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Color Café · Customer Service AI Assistant

Scope and deliverables

Dmitry Khinkis · 22 October 2026 · Draft v2

Today two people answer about 82 WhatsApp chats a day (about 570 a week) through the CommBox menu bot. The goal: guests get a fast, warm answer in their own language, your customer service steps in only when a person is really needed, and management sees what is happening every week.

In short. You get: (1) an AI assistant on your WhatsApp, (2) a customer service inbox with handovers and reminders, (3) a weekly management dashboard. Live on your number from 2–3 November, handover by 19 November. From you: written approval of this page, admin access to your Meta Business by 27 October, 1–2 hours with Linor, and the rest of “What we need from you next” (below).
What changed since v1 (18 October)
This is v2, dated 22 October 2026. It is based on our meetings and on 4 months of your CommBox data (20 June – 22 October 2026). Once Ailene or Oscar replies “Approved” in writing (by email or in our work group chat), this version becomes the statement of work under our agreement (section 1). I'll send you a PDF of the approved version.
How we build it. We build your own system, in your accounts, in parallel with CommBox. Until launch (week 2), CommBox runs exactly as it does today; its subscription is paid until January, as we understand. The new assistant is tested on a test number first. When it moves to your WhatsApp number, CommBox stops replying on WhatsApp (its bot and auto-messages are switched off) but stays fully set up as the fallback until acceptance: if needed, we switch back (we test how long that takes before launch). At the switch, your team or CommBox turns off the CommBox bot and automatic WhatsApp messages; I don't change CommBox settings. Email and website chat stay in CommBox as today.

What we saw in your data

About 10,100 CommBox chats from 20 June to 22 October 2026.

How fast people reply

When the guest writesReply within 15 minHalf get a reply withinNo reply from a person
Sun–Thu, 10:00–18:0070%3.5 min11%
Sun–Thu, outside these hours27%1 h 15 min21%
Friday and Saturday1%about 22.5 h49%

In working hours your team replies fast. About a third of chats arrive when support is closed, including Friday and Saturday, when the studios are open. The gap is in the hours and the menu, not in the people. Some chats needed no reply (thank-yous, spam).

What guests write about

TopicShareWhat the assistant does
Is my piece ready?25%Explains the general rules right away, collects the order details and sends customer service a ready card.
Picking up: Fri/Sat, storage, for someone else, courier21%Answers the pickup rules right away. Exceptions go to customer service with all the details.
Prices, payment, discounts14%Answers on its own, right away, 24/7.
How a visit works: length, age, food and wine, dogs, choice of pieces, parking, hours11%Answers on its own, right away, 24/7.
Changing a booking: running late, new time, number of people, cancelling11%Points to the link in the Ontopo SMS, or collects the details for customer service.
New booking, free spots8%Sends the booking link for the right branch.
Events and groups4%Answers general questions, collects date, number of guests and branch, then hands over to a person.
Complaints3%Hands over to a person straight away.
Other: jobs, suppliers, home kits, “I want a person”3%Answers if it's general information; otherwise hands over to a person.

Random sample of 600 chats, accurate to ±4 points.

What a real answer needs

What you get

WhatsApp only, as agreed on 18 October. Instagram and Facebook can be added later if needed.

1

AI assistant on WhatsApp

Guests write as they do today and get a quick reply at any hour: a real answer to general questions, or a clear next step.
  • Answers right away, no menu, in one or two messages to the point. The assistant gets its own friendly name, we pick it together (for example, Painty).
  • Replies in Hebrew, English or Russian, matching the guest, short and human; other languages get a short reply in English or Hebrew. A short pick-list only where it helps (which branch, talk to a person).
  • Guests who come via the link after a phone call also get an answer right away. If your phone menu sends the WhatsApp link through CommBox, we agree how to switch it over with you before launch.

Answers on its own, right away, 24/7

  • Opening hours, directions and parking, for each branch.
  • Prices, payment and discounts, home painting kits, gift cards.
  • How a visit works: how long it takes, age, food and wine, dogs.
  • General rules on ready pieces and pickup: a piece is ready in 2–6 weeks, and an SMS from COLOR CAFE says so (it may land in spam). Pickup at the branch where you painted, Sun–Thu 10:00–20:00; Friday and Saturday by arrangement, with the order packed in advance.
  • New booking: the booking link for the right branch (Ontopo).

Collects the details, then hands over to customer service

  • “Is my piece ready?” and pickup: the order number (from the digital receipt in the SMS), or full name, branch and painting date, plus a photo of the receipt if the guest has one. Customer service gets a ready card and doesn't have to ask for the order number again.
  • Booking changes (running late, new time, number of people, cancelling): the assistant points to the link in the Ontopo SMS, or collects the booking details and what to change and passes them to customer service. Your team changes the booking in Ontopo, as today.
  • Private and corporate events: date, number of guests, branch, wishes.

Option, estimated separately: an automatic readiness check. If the assistant gets read access to the system that sends the “ready” SMS, it can answer “ready / still in progress” on its own. We estimate it once we see that system. Full piece tracking stays in step 2.

Hands over to a person, and when

  • Complaints, refunds and payment disputes, a photo of a damaged piece, compensation, exceptions to the rules (longer storage, a special pickup), large corporate events, a guest asking for a person, two unclear messages in a row.
  • At night and on Friday–Saturday it answers general questions right away, takes the rest as a request for customer service and tells the guest honestly when a person will reply. Replies sent more than 24 hours after the guest's message use a template approved by Meta (a WhatsApp rule).
  • Its first message says it's Color Café's AI assistant, and that the guest can ask for a person at any time. Complaints and refunds go to a person from the very first message.
2

Customer service inbox

Where customer service sees the chats and replies. The interface matters: it's used every day.
  • All WhatsApp chats in one place, on phone and computer.
  • Handovers go to customer service, the way you work today (Linor and her colleague). They decide what to do and talk to the branch. Every chat is tagged with the branch and the topic.
  • A handover arrives with a short summary: who the guest is, which branch, the topic and what the AI already said. The guest doesn't have to repeat.
  • If a handover isn't picked up within the time you set (for example, 15 minutes) during working hours, the backup person you choose gets a reminder: the chat is reassigned to them with a push notification. The same applies to an AI-suggested reply that isn't sent in time.
  • Quick reply templates for customer service.
  • Week 2, working hours: the AI suggests each reply and customer service sends or edits it, so you see the quality before it answers on its own. At night and on Friday–Saturday it already answers simple questions.
  • No inbox built from scratch: we take Chatwoot, a proven open-source inbox, on your own server and set it up around how you work.
3

Simple management dashboard

One page: what happened this week.
  • Chats this week: closed by the AI, handed to the team, still open.
  • Topics in %: bookings, events, “is my piece ready”, prices and more.
  • Customer service response time.

More detail (busiest hours, which AI answers the team corrected) goes into the handover report. The bigger dashboard for the whole studio operation stays in step 3.

Also included

What we take from CommBox and the market, and what we don't

The new assistant is not like the old bot and does not learn from it. The chat history shows what guests ask; facts and rules come from the knowledge base and your team's real replies. We agree the tone with Ailene and Linor.

Not in this project

Services and data

Which services the project uses and what guest data they see (sections 4 and 7 of our agreement).

ServiceWhat forData
Meta WhatsApp Business Cloud APISending and receiving WhatsApp messages.Messages, guest name and phone, photos and files.
Anthropic Claude APIThe assistant's replies.Message texts, photos and files the guest sends, guest name and phone.
Chatwoot (open source)Customer service inbox, on your server.Chats, guest name and phone, team accounts.
Chatwoot mobile app notifications (Apple / Google push)Alerts on the team's phones.Guest name and the start of the message.
Server in Color Café's account (e.g. Hetzner, EU; I confirm the provider with you in writing before any guest data goes there)Hosts the inbox and the assistant.Everything the inbox and the assistant store.
BackupsDaily encrypted copy of the inbox and assistant data, stored in Color Café's account.Everything the inbox and the assistant store.
Uptime monitoringAlerts if the system is down.No guest data.
Code repository (GitHub or similar), Color Café's accountCode, documentation, anonymised test set.No guest data.
Google Sheets or similarThe prices and hours sheet.No guest data.
Claude CodeMy development tool: working with the CommBox chat history (knowledge base, test set).CommBox chat texts, which may include guest names and phones.

Approving this scope is your written approval under sections 4, 7 and 8 of our agreement: of these services, their purpose and the data categories, and of keeping the export on my laptop.

How we'll know it's done

The “before” for comparison (CommBox, June–October 2026): on Friday–Saturday half of guests wait about 22.5 hours for a person's reply, and 49% never get one; guests confirmed “that helped” in about 9% of the old bot's chats (July–October). These are measures for the report, not acceptance conditions.

After handover you have 5 working days to review; one round of fixes is included. For 30 days after acceptance I fix reproducible failures to meet these criteria at no charge (section 10 of our agreement).

Timeline

Discovery is done; 4 weeks of build ahead.

  1. Week 019–22 OctoberAccess and discovery done22 October: CommBox access, 4 months of chat history, topic analysis, what to take from CommBox and the market. Result: this v2 page.
  2. Week 125–29 OctoberKnowledge base and testsStarts on Sunday 25 October without waiting for v2 sign-off: on a test number, your number is not touched. 1–2 hours with Linor. The full guest journey works on the test number: question, answer, handover to customer service.
  3. Week 21–5 NovemberLaunch on your numberSunday 1 November: guide and training for the team. Monday–Tuesday 2–3 November, in the evening: the assistant moves to your number. From then on, in working hours the AI suggests replies and customer service sends or edits them. At night and on Friday–Saturday it answers simple questions right away.
  4. Weeks 3–48–19 NovemberThe AI answers approved topics on its ownTopics are added based on the numbers and with your OK. Dashboard, report, handover.

Condition: admin access to your Meta Business by Tuesday 27 October (we check where the WhatsApp account sits and whether the business is verified). With it, launch on your number is on 2–3 November. If access or data arrive later, or Meta asks to verify the business, dates move by the same amount. “Launch” means the day the assistant starts working on your number.

How we work together

What we need from you next

This list replaces the questionnaire in section 2 (“What I need to start”).

Week 1 starts on Sunday 25 October on the test number. Once Ailene or Oscar replies “Approved” in writing, this version (v2, 22 October 2026) becomes the statement of work under our agreement.