The number on your storefront, your business cards and your Google listing is your personal phone. The same one you use to talk to your partner, your friends, your kid's school WhatsApp group. And ever since you put it everywhere, it hasn't stopped: orders, opening-hours questions, people asking if there's a table free tonight. You want something to answer automatically when you can't look at the phone, but the idea of "connecting a bot" makes you nervous. What if you lose the number? What if one day you open WhatsApp and it isn't yours anymore?
It's the most reasonable worry there is, and the short answer is: you don't have to choose between automating and keeping your phone. You can have both.
When you connect WhatsApp from the ChatME dashboard, the first thing you see is a choice between two paths. One of them — the one we recommend when the number is your everyday phone — is called "Keep your phone", and it does exactly what it says: your number stays on your handset, exactly as it is today.
You keep opening the WhatsApp Business app as usual. You keep seeing your chats, your groups, your history. The difference is that now, when someone writes to you and you can't reply, the assistant answers on your behalf, in that same conversation, using your business's real information.
And when you do reply yourself — from your own phone, by hand — the assistant steps back for a while in that specific conversation, so the two of you don't both answer the same customer at once. That's a deliberate product behaviour, not a side effect: while you're in the thread, the bot leaves you the floor.
The other option, "move to the cloud", exists for a different case: a number that belongs only to the bot, with nobody on the team writing from the phone. If your number is your everyday mobile, that isn't your situation — and that option is hard to undo once you've done it.
This is where we'd rather be very specific, because it's the part you actually want to know before touching anything:
What doesn't change: the number stays yours, stays on your phone, and the WhatsApp Business app stays free. You keep writing from it whenever you want.
To connect with ChatME, that number needs to already be on the WhatsApp Business app (not regular WhatsApp), version 2.24.17 or later. If you currently write from regular WhatsApp, it can be moved to Business — it's an official WhatsApp process, no workarounds — but it's worth doing before the day you connect, not in the same sitting: the move requires a prior backup and a bit of patience.
The other three requirements are simple: a number WhatsApp will let you register (no VoIP numbers, no toll-free, no premium-rate lines), having that phone on hand to receive the 6-digit SMS code, and being on the Pro or E-commerce plan. On Free and Basic, the WhatsApp channel doesn't appear.
⚠️ If at any point that Meta window offers to create a new WhatsApp Business account instead of connecting the one you already have, close it and email info@chatme.es. That's the sign something isn't configured correctly.
Nothing, for what the assistant does. Meta doesn't charge for messages your customers send you, nor for service conversations — replying to whoever writes in — which is exactly what your bot does. The only thing Meta bills is templates: messages the business initiates without the customer having written first. Your assistant never sends any on its own. The WhatsApp channel is included, at no extra cost, on the Pro and E-commerce plans.
You disconnect yourself, from your own app: Settings › Account › Business Platform › Disconnect Account. The number stays yours and stays on your phone, exactly as before you started.
What answers on WhatsApp is the same assistant already handling your website, with the same knowledge: you train it once and it works in both places. If you also run Instagram, the same bot answers your account's DMs too, on the Pro and E-commerce plans. Nothing to configure separately.
If you get stuck at any step, or would simply rather have us walk you through it the first time, write to info@chatme.es.
*Availability may vary by country.*
Try it on your real website. If you’re not convinced, cancel without writing a single email.
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