A bot flow is a guided conversation. The customer asks a question, the bot responds with a structured menu or form, captures their input, and either resolves the request or hands off to a human with the context already filled in. They work well for repetitive patterns — booking, lead qualification, cart recovery — and badly for open-ended conversation (that's what Captain AI is for).
Decide what your flow does
Before opening the builder, write the flow on paper:
- What triggers it? (a keyword, a button tap, a specific channel)
- What does the bot need to know by the end? (date, name, contact, choice)
- Where does it end? (booking confirmed, human takeover, message sent)
If you can't write this in three sentences, the flow is too complex — start smaller.
Open the builder
In your workspace: Automation → Bot flows → New flow. Pick a trigger — most teams start with "Keyword received" (e.g. "book", "support", "pricing").
Add the first step
The simplest first step is a message + buttons node. Greet the customer, ask the qualifying question, and give them 2–4 buttons to tap. Each button branches to a different next step.
Example for an appointment booking flow:
- Message: "Hi! Want to book a consultation?"
- Button 1: "Yes, this week"
- Button 2: "Yes, next week"
- Button 3: "Just have a question"
Buttons 1 and 2 lead into a date-picker node. Button 3 escalates to a human.
Capture data with variables
When the customer picks a date, save it to a variable (`{{appointment_date}}`). Same for their name, email, phone. The flow can use these variables in later steps and pass them to your backend at the end.
Test before you publish
The builder has a "Test in WhatsApp" button that sends the flow to your own number so you can walk through it as a customer would. Catch the wrong branch, the missing fallback, the broken date format — before a real customer does.
Hand off cleanly
End every flow with either a clean resolution ("Booked! See you Tuesday at 10am") or a clean human handoff ("Let me get a teammate — one second"). Never leave the customer in a "I didn't understand" loop. Captain AI can catch those automatically if you turn on the fallback node.