Vendora AI Assistant Guide

Getting Started: Step-by-Step Setup

The AI Assistant is managed from your Vendor Dashboard, under the AI & Plans tab. Everything is configured in one place — no separate app or page to visit. Work through these steps in order the first time you set it up:

1. General: Turn on the "Enable AI Vendor Assistant" switch. The status pill at the top updates to show whether the assistant is currently active.
2. Business Profile: Fill in your business name and a short description of what you sell. Your store category is pulled automatically from your vendor registration.
3. Business Hours: Set opening and closing times for each day, or mark a day as closed. This is what the assistant checks before telling a customer whether you're open.
4. Store Products: No manual entry needed here — this section simply confirms the assistant is reading live prices, stock, and categories from your existing product listings.
5. Knowledge Base: Upload PDFs, DOCX, TXT files, or images that describe your business in more depth (return policies, size guides, catalogs). The assistant searches these before falling back to a generic answer.
6. FAQs: The assistant ships with a built-in FAQ base, so this step is optional — add extra questions only if your store has answers not already covered.
7. Policies: Enter delivery and return policy notes, plus a fallback message the assistant should use whenever it genuinely doesn't know the answer.
8. Payment Information: Add your bank or mobile money details so the assistant can share correct payment instructions when a customer is ready to buy.
9. AI Behaviour: Choose a personality, and optionally set a custom greeting and closing line for conversations.
10. Conversation Settings: Pick your reply language and set availability preferences for when the assistant should respond.
11. Advanced Settings: Fine-tune smart-selling behaviour and any internal guidance you want the assistant to follow.
12. Save Settings: Click "Save Settings" at the top of the panel. Your changes take effect immediately — no waiting period or approval needed.

Turning It On or Off

The "Enable AI Vendor Assistant" switch in the General tab is the master control. When it's off, customer conversations go straight to you as normal, with no automated replies. When it's on, the status pill shows the assistant is live, and it starts answering new customer messages right away using whatever settings you've saved. You can switch it off at any time, for example if you want to handle a busy sales period personally.

Behind the Scenes: How a Reply Gets Built

Each time a customer sends a message, the assistant works through the same decision order before replying:

1. Checks whether the question matches a built-in or custom FAQ.
2. Searches your uploaded Knowledge Base documents for relevant details.
3. Looks up live product data — price, discount, stock, and category — directly from your store.
4. Checks your configured Business Hours to say whether you're currently open.
5. Applies your chosen AI Behaviour (personality, greeting, closing line) and reply language.
6. Falls back to your custom fallback message, and hands over to your phone, WhatsApp, or email contact if it still can't help.

This order means specific answers you've configured (FAQs, documents, policies) are always trusted over a generic response, and the assistant never has to guess about things like current stock or pricing.

Product Awareness

Products are read directly from the existing products table. The assistant can answer questions about current price, discount price, stock level, product category, and recent updates without any manual duplication.

Business Hours

Business hours are configured visually for each day of the week. Vendors can set:

• Open time
• Close time
• Closed toggle for days when the store is unavailable

Operating It Day-to-Day

Once the assistant is set up and enabled, running it day-to-day mostly means keeping an eye on a few things from the dashboard:

• Analytics tab: Check total conversations, how many were answered automatically, how many were escalated to you, and how many products the assistant recommended.
• Escalations: When the assistant hands a conversation to you (because it was unsure or the customer asked for a person), reply to that customer directly through your normal chat inbox — the assistant steps back once a human is involved.
• Conversation lifecycle: Conversations don't stay open forever. Once a conversation expires or the store closes it, it becomes read-only, and the customer starts a fresh conversation for any new question.
• Keeping data fresh: There's nothing to "sync" — as soon as you update a product's price or stock in your store, the assistant uses the new numbers on its very next reply.
• Adjusting settings: You can revisit any tab (Business Hours, Policies, AI Behaviour, etc.) and save changes at any time; updates apply to the next conversation, not retroactively to ones already in progress.

Best Practices

• Keep product stock and prices current in the marketplace database.
• Keep the built-in FAQ answers and concise policy documents current.
• Use a complete business-hour schedule with closed days marked clearly.
• Make sure phone, WhatsApp, email, and pickup details are accurate.
• Choose the language your customers are most likely to use.

Subscription Requirements

Standard and Premium vendors have full access to AI Assistant. Free users must upgrade before they can open the AI dashboard or manage automatic replies.