objections, who decides and what was agreed. The note shows on the card and in the contact's history, with the Automation action tag in place of the author. If the contact has no opportunity yet, the agent opens one in the assignment's pipeline; with Don't open opportunities, it only adds notes for contacts that already have one.
      • Hands over to a team member when needed, always with a summary: what the contact wants, what was learned, what was agreed and the next step. The summary becomes a note on the contact's opportunity and also shows in the Live Chat message announcing the handover.

      When a conversation ends and another starts

      The agent ends the conversation when the matter is resolved or the contact is not a fit. The contact can still write: their next message starts a new conversation, answered by the agent like any other. A whole day without messages also counts as a new conversation.

      The agent's message limit applies to each conversation, not to the whole history with the contact.

      Following up with whoever stopped answering

      If you set Follow up after, the agent reaches out again to whoever went quiet. The second follow-up waits twice as long as the first, so it doesn't become pushy. With Business hours, a follow-up that would fall outside them goes out at the next opening. The follow-up limit applies to each silence: if the contact answers and goes quiet again, follow-ups start over.

      Follow-ups only happen with the assignment On. A follow-up also does not go out if someone on the team is in the conversation, if the AI is paused in it, if the agent handed the conversation to a person and nobody picked it up yet, or if the contact asked not to receive messages on that channel. When someone on the team takes over the conversation, scheduled follow-ups are canceled.

      On official WhatsApp there is a rule from WhatsApp itself that changes what can be sent: after 24 hours without the contact replying, only an approved message template can be sent — not a message written on the spot. Since the follow-up almost always falls in that range, pick an approved template in Official WhatsApp outside the 24h window on the assignment. Without one, the follow-up after 24 hours simply doesn't happen.

      On Instagram the window is also 24 hours (7 days with the Human Agent tag on the account), and there is no approved template: once the window passes, the follow-up doesn't go out. Telegram and Webchat have no window.

      Where to follow along

      • Logs (agent tab): every conversation, with the result of each.
      • Live Chat: the agent's messages show up in the conversation marked as automated service, and any team member can take over at any time.
      • Contacts and opportunities: what the agent recorded shows up in the regular CRM screens, with it as owner until someone takes over.

      If it didn't work

      • "Another agent already works on one of these connections. Release it from the other assignment first.": another assignment (maybe from another agent) already uses that connection — in the form it shows up locked with that assignment's name. Uncheck the connection in the other assignment first.
      • "Publish and activate the agent before turning the assignment on": the agent is still a draft or paused. Publish it on its own screen first.
      • The agent didn't answer anything: check that the assignment is On, that the agent is Active, that the conversation wasn't taken over by a team member, that it isn't waiting for a person after a handover and that the business hours cover the time of the message. On WebChat, it only replies after the Bot flow ends.
      • The follow-up didn't go out: if more than 24 hours passed since the contact's last message on official WhatsApp, you need to pick an approved template in Official WhatsApp outside the 24h window (More actions menu → Edit on the assignment). On Instagram, there is no way to follow up outside the window. The follow-up also doesn't go out with the assignment off, if someone on the team is in the conversation or if the contact asked not to receive messages.
      • It didn't fill in a field I expected: the field must exist in the contact record with the same name you used in the agent's Persona and instructions. Fields that don't exist are ignored, unless Create custom fields is on. In number, date, yes/no or choice fields, the value is only saved when the contact's answer turns into an exact value of that type. Formula, file and image fields are not filled in by the agent.
      • The agent doesn't offer meeting times: pick a team in Who gets the conversation and check that its people have available hours set on their calendar. AI agents and people who left the workspace don't get meetings.
      • The meeting invite didn't reach the contact: check the Email on the contact's record. The invite goes to that address: if the record had no email or a wrong one, the invite doesn't arrive. The agent confirms the email before booking, but it's worth checking when the contact says they didn't get it.
      • The agent didn't create the task: the contact had no open opportunity and the assignment is set to Don't open opportunities. Pick a pipeline in Opens opportunities in.