Onboarding: your first steps in Wando

Wando centralizes your WhatsApp Business conversations and helps you reply faster with AI assistance. This guide takes you from sign-up to your first reply.

1. Create your account

1. 1Go to the sign-up page and fill in your name, business name, industry, email and password.
2. 2Accept the terms and click “Create free account”. Your 14-day trial starts with no card required.
3. 3You will automatically enter the onboarding assistant.

2. Complete the onboarding

The assistant asks for your business basics. This information is used to personalize the replies the AI suggests (tone, industry, business name).

• Business details: trade name and industry.
• Reply preferences: tone and rules the AI must follow.
• WhatsApp connection: done in the next step (see the Meta guide).

3. Get to know the dashboard

• Messages: the central inbox with all incoming conversations.
• Contacts: your customer base, which can be enriched automatically.
• Templates: HSM messages approved by Meta to start conversations.
• Statistics: reply and volume metrics.
• Settings: WhatsApp credentials and general settings.

How long does it take to be operational and what do you need before starting?

There are two different clocks and it's best not to mix them up. The first is Wando's: creating the account, completing onboarding and going through the dashboard is done in a single sitting, there's nothing to install or configure on a server. The second is Meta's, and that one isn't managed by you or by us: business verification and template approval depend on their timelines. For templates, the only deadline we can state is up to 48 hours.

Before you start, gather four things. If you have them on hand, the setup won't get stuck halfway.

• A phone number you can dedicate to WhatsApp Business and that isn't in use on another official API account.
• Access to Meta's Business Manager with sufficient permissions to connect the app.
• The business's commercial details: name, industry and how you want the AI to talk to your customers.
• A clear idea of what you want the AI to suggest and what not: that's defined during onboarding, not afterwards.

What happens to messages while you finish setting everything up?

It's the most common question and the short answer is: it depends on the order in which you do things. While your number isn't connected to Wando yet, incoming messages go where they went before. The moment the number is pointing to the official API, incoming messages arrive at Wando, not the phone.

That's why the recommendation is to load the credentials in Wando before touching the configuration in Meta. If you do it the other way around, there's a window in which the number no longer responds as before and Wando isn't ready to receive yet. That window isn't measured in days: it's measured by how long it takes you to copy the credentials. But if a spike in inquiries hits you, you'll lose conversations.

A practical detail: if your team handles messages from several phones, let them know before the switch. They will stop seeing chats in the WhatsApp Business app and will see them in Wando. If nobody knows, the first hour is chaos with repeated messages.

Full example: a real inquiry, end to end

A clothing business connects its number on a Tuesday morning. At 11:40 a message comes in: "Hi, do you have the black hoodie in size M? How much is it?"

The conversation appears in the Messages inbox. Since this is the first time that contact writes, the system creates them in Contacts. The AI reads the inquiry and suggests a reply built from what it learned from the business's real replies: the tone they set during onboarding, the name of the shop, the way they usually answer about prices and stock.

The person on the team reads the suggestion, corrects it if needed —for example, adds that size M arrives on Thursday— and approves it with one click. The message goes out from WhatsApp Business, with the business's official number. Nobody wrote from scratch: it was edited and approved.

That correction is not lost. It is exactly the kind of signal the AI uses to improve the next similar suggestion. The more real replies the team approves, the closer the suggestion will be to what the business would say on its own.

If the same contact writes again three days later, they are already in Contacts, with their history. And if the business wants to let them know that size M arrived, it can do so with a template approved by Meta, not with a free-form message: outside the conversation window, WhatsApp only allows templates.

Common mistakes in the first days (and how to avoid them)

Almost all the problems in the first week are about configuration, not the tool. These are the ones that come up most.

• Connecting Meta before loading the credentials in Wando: messages get lost in between. Load them in Wando first, then in Meta.
• Leaving onboarding half done: if you didn't load the tone and industry, the AI suggestions will sound generic. It's not that the AI doesn't work, it's that it's missing context.
• Writing free-form messages to reactivate customers: outside the conversation window, WhatsApp only allows approved templates. Use Templates, not Messages.
• Sending a template to production without reviewing the text: once approved, changes are not instant. Review it before sending it.
• Not telling the team that the inbox is moving: they'll keep replying from their phones and the replies will overlap.
• Assuming the AI answers on its own: by default it suggests and the team approves. That's on purpose, not a limitation.

What can be automated and what should stay in the team's hands?

Wando has auto-replies by schedule: they're used to let people know outside business hours that the message arrived and that they'll reply when they open. It's an acknowledgment, not a conversation. For everything else, the AI suggests and a person approves.

That division is deliberate. A flow-based chatbot can answer on its own, but you have to program it, maintain it and update it every time a price or a schedule changes. Here the approach is different: the AI learns from the business's real replies and improves on its own, and the team keeps control of what goes out.

In practice, what's worth delegating to the suggestion are repeated questions: schedules, payment methods, stock, location. What's worth writing by hand are the cases with nuances: a complaint, a negotiation, an angry customer. The AI will still give you a draft, but there the review is not optional.

If your volume is low, you don't need to touch any of this in the first few days. The inbox with suggestions already saves you time. Campaigns and templates make sense when you already have contacts loaded and something specific to communicate.

How do you know if onboarding was done right?

There is no automatic test, but there are concrete signals. If these four things happen, you are operational.

• You write from another phone to the business number and the message appears in the Messages inbox.
• The new contact was created automatically in Contacts, with the correct number.
• The AI suggests a reply and that suggestion uses the business name and the tone you uploaded.
• You can approve the suggestion with one click and the message goes out through WhatsApp Business.