Building supplies · Dar es Salaam, Tanzania · Operations

A hardware shop that answers every builder at once

Baraka runs a hardware wholesale shop in Kariakoo, Dar es Salaam. Builders buy cement, iron bars and roofing sheets from him.

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The challenge

From six in the morning, his WhatsApp fills with orders. Baraka answers each one by hand: is it in stock, what does it cost today, when can it come. By nine, forty messages are waiting. Builders who wait an hour buy next door.

How the flow works

With xMap Flows, Baraka built Counter. Counter is an AI employee: a flow of 5 blocks.

  1. When a builder writes on WhatsApp,

    A builder writes (WhatsApp Business event)

  2. Counter reads the order,

    The order clerk (AI agent)

  3. checks the stock and today’s prices,

    Stock and today’s prices (My data)

  4. books the delivery,

    Book the delivery (Google Sheets)

  5. and answers in the same chat.

    Answer in the chat (Reply)

What it solves

The result

This morning, sixty builders order before eight. Each gets the price and a delivery time within a minute, in Swahili or English. Baraka spends the morning loading trucks, and nobody walks next door.

Baraka’s phone still buzzes at six. Now it buzzes with sales.

60orders before 8 am
1 minto every answer
0builders lost to waiting

An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.

The flow, block by block

  1. 1

    A builder writes

    WhatsApp Business event · WhatsApp event

    Starts the flow when something happens in WhatsApp Business: a new record, a message, a change.

  2. 2

    The order clerk

    AI agent

    An AI agent: for each incoming message it thinks, uses the blocks you link to its Tools port (data, xMap AI, lookups, your tables, other flows, apps), remembers the conversation and writes an answer in {{reply}}.

  3. 3

    Stock and today’s prices

    My data

    Brings in a table you uploaded or a list you saved on the My data page: your stores, customers, target accounts or sites.

  4. 4

    Book the delivery

    Google Sheets

    Create, edit, and collaborate on spreadsheets online

  5. 5

    Answer in the chat

    Reply

    Answers whoever started the flow, on the same channel: the app or system that called its Webhook / API gets the answer back, and a message from Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, Teams, SMS, Outlook or Discord gets a reply in the same chat, through the account of the block that received it.

Templates to build it

Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.

Learn how it works

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