Your shop's WhatsApp answers customers and takes orders — while you work
Customers already order on WhatsApp: a text, a voice note from the car, a photo of a shopping list. Today someone at the counter answers between two customers, writes the order on a paper and types it into the till again. The Front Desk answers for you, from your own products, prices, stock and hours in PosMasr Cloud. It reads the order back with the total, the customer says “yes”, and the order lands on the till and in the kitchen like any online order. When it is not sure, it hands the chat to a person.
Coming with the next update An add-on on Business and Chain: 750 EGP a month.
A front desk on WhatsApp that knows your shop
The Front Desk is an assistant on your shop's own WhatsApp Business number. It answers in Egyptian Arabic, English or Franco (“3ayez 2 burger”), the way the customer wrote. It does not make things up: every price, every “yes we have it”, every opening hour and every free slot comes from your shop in PosMasr Cloud at that moment.
It answers from your shop
It searches your catalogue, the live price, what is sold out, the options and their prices, your hours, your delivery areas with their fee and minimum — before it says a word.
The customer says yes
It reads the order back with the total. Only the customer's “yes” (or the Confirm button) places it — the AI can never confirm an order or a payment on its own.
A person when it matters
A complaint, a question it has no answer for, or “I want to talk to someone”: the chat goes to your staff with a badge on every screen, and the assistant stops until you hand it back.
From the customer's message to the kitchen ticket
1 · The customer writes
A text, a voice note, a photo of a list, or a location. Quick messages (“hi”, “I want”, “2 burgers”) are read together as one.
2 · It checks your shop
The products, the live prices and options, what is sold out, your hours and delivery areas — from your shop's own data, nothing typed by hand.
3 · It quotes the order
Priced exactly as your online shop prices it: offers, service and VAT as the till rings them, the area's delivery fee and minimum. The quote holds for 30 minutes.
4 · The customer confirms
On “yes” the price and stock are checked again. If anything changed, the customer gets the new total and is asked again.
5 · The till and the kitchen
The order goes through your online shop's own checkout, cash on delivery: it waits on the tills, the kitchen gets its ticket, you get the usual notice.
6 · Status updates
Accepted, out for delivery, delivered: the customer is told on WhatsApp as the order moves.
“Send me two kilos of…” — from the car
Half of Egypt orders by voice note. The Front Desk turns the voice note into text (up to 3 minutes), with your product names as a hint so it hears them right, and answers it like a written message.
- Not sure what it heard? It reads back what it understood before it proposes anything.
- Could not make it out at all? It answers “I heard «…». Did you mean …?” with your closest product names, or asks the customer to type it — it never acts on a guess.
- The audio itself is not kept — only the text, which staff can read in the inbox.
A photo of the list becomes an order
A customer photographs a handwritten shopping list, a product they want again, or a prescription. The Front Desk reads it, finds the lines in your catalogue and proposes the order — the customer still confirms.
- A product photo: it looks for the product in your catalogue.
- A list or a prescription: it pulls out the lines and proposes them as an order.
- Anything else: it says what it sees and asks.
- A shared location becomes the delivery address.
- Pictures are kept in your shop's picture space and shown to staff in the inbox; messages and pictures go after 90 days.
“Is there a slot tomorrow evening?”
For salons, clinics and restaurant tables using Bookings: it looks up the free times of the day the customer asks for, holds the slot for ten minutes while the customer decides, and books it on “yes” — confirmed or waiting for your approval, as your booking settings say.
Your staff see everything, and take over in one tap
The Front desk inbox shows every conversation, the ones waiting for a person first: the messages, the pictures, the voice notes as text, and whether each reply was delivered.
- Take over: the assistant stops and a person answers in the same chat. Return to the assistant when you are done.
- It hands off by itself on a complaint, a question it has no answer for, a customer who asks for a person, or a busy day's limit — and tells the customer once that someone will answer here.
- Every screen of the shop shows a badge, and the owner gets an alert if a hand-off waits more than 15 minutes.
- Assign a chat to a member of staff; Send again when a reply was not confirmed.
Start careful, then let it answer
Settings → Front desk → Mode. You decide how much it does on its own.
| Mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Off | Nothing answers; the messages still reach the inbox for your staff. |
| Drafts | The assistant writes the reply and a person presses Send. A good way to watch it for a week. |
| Pilot | It answers by itself only the numbers you list (yours, your family's, a few regulars); drafts for everyone else. |
| Automatic | It answers everyone, and hands off to your staff when it should. |
Its name and tone
Give the assistant a name, a tone (friendly, formal or brief) and a short welcome line.
Your own answers
Up to 60 questions and answers of your own — parking, the fitting room, the halal question — and your notes on what customers ask, which it uses besides your shop's data (below).
Stop words
A customer who writes “stop” gets one confirmation and nothing more until they write “start”. You can add your own words.
The grocery's WhatsApp too
The neighbourhood grocery gets the same help: the monthly list as a photo, “do you have the big oil?”, “what time do you close?”. Every answer is from your shelf and your hours, and every order is a normal online order the cashier prepares and sends.
- “Where are you?” and “are you open?” are answered from your online shop's settings, without the AI.
- A greeting or a thank-you gets a short fixed line with your shop's name.
- A customer's own orders (“where is my order?”) — only theirs, never anybody else's.
Helpful, and never on its own where it matters
It cannot confirm or charge
Orders and bookings happen only on the customer's “yes”. It never says a payment was made: the online shop's orders are cash on delivery.
Messages are data, not orders to it
Whatever a customer writes — even “ignore your rules” — is treated as a customer's message. Attempts like that get a fixed polite line, no AI at all.
Card numbers are hidden
Card numbers, IBANs and anything after “password” or “PIN” are masked before a message is kept or sent anywhere.
WhatsApp's own rules
Free replies only inside WhatsApp's 24-hour window after the customer's last message. Outside it, only an order-status message you have approved in Meta — never marketing.
Daily limits
Up to 200 AI replies a day on Business and 600 on Chain (30 in the trial), and 20 an hour per customer. Past them, messages are still taken in for your staff — nothing is lost.
What is kept
Messages and pictures 90 days, or the days you choose (30–365); the voice notes as text only. The owner can erase a customer from the inbox, and the app's privacy page says who processes what.
It learns your shop, remembers your customers, and follows things through
Coming in the same update — what we learnt from running a WhatsApp assistant for real. Settings → Front desk gains What customers ask, Goals and the limits and keeping of messages; the inbox gains Cases.
Coming with the next update
Your shop's knowledge, and its gaps
It answers from your own facts: your answers, your notes on returns, parking or allergens, your products' descriptions and options, your hours, pickup and delivery, your stamp card's rule. A question it could not answer is listed for you to answer once — next time it knows. Try a question shows what it would read. Prices always come from the live catalogue, never from the notes.
It remembers your customers
A short summary per customer — what they like, past problems, what is still open — kept across conversations, so a regular is not asked the same thing twice. Card numbers, passwords and codes are never kept. You choose how long messages are kept (30–365 days); Forget or erase a customer any time, and a customer's “delete my data” becomes a case for you.
Cases, followed to the end
An open matter — a complaint, a wrong item, “call me back” — becomes a case with a short brief: what happened, what was tried, what to do next. Your team takes it, gets reminders and closes it. An appointment is saved as agreed only on the customer's own words.
Short, honest replies
It answers first, in one to three sentences, and asks one question at a time. Asked, it says it is your shop's AI. A risky reply gets a second check and one repair; one that still breaks the rules is never sent — a person takes the chat.
One suggestion, and “not now” respected
You choose what it may suggest — order online, book, join the stamp card, leave a review, a call back — and it adds your own link. At most one suggestion in a reply, and a customer who says “not now” is left alone.
A daily budget, nothing lost
Each shop has a day's budget of AI replies. Past it, messages are still taken in for your staff to answer — intake only, nothing is lost.
Read more: The Front Desk learns your shop · In the manual
Business or Chain, the add-on, and your own WhatsApp number
The plan and the add-on
The Front Desk is an add-on on Business and Chain, and every shop can try it during the 14-day trial. It costs 750 EGP a month, 600 EGP with the code AHLAN20 in the first year.
Your WhatsApp Business number
It answers on your shop's own number, connected through Meta's official WhatsApp Business platform. We walk you through it on a call or on WhatsApp — no visit needed.
Orders and bookings on
To take orders, your online shop is on with pickup or a delivery area; to take bookings, Bookings is on. Without them it still answers questions and hands off.
Not in the program on your PC: the Front Desk lives in PosMasr Cloud.
Quick answers about the Front Desk
When can I use it?
It comes with the next update of PosMasr Cloud. Send us a WhatsApp and we will tell you the day it is out, with the add-on's price.
How much does it cost?
It is an add-on on Business and Chain at 750 EGP a month (600 EGP with the code AHLAN20, the first year). It is included in the free trial so you can see it on your own shop first.
Can it place an order by mistake?
It proposes; the customer confirms. An order is placed only on the customer's “yes” to a quote it has just re-checked, and a second “yes” answers the same order — never a second one.
Will it make up a price or say “we have it” when we don't?
Prices, stock, hours and free slots come from your shop through its tools at that moment; it is told never to answer them from memory. If it cannot find something, it asks or hands the chat to your staff.
Does it work on my personal WhatsApp?
It needs a WhatsApp Business number on Meta's official platform, owned by your shop. We explain what that means for the number you use today on a call, before you decide.
Can it send offers to all my customers?
No. It answers customers who wrote to you, and sends order-status updates. It sends no marketing messages.
Is it in the program on my PC?
No. It needs PosMasr Cloud on Business or Chain. See online or on your PC.
Ask us about the Front Desk Start the free trial — 14 days
In the manual: The Front Desk, step by step
