Built first
Hotels and homestays
Built to answer guests' questions about rates, check-in times, directions, house rules and the Inner Line Permit, and to note booking enquiries for you to confirm.
In development
A front desk on WhatsApp that never goes home.
A WhatsApp assistant for hotels, homestays and clinics, designed to answer the routine questions from your own fact sheet and pass the rest to you.
Reception is in development, so there is nothing to try yet: the chats on this page are illustrations with fictional businesses. Run a hotel or homestay? See the page for hotels and homestays.
Mistwood Homestay
Automated assistant
- Guest:
Hi, is a double room free from 6 to 8 December? How much is it? 9:40 pm
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You are chatting with an automated assistant for Mistwood Homestay. Your messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies. A person can take over any time — just ask. Yeh Mistwood Homestay ka automatic assistant hai. Aapke message business ke paas save hote hain aur jawab likhne ke liye AI service padhti hai. Kisi bhi waqt insaan se baat karne ke liye bas kahiye.
- Reception:
A double room is ₹2,500 a night in December, with breakfast. I can't see the bookings, so I've noted your dates for the homestay to confirm. 9:40 pm
- Guest:
Do we need a permit to visit? 9:41 pm
- Reception:
Yes. Indian visitors from outside Nagaland need an Inner Line Permit, and you can apply for it online before you travel. 9:41 pm
- Guest:
If we cancel, do we get the advance back? 9:42 pm
- Reception:
Thanks for your message — let me check with the team and get back to you shortly. 9:42 pm
Tap a question
Illustration with a fictional homestay. Reception is built to answer only from the homestay’s own fact sheet, and to note the dates a guest asks about for the owner to confirm. It is built never to confirm that a room is free, and it is designed to pass questions about refunds and cancellations to the owner. It is in development, so this shows how it is designed to reply, not a real chat.
Riverstone Dental
Automated assistant
- Patient:
Hi, are you open tomorrow? How much is a cleaning? 10:14 pm
-
You are chatting with an automated assistant for Riverstone Dental. Your messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies. A person can take over any time — just ask. Yeh Riverstone Dental ka automatic assistant hai. Aapke message business ke paas save hote hain aur jawab likhne ke liye AI service padhti hai. Kisi bhi waqt insaan se baat karne ke liye bas kahiye.
- Reception:
We're open Monday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm. Scaling and cleaning is ₹800. 10:14 pm
- Patient:
Can I come at 10:30 tomorrow? 10:15 pm
- Reception:
I've noted 10:30 am tomorrow for a cleaning. The clinic confirms appointments itself. 10:15 pm
- Patient:
My tooth has been hurting since yesterday. What medicine should I take? 10:16 pm
- Reception:
Thanks for your message. We are closed right now — someone will reply after we open at 10 am. 10:16 pm
Tap a question
Illustration with a fictional clinic. Reception is built to answer only from the clinic’s own fact sheet and to note appointment requests for the clinic to confirm. It never books anything itself, and it is designed to pass anything about symptoms to the clinic’s staff. It is in development, so this shows how it is designed to reply, not a real chat.
What it is built to do.
Every answer comes from a fact sheet you fill in yourself. Anything it should not answer goes to you.
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Built to answer the routine questions
Rates and fees, timings, check-in times, directions and house rules, using only a fact sheet you fill in yourself.
If a drafted reply contains an amount written as money that is not in your fact sheet, software throws the draft away. The customer gets a short holding message instead, and it is built to alert your staff on WhatsApp. For clinics, this answering is not switched on yet.
[[TODO: confirm this feature and its wording]]
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Built to note booking and appointment requests
The dates, number of guests and room a guest asks about, or the day and time a patient asks for, noted for you to confirm.
It cannot see your booking calendar or appointment book, and it never books anything itself. It is instructed never to confirm that a room is free. It does not alert your staff about each new request.
[[TODO: confirm this feature and its wording, and say where the owner sees these requests (the dashboard has no public address yet)]]
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Built to hand the chat to a person
For anything it should not answer, such as a refund, a complaint or a symptom, it is designed to send the customer a short holding message and to alert your staff on WhatsApp.
When one of your staff replies in a chat, Reception stops replying in that chat until they hand it back.
[[TODO: confirm this feature and its wording]]
Who it's for.
[[TODO: approve these lines]]
Next
Clinics
Built to answer questions about timings, fees and directions, and to note appointment requests for your staff to confirm. For a clinic it stays switched off until it has passed a set of safety tests, which have not been run yet.
Anyone else
Another kind of business
Tell us what your customers ask on WhatsApp, and we'll tell you whether Reception would help.
What it won't do.
So you know exactly where it stops.
- Book or confirm anything
- It cannot see your booking calendar or appointment book, and it never books anything itself. It notes what a customer asks for, and you confirm it.
- Message a customer first
- Every message it sends a customer is a reply to one they sent. It sends no reminders and no follow-ups.
- Read photos or voice notes
- A photo, voice note or location gets a short holding message, and the chat is passed to your staff.
- Reply in Nagamese
- Its fixed messages are in English and in Hindi typed in English letters. It is instructed to pass a Nagamese question to your staff rather than write an answer, and that has not been tested in live chats yet.
- Act as an emergency service
- A message with an emergency word, such as "fire" or "chest pain", gets a fixed reply telling the sender to call 112, and it is built to alert your staff on WhatsApp. It is a plain word list: it calls no one, it can go off on ordinary messages, and it can miss an emergency described in other words.
[[TODO: approve these lines]]
Messages and privacy, in plain words.
What happens to a message sent to your business, as Reception is built today.
You are chatting with an automated assistant for Mistwood Homestay. Your messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies. A person can take over any time — just ask. Yeh Mistwood Homestay ka automatic assistant hai. Aapke message business ke paas save hote hain aur jawab likhne ke liye AI service padhti hai. Kisi bhi waqt insaan se baat karne ke liye bas kahiye.
- Customers are told it is automated
- Before its first answer to a new customer, it is built to send a one-time notice, in English and in Hindi typed in English letters. It says they are chatting with an automated assistant for your business, that their messages are saved by the business and read by an AI service so it can draft replies, and that a person can take over if they ask.
- Each business's chats are kept apart
- Conversations are kept separate in the database, so people at one business cannot read another's. Anyone with a login for your business can read all of your business's conversations. We can read them too, but we open them only to run, fix or improve your service, or when the law requires it.
- Where a message goes
- Messages travel through WhatsApp (Meta) and Gupshup, our WhatsApp provider, and our copy is kept with Supabase in Mumbai. To draft a reply, Reception sends Anthropic, a US AI company, the message, up to ten earlier messages from the same chat and your fact sheet. It does not send the customer's phone number or WhatsApp name. Anthropic's terms bar it from training its models on them, and it deletes them within 30 days, with a few exceptions.
- Deleting a customer's messages
- A customer can ask to have their messages with your business deleted. We then remove every conversation for that number from our database, and keep a record that the deletion happened: a scrambled form of the number, the date, and how much was removed. Copies outside our database, such as alerts on staff phones, files you have exported, WhatsApp's and Gupshup's own records, and backups, are not reached.
[[TODO: say how a customer asks for their messages to be deleted]]
Questions.
For anything else, ask us on WhatsApp.
Can I try it?
Not yet. Reception is in development, and the chats on these pages are illustrations with fictional businesses. We are also not yet approved to connect other businesses’ WhatsApp numbers, so we cannot connect yours today.
Message us, and we’ll tell you where it stands.
[[TODO: approve this answer, and update it when the first business can go live]]
Do I need a new number?
Not necessarily. Reception is built to answer on your business’s number through Meta’s official WhatsApp Business Platform, and Meta allows a number you already own. We are not yet approved to connect other businesses’ numbers, so we cannot connect yours today, and we cannot say when that will change.
Some WhatsApp providers can now connect a WhatsApp Business app number and let the business keep using the app, with its chats. Reception is not built for that, so any WhatsApp account on the number, personal or business, would have to be deleted first, and its chat history would be lost. The number would still take calls and texts.
What happens when it can't answer?
Reception is built to hand the chat to a person. The guest or patient is sent a holding message, which in English reads: “Thanks for your message — let me check with the team and get back to you shortly.” If opening hours are set (the same hours every day), a written question outside them gets a line naming your opening time instead.
The staff you list are sent a WhatsApp alert with the customer’s message, and answer by replying to it. WhatsApp allows that alert only if they have messaged your business number in the past 24 hours. At present Reception has no other way to send it.
Who can see the messages?
Anyone with a login for your business can read its chats. No other business can.
We can read every chat too, but we open them only to run, fix or improve your service, or when the law requires it.
Messages travel through WhatsApp (Meta) and Gupshup, our WhatsApp provider, and our copy is kept with Supabase in Mumbai. To draft a reply, Reception is built to send Anthropic, a US AI company, the message, up to ten earlier ones and your fact sheet, but not the chat’s phone number or WhatsApp name. Anthropic’s terms bar it from training its models on them, and it deletes them within 30 days, with a few exceptions.
What if I want to stop?
Reception is in development, so no business pays for it yet. Once it is offered, you can cancel it at any time, with no notice period. It keeps running until the end of the month you have already paid for, then stops, and part of a month is not refunded.
The details are on our cancellation and refunds page.
Do you only work in Dimapur?
No. We make software for businesses across Nagaland. We meet clients in person in Dimapur, Kohima and Mokokchung.
What do I need to give you?
A fact sheet that you fill in yourself: plain questions about your business, such as your rates or fees, your timings, how to find you and your house rules. Reception is built to answer only from what you write there.
Connecting your WhatsApp number also depends on approvals from Meta and our WhatsApp provider, so we do not quote a set-up time yet.
[[TODO: approve this answer]]
Which languages does it use?
Its fixed messages, such as the notice that it is automated, the message that passes a chat to your staff and the call-112 message, are written in English and in Hindi typed in English letters.
It has no fixed messages in Nagamese. It is instructed to pass a Nagamese question to your staff rather than write an answer, and that has not been tested in live chats yet.
[[TODO: approve this answer. The Hindi wording has not been checked by a native speaker yet]]
Tell us how your front desk runs.
We'll talk it through with you. Reception is in development, so there is nothing to sign up for yet.