Automation

Tutorial: skincare flow

Build a complete skincare sales flow, step by step with screenshots.

What we are building

This tutorial builds one complete sales flow for an imaginary skincare brand, Aura Glow Skincare, from an empty canvas to a published flow. When a new customer messages the brand for the first time, the flow greets them, asks about their skin type with a button menu, recommends the right product set, takes the order and delivery address, tags the hot leads, follows up with anyone who hesitated, and hands the "let me talk to a person" cases to your team, with an out-of-hours reply when nobody is in. Along the way it uses every core step type: Send message, Action, Wait for input, Delay and Condition.

The finished skincare flow on the canvas — The finished flow: two product branches, an order path, a follow-up and a staff handover

The conversation we are aiming for looks like this:

Customer messages the brand for the first time.
Flow: "Hai! Selamat datang ke Aura Glow Skincare. Nak kami bantu pilih produk yang sesuai?" with buttons Kulit kering, Kulit berminyak and Cakap dengan staff.
Customer taps a skin type; the flow recommends the matching set with its price.
The flow offers to take the order. Tapping YA, buatkan tempahan tags them as a lead and collects the delivery address; tapping Tanya dulu earns a gentle follow-up an hour later.
Cakap dengan staff assigns a teammate during office hours, and outside them tells the customer when staff will reply.

Step 1: Create the flow

Open Message Flows
In the sidebar, go to Automation, then Flows. This lists every flow in your workspace.
Press Create new flow
Name it something you will recognise later, for example Skincare welcome and sales. The editor opens on an empty canvas.

The Message Flows list with the Create new flow button — Message Flows: create a new flow from the button at the top right

Faster: start from a template

The template market has ready-made flows for many Malaysian business types. This tutorial builds from scratch so you learn every step type, but for real work a template is often the quicker start.

Step 2: The trigger

Every flow starts from exactly one trigger. For a welcome flow, pick New chat: it fires the first time a contact messages you on a channel, so every fresh enquiry walks into this flow automatically. It needs no further configuration; left as it is, it fires for every new chat on every channel, and its options only exist to narrow that down.

The canvas with only the New chat trigger — Stage 1: the trigger card, before any steps

Other ways to start the same flow

A flow can also start from a keyword (set under Keyword replies), from an ad click, from an order event, and more. See the trigger table in Message flows.

Step 3: The welcome message with a menu

Add a Send message step and connect it to the trigger. Selecting the step opens its config sidebar; this is where all the detail lives:

Body: the greeting. Use the merge-tag picker to insert {{contact.name}} so each customer is greeted by name: "Hai {{contact.name}}! Selamat datang ke Aura Glow Skincare. Nak kami bantu pilih produk yang sesuai?"
Buttons: add three reply buttons: Kulit kering, Kulit berminyak, Cakap dengan staff. Each button becomes its own exit on the card, which is what lets the flow branch on the answer. On channels that cannot draw tappable buttons, Chatz sends the same menu as a numbered list automatically, and a typed "1" routes the same as a tap.

The welcome Send message step with its config sidebar open — Stage 2: the welcome message, its body and the three reply buttons

Step 4: Product branches

Now give the two skin-type buttons somewhere to go. Add two more Send message steps and draw a line from each button's exit to the matching step:

Kulit kering leads to the Hydra Dew set recommendation (RM89): what is in the set and what it does for dry skin, in two short lines.
Kulit berminyak leads to the Clear Balance set (RM95), same shape.

The third button, Cakap dengan staff, stays unconnected for now; it gets a proper ending in step 8.

The canvas with the two product recommendation branches — Stage 3: each skin type now gets its own recommendation

Keep product detail in the product, not the flow

For a real catalogue, attach the product or a saved knowledge entry instead of typing prices into the flow, so a price change does not mean editing every flow that mentions it. See Products.

Step 5: The order question

After either recommendation, ask for the order. Add one more Send message step, "Nak saya buatkan tempahan?", with two buttons: YA, buatkan tempahan and Tanya dulu. Connect both product messages into it: two branches can merge back into one step, which saves building the same ending twice. When you want to branch on what a customer chooses, buttons on a message are the way to do it: each button is an exit, and a typed reply that matches a button routes the same as a tap.

The order question step with its config sidebar open — Stage 4: one question, two buttons, two futures

Step 6: Tag the lead, take the address

Build the YA, buatkan tempahan branch with three steps in a row:

Action: add a tag
Add an Action step, choose Add tag, and pick (or create) the tag Skincare Lead. An Action does something in the background without sending anything; the customer never sees it. The tag is what makes these hot leads filterable in Contacts and targetable by a broadcast later.
Wait for input: the delivery address
Add a Wait for input step asking "Bagus! Boleh kongsikan nama penuh dan alamat penghantaran?" and save the answer into a variable named alamat. Unlike a button menu, this step accepts free text, and the flow pauses here, per customer, until that customer replies.
Send message: confirm the order
Close the loop with a message that repeats the captured address back through the variable: "Terima kasih! Tempahan anda akan dihantar ke: {{variables.alamat}}". Repeating it back gives the customer the chance to correct a typo before anything ships.

The Wait for input step with its config sidebar open — Stage 5: the flow pauses here and saves the reply into the alamat variable

Step 7: Follow up the hesitant

The Tanya dulu branch is for the customer who is interested but not ready. Add a Delay step set to 1 hour, then a Send message with a gentle nudge: "Sekadar follow-up, kalau ada apa-apa soalan pasal produk, jangan segan tanya ya!". While the delay is waiting, the customer's thread shows a scheduled bubble for the coming follow-up, so any agent who has taken over the conversation by hand can see it coming and cancel it.

The canvas with the delay and follow-up message branch — Stage 6: an hour of patience, then one polite nudge

Pacing is built in

Do not add Delay steps to make the flow feel human; message steps already pace themselves with a randomised 5 to 15 second wait to protect your number. Use Delay for real waits, like this 1 hour follow-up. See WhatsApp safety.

Step 8: Office hours for the staff branch

Finally, the Cakap dengan staff button. Handing a customer to a human at 2am promises a reply nobody is awake to give, so put a Condition step in the way. A condition checks facts about the contact or the moment (their tags, their channel, the time of the event) and takes the first rule that matches; if none match, it takes the If None Match exit. Here, one rule with a Time of Event clause, Monday to Saturday 9:00 to 18:00, splits the branch:

Within hours: an Action step assigns the conversation round robin, so incoming staff requests are shared fairly across the team, then a short message tells the customer someone will reply shortly.
If None Match (outside hours): a message sets an honest expectation: "Maaf, kami di luar waktu operasi (Isnin-Sabtu 9am-6pm). Staff kami akan balas esok pagi ya!"

The office hours Condition step with its config sidebar open — Stage 7: one Time of Event rule, and an If None Match exit for everyone else

Step 9: Test and publish

Run the Test Run simulator
Press the play button in the editor toolbar. The simulator walks the flow in a fake conversation: tap the buttons, type replies, and check every branch reads the way you want, without messaging any real customer.
Fix, then publish
Anything that reads wrong is one click away in the config sidebar. When every branch behaves, press Publish. New chats now walk into the flow on their own.
Watch it work
Trigger history lists every run as it happens, and the flow's stats page shows completion rate and where people drop off.

The Test Run simulator over the finished flow — Test Run: walk every branch before a customer does

Step type	Where this tutorial used it
Send message	The welcome menu, both product sets, the order question, the confirmations and the follow-up.
Action	Adding the Skincare Lead tag, and assigning the conversation round robin.
Wait for input	Capturing the delivery address into the alamat variable.
Delay	The 1 hour pause before the follow-up nudge.
Condition	Office hours on the staff branch, with If None Match for after hours.