What a custom chatbot is, and what it is not
Meta Business Agent became available worldwide on WhatsApp Business and Instagram DMs on 3 June 2026. It answers general questions at no cost, and for some businesses that is enough. What it does not have is your price list, your stock, your booking calendar, or the fact that one of your doctors does not work Fridays. A custom chatbot is the part that knows those things.
That is what we build. It answers on Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp in Iraqi Arabic, Kurdish Sorani and English. It records who asked for what. It hands the conversation to a person the moment the customer is ready to book or buy. Builds start at 299,000 IQD (USD 199) with a monthly fee of 49,000 IQD (USD 33), and the full rate card runs from 299,000 IQD (USD 199) to 799,000 IQD (USD 533).
Where does the chatbot get its answers?
From your documents, not from the open internet. Before a single reply goes out, we build a knowledge base from what you already have:
- the price list, per item or per service, including the prices you only send in DMs
- stock or availability, per branch if you have more than one
- opening hours, holidays, and the days a specific doctor, mechanic or stylist is not in
- delivery zones and delivery fees
- payment methods, deposit rules, warranty and returns
- the twenty questions your staff are tired of typing
If a customer asks something outside the knowledge base, the bot says it does not know and passes the message to you. It does not guess. That rule is what lets the system keep answering at 2am without someone watching it.
Price changes are covered by the monthly fee. You send the new list, we load it, normally the same day.
How does it know what the customer wants?
Intent classification. Every incoming message is sorted into one of a small, fixed set of intents agreed with you before the build: price request, booking, delivery, complaint, follow up on an existing order, spam, and so on. Each intent has its own reply path and its own handover rule.
We keep the list short. A clinic normally needs six to nine intents, a car dealership about twelve. That is our own build practice, not a measured figure. Long lists make one intent harder to tell from the next, and messages start landing in the wrong box.
Does it remember the conversation?
Yes. Inside a conversation it tracks what has already been said, so a customer who asked about a 2019 model on Sunday and writes “بعدها موجودة؟” on Wednesday does not have to explain again. Across conversations it keeps a short customer profile: what they asked about, what they were quoted, whether they booked.
Retention length is set with you. Thirty days is the common choice. Anything longer, and for clinics anything at all, is agreed in writing first, because patient messages are not ordinary messages.
How are leads scored and handed over?
Every conversation is scored from signals in the message itself.
| Signal in the conversation | Weight | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Asks the price of a named item or service | Strong | Logged as a live lead |
| Gives a phone number or asks to be called | Strong | Handover to you immediately |
| Asks for a booking time or a branch location | Medium | Offers slots, then hands over |
| General question only | Low | Answered, kept on the list |
| Complaint or angry message | Any | Straight to a human, no bot reply |
Handover is not a dead end. The bot posts the full conversation and its score into wherever your team already works: a WhatsApp group, a shared inbox, a Google Sheet, or your CRM. If you want it writing into the systems you already run, that is connecting the chatbot to your booking and stock systems, and it is scoped before the build rather than after.
The AI disclosure cannot be removed
Every conversation opens by telling the customer they are speaking with an AI assistant, and that a person is available. Clients ask us to take it out. The answer is no, on every tier, every time. It is a platform requirement and it is the honest thing to do. We have not measured what the disclosure costs in replies, so we do not claim it costs nothing. What the system does is state the fact and keep the route to a human open in that same first message.
Clinics and pharmacies get a second rule. Anything clinical, dosage, diagnosis, whether a treatment suits a particular patient, is never answered by the bot. It collects the question, confirms receipt, and routes it to a qualified person. Present that to your patients as a safety feature, because that is exactly what it is.
What can a built chatbot do that Meta Business Agent cannot?
| Customer message | Meta Business Agent | Your built chatbot |
|---|---|---|
| Is this model in stock in Ainkawa today? | No access to your stock | Answers from your stock file |
| How much is a cleaning with the Tuesday doctor? | No access to your prices | Quotes your own published price |
| Book me Thursday at 5 | Cannot write to your calendar | Offers your real open slots |
| A voice note in Kurdish Sorani | Not tested by us | Transcribed, answered, logged |
| Something is wrong with my order | Generic reply | Escalates to a named person in Erbil |
We have not found any Iraqi provider publishing either a price or a named client for this kind of work. That comes from our own searching in July 2026 and is unverified beyond that.
Which languages, exactly?
Iraqi dialect, written the way your customers actually write, including Arabizi such as “shgad” and “shlon”. Kurdish Sorani. English when the customer switches. Modern Standard Arabic replies read like a government letter, and customers in Erbil and Baghdad tell the difference quickly. That is our own reading of the market, not a measured figure.
What we need from you, and how long it takes
Your price list, a stock or service file, working hours, and admin access to the pages. Instagram DM and Messenger carry no Meta per-message fee, which is why that is where the chatbot is deployed first. WhatsApp requires business verification with company registration documents, so it comes second.
Build times are 3 to 5 days for Starter, 7 to 10 days for Growth, and 10 to 15 days for Pro. Growth is the tier we recommend by default. Published prices for all three tiers.