In brief
Liquid built for a B2B food distributor a system that handles 80–100 orders a day, 70–80% of them received on WhatsApp. Artificial intelligence reads the message, identifies customer and products using order history, price list and stock, and enters the order in the Zucchetti management system. Ambiguous orders are flagged to an operator. Similar projects start at €1,000.
The problem
Messages at all hours, each written differently, products called by nicknames, a “the usual” that only one person in the office knows how to interpret. An operator reads every message, identifies the customer, looks up item codes and retypes quantities. At 80–100 orders a day, retyping becomes the job.
Why not change channel
An online catalogue or order portal only works if customers use it. Many B2B customers want to keep writing the message they always have, and insisting means losing orders. The problem isn't WhatsApp: it's what happens afterwards.
How it works
- Messages arrive on the company number through the official WhatsApp Business API
- The system recognises the customer and reads the order text
- Order history, price list and stock resolve nicknames and ambiguity
- The order is written into the management system with codes, quantities and units of measure
- Products not found, insufficient stock or customers missing from the records stay highlighted for the operator
The management system
In the distributor's case the management system is Zucchetti. Not all installations are the same: before starting we check how yours integrates. The same approach applies to other systems that expose APIs or accept imports.
When it doesn't make sense
- A few orders a day: retyping them costs less than the system
- Customers willing to use a catalogue or a portal
- A closed management system, with no APIs or imports