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Getting set up: your first conversation with Yapper

After you sign up, Yapper's setup assistant builds your assistant with you in a chat. You chat with Yapper from your personal WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger, or right in your browser; you do not need to connect your business accounts first. Connecting them is what puts your assistant live at the end.

How it works

  1. Confirm your email: There are two ways to sign up. Pick the one that matches how you want to sign in.

    • Continue with Google: Press the button — nothing to fill in first. You are taken to Google to sign in, and your account is created with the address you signed in with when you come back — no name to type, no bot check, and no email link. Your name comes from your Google profile; if Google does not share one, Yapper asks what to call you once you arrive. If that address already has an account, Yapper brings you back to the form and links you to the sign-in page.
    • Continue with email: Enter your full name and email, and complete the quick bot check. Yapper emails you a link to finish setting up your account. Open it (on any device) to set your password and reach your dashboard. If the email does not arrive, check your spam folder or sign up again to resend it.

    Sign up with a permanent email address you can receive mail at (temporary or disposable addresses are not accepted). If you see a "too many signups right now, try again shortly" message, wait a moment and submit again.

    If your email already has an account, Yapper tells you which way it signs in and links you to the sign-in page. An account created with Google signs in with Google — the password form will not work for it, and neither will a password reset. The setup page walks you through numbered steps. Finished steps fold into a one-line summary you can open again; steps that are not ready yet are dimmed and say what unlocks them.

  2. Tell us about your business: The setup page asks for your website (required), and under Add more your Instagram handle, your Facebook page, your Google Maps listing, useful links (booking page, forms, videos) and documents such as price lists or intake forms (PDF, images, text, spreadsheets or Word files, up to 3 MB each, at most 10). Your entries save as you go. The setup assistant reads your Instagram profile once your business Instagram is connected as a channel; until then it only knows the handle. From your Facebook page and Google Maps listing it may only see the business name, so tell it your hours, address or anything else there in the chat. Press Continue once your website is saved; the setup assistant starts only after that, even if your plan is already active. You can change everything until the setup assistant starts; from then on it is reading it, the step shows it as locked, and you send anything new in the chat.

  3. Activate your plan: Before you activate, this step may show a short "Here's what I understood about …" summary of your business, written from your website, so you can check Yapper read it right; it updates when you change what you shared (a few times at most), and some sites give it too little to go on, in which case the step shows only its usual text. Press Activate and start setup on the setup page. Setup starts once your plan is active; there is no free trial, and adding a card alone does not start it. Until setup is done, your assistant does not answer your customers; the setup page reminds you of this. Activating the plan locks what you shared, and the setup assistant starts reading it right away. Its work is charged in credits, starting with the included monthly allowance your first payment grants; if a long setup brings your balance below your auto-recharge threshold, Yapper recharges it as usual (see billing-and-credits). Once your plan is active, you are taken back to the setup page, where the step shows "Payment received" and the chat step shows how to reach your setup chat. If you message Yapper from the account you picked before your plan is active, you get the activation link there instead; write again within about 12 hours and you get one short reminder that the link is a few messages up; further messages in that time get no answer.

  4. Pick where to chat: On the setup page, choose where you want to chat with the setup assistant. You can do this before or after activating your plan.

    • WhatsApp: Pick your country and enter your personal WhatsApp number, then save (a number you type starting with + is used as it is). Once your plan is active, message Yapper's WhatsApp from that number: the setup page shows a QR code and a link on a computer, and an Open WhatsApp button on a phone. Yapper recognizes you by your number, so what you write is up to you.
    • Instagram: Enter your personal Instagram handle and save, then message Yapper's Instagram from that account.
    • Messenger: Save the choice, then open Messenger from the link on the setup page. Open the chat from that link: a chat you open some other way is not linked to your setup.
    • Browser: The setup chat opens right on the setup page once your plan is active. On a phone, Chat here in the browser instead switches to it. It is the same chat as the Help chat in your dashboard. Reloading the page, or opening it on another device while signed in, brings you back to the same chat.

    Before your plan is active, a saved pick shows "Saved. Your chat opens once you activate." with Change to pick again. Once it is active, the setup page shows "Waiting for your message from …" until your first message arrives, then that you are chatting with the setup assistant. If you entered the wrong number or handle, press Wrong number? (or Not you?) and pick again. A number or handle already used for another business's setup cannot be picked. If you run more than one business and set up each from the same number or handle, your first message gets a short "Which business is this setup for?" question; reply with its number. Yapper's support line is for businesses using Yapper: if you write to Yapper from an account you did not pick and that is not already your support chat, you get a short note (at most once a day) pointing you to the chat link on your setup page and to the WhatsApp number you entered, and no other answer.

  5. Chat with the setup assistant: As soon as the payment is confirmed, the setup assistant reads what you shared, so it is ready when you open the chat. It then writes to you, naming the business it is setting up, with a first guess about it: in your browser chat as soon as it opens, and on WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger right after your first message there (or right away, if you wrote there within about a day before paying). If it hasn't written within a minute, send a message in the chat. If you last wrote to Yapper more than about a day before paying, the setup page asks you to send a message, and the setup assistant answers when it arrives. It asks questions, shows you example replies, and builds your assistant with you in the same chat. Early on it asks what your assistant should be called. It writes in the language you write in (English, Spanish or Portuguese), and its automatic messages, such as reminders, follow that language too. That language also becomes your account language, which your assistant uses by default with customers, for example in the automatic "someone will get back to you" note. When it shows an example reply with options, answer with the option's number (1, 2 or 3) or tell it how you'd change the reply. On WhatsApp you can send photos and PDFs in the chat too; for spreadsheets or Word files, send a PDF or a photo instead. On Instagram and Messenger, attachments you send in the chat do not reach the setup assistant, so describe them or share a link. If the setup assistant is slow to answer, you may get a short "sorry for the wait" message; reply with anything and it continues.

  6. Taking a break: If you pay but do not open the setup chat, you get an email reminder after about two days and after about six days, each with a link to the setup page. If you stop replying, the setup assistant reminds you once after a few hours and once more the next day. If you set up in your browser, each reminder is also emailed to you with a link back to the setup page. After about three days it pauses. On every channel, two more reminders come by email only, after about two days and after about six days, each with a link back to the setup page; your setup stays open. Write whenever you are ready and it picks up where you left off, with everything you already told it and sent.

  7. Connect your channels: Once the setup assistant has drafted your assistant, the Connect your channels step unlocks with a row for WhatsApp Business, Instagram, Messenger and the website chat widget. Connect takes you to that channel's card under Admin → Senders; a connected channel shows Connected ✓. The website chat widget counts once it is installed on your own site: add your site's domain to its allowed domains under Admin → Senders (a Yapper address does not count) and keep the widget turned on. The setup assistant also tells you when it's time. When your draft is ready and a channel is connected, the Go live step unlocks: press Go live to switch your assistant on, or tell the setup assistant in the chat (the link below the button takes you there). If something is still missing, the step says what.

  8. Wrap-up and launch: The setup chat has a time and length limit (about a week of active setup; paused time does not count). As it nears the end, the setup assistant plays back what it has built and asks you to confirm. If the limit is reached before you confirm, you get a message that the setup is wrapping up, and your assistant goes live with what was built so far. Your assistant goes live once at least one of your business channels (the WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or website chat your customers message) is connected under Admin → Senders: if none is when the setup is ready, the setup assistant asks you to connect one and finishes as soon as you have. If the limit is reached with none connected, you get a message saying your assistant is ready and goes live as soon as you connect one. When you confirm, press Go live, or the setup wraps up, you get a closing message with your dashboard link, where you can adjust everything afterwards. If the setup wraps up on its own, the closing message lists what the setup assistant assumed without your confirmation, so you can check those first. If your assistant has more than one stage, every customer starts in the first one and moves to the next only when you or your team move them from the customer's page in your dashboard; the play-back and the closing message remind you of this. If you set up in your browser, the wrap-up notice and the closing message also reach you by email; if you set up on another channel and have not written there for about a day, they reach you by email instead. After setup, the same chat is your line to Yapper support, and it stays with Yapper even if you later delete your account. If nothing was built by the time the limit is reached, the closing message says your assistant is not answering customers yet; conversations go to your team until you finish the setup in your dashboard.

Using the Handbook

During the setup chat, the setup assistant fills in your Handbook from what you share: your website, your documents, connected sources (such as a WhatsApp product catalog), and your answers.

Going live

Until the setup chat ends, your assistant does not answer your customers: reply to them as usual, and their messages stay in your inbox. It does not go back to answer messages that arrived during setup.

When the setup chat ends with your assistant built, it starts answering new customer conversations using the instructions built during the chat. You can invite team members and configure who receives escalated messages under Admin → Access.