Answers, before the call.
What Helm does, what it is allowed to do, what WhatsApp and Instagram permit, and what it takes to start. If the answer you need is not here, ask it on the pilot page and a person will answer it.
What Helm is
What does Helm actually do?
Helm builds an agent for one workflow you already run — answering enquiries, booking appointments, qualifying leads, taking order questions, filing claims — and puts it in the channel your customers already write to. The agent answers in their language, follows the rules agreed before it was built, does the work in your systems, and hands anything outside those rules to a named person with the full context.
Is Helm a chatbot?
People search for one, so the honest answer is: it looks familiar and it is not the same thing. A chatbot answers a question. A Helm workflow finishes the job — the slot is held in the real calendar, the deposit is taken, the lead record exists in the CRM with the answer attached — or it stops and hands the work to a person. What it may decide alone is set per workflow, in writing, before the build.
Which channels does Helm work in?
WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and comments, Facebook Messenger and comments, voice, email and the web. The work is written back into the calendar, CRM, payment and operations systems you already run.
Does Helm work in Arabic?
Yes. Arabic and English are the working languages, including Egyptian and Gulf dialects, and the agent replies in whichever language the customer wrote in. Mixed Arabic and Latin script in one message is normal and handled.
Which industries does Helm work in?
Ten have their own page: clinics and hospitals, schools and universities, spas and salons, fine dining, fast food and delivery, automotive, insurance, football clubs and venues, real estate developers, and enterprise or public-service contact teams. The pattern — many people writing in, one team answering — matters more than the label.
WhatsApp, Instagram and the rules
Do we need the WhatsApp Business API?
For anything automated at volume, yes. The free WhatsApp Business app on a phone cannot be driven by software, has no approval flow for outbound messages, and cannot be shared properly across a team. The API is the version businesses run; Helm connects your number to it, or works with the one you already have.
Can Helm reply to Instagram comments and DMs?
Both. Public comments under a post get a reply in the thread, and the conversation can be moved into DMs where a price, a booking or a personal detail belongs. The same applies to Facebook posts. This is usually where the volume is: a launch post will take hundreds of comments and almost none of them get answered.
Can the agent message a customer first?
Inside twenty-four hours of a customer’s last message, it can write freely. Outside that window WhatsApp only allows a message template that Meta has approved in advance, in a category — utility, marketing or authentication. Reminders, confirmations and order updates are written as utility templates and agreed with you before they are submitted.
Why do WhatsApp templates get rejected?
Almost always the category. A message that reads as promotional will be rejected or silently re-categorised as marketing even when it was submitted as utility, and the category is locked to the template name across every language. The other common causes are a body that starts or ends with a variable, missing sample values, and a call to action the template text does not justify. Helm writes and submits templates as part of the build, and most are approved the same day.
Can Helm take a booking deposit or a payment?
Yes, where the workflow calls for it. A deposit link in the thread is one of the standard patterns — it is what removes the no-show — and the rule that triggers it is agreed in scoping, not invented by the agent.
Control
What happens when the agent does not know?
It stops. The workflow names who receives the exception and what context goes with it. Silence and invention are both treated as failures, and the handover is designed before launch rather than bolted on after the first complaint.
Who decides what the agent is allowed to do?
You do, per workflow, before the build. Three levels: let it act (approved answers, available slots, routine updates), ask for approval (a commitment, a change, an exception), or bring in a person (named owner, full context, a clear next step).
Can we see and change what it says?
Yes. The answers come from your material — your price list, your policy, your appointment book — and both the rules and the wording are reviewed before launch and revised after. Every action the agent takes is visible to your team.
What happens to our data?
Helm Vision OÜ is registered in Estonia and the platform runs on AWS with separate client tenants. The AI disclosure, privacy policy, data processing agreement and subprocessor list are published on this site. Anything specific to your deployment — residency, retention, export — is agreed in scoping and written into the agreement.
Starting
How long does it take to go live?
A first, single workflow is typically live within five working days once you send what we ask for. Broader scope, deeper integrations or an enterprise security review take longer, and the written pilot agreement sets the milestones.
What does it cost?
Price is agreed in writing before anything is built, against the scope. There is no self-serve plan and no published price list, because a workflow that books appointments across three branches and one that answers order questions are not the same job.
What do you need from us to start?
One file, usually. A price list, an appointment book, an admissions calendar, a fixture list, last Friday’s inbox. The first conversation is a diagnosis of one workflow, not a demo, and the output is a written memo you keep either way.
Does this replace our team?
No. It removes the part of the day that is copying the same answer into a different thread, and it routes the rest to the person who should have had it in the first place. The volume that never got answered at all is usually the larger number.
Still deciding? The first conversation is a diagnosis of one workflow, not a demo — and the memo is yours either way.
See how a pilot works ↗