Frequently asked questions

No. Heep does not take the call. When nobody can pick up on the floor, it writes to the guest on WhatsApp, or by SMS if the number is not on WhatsApp, within seconds. It then handles the request in writing: booking, change, a question about the menu or the opening hours.

Your guest first hears a greeting telling them they will be contacted in writing. So they know where the message that arrives moments later comes from.

No. Heep takes the missed calls, the messages and the repetitive requests so that your team can stay focused on the floor.

You keep control: you choose the hours when the AI answers, how much latitude it has (free, balanced or restricted) and the subjects it always hands to a human, such as a severe allergy or a complaint. Your team can take over any conversation in one tap from the app.

Yes. You set the time slots where the AI answers on its own, from 8pm to 9am for instance, or only during the rush. Outside those hours, messages land in your inbox and your team answers them itself.

You can also pause the AI at any moment, on one conversation, one channel or the whole venue. It stops of its own accord if a guest gets annoyed or the exchange goes round in circles, and tells your team.

No. A single account runs your whole group. Each restaurant has its own memory, its own opening hours and its own booking software; head office gets a consolidated view and each team only sees its own address.

If one restaurant is full, Heep can suggest another venue in the group. Roles and permissions are set person by person and venue by venue. Fitz Group uses Heep across 5 addresses for around 4,200 requests a month.

It writes the reply, you publish it. Heep connects to your Google Business Profile, picks up every new review and prepares a draft reply in your venue's tone of voice. You publish, edit or reject it in one click. Nothing goes out without your say-so.

Heep can also send a review request after the visit, with a direct link to your listing, leaving out the guests you choose (an open complaint, press, VIPs). And it shows you what people criticise and what they praise in your reviews.

Within seconds of the unanswered call. The guest is looked after while their phone is still in their hand, even though nobody could pick up on the floor.

The sending delay is set venue by venue. Some restaurants leave the team a moment to call back, others send the message straight away.

We give you a dedicated number. On your line, you switch on call forwarding to that number when nobody answers, after a set number of rings. As soon as a call goes unanswered, Heep sees it and writes to the guest on WhatsApp, or by SMS if it is a mobile without WhatsApp.

A call from a landline is never chased by SMS: Heep checks the line type before sending. Calls your team answers trigger nothing.

WhatsApp, SMS, Instagram (direct messages and story mentions), Facebook Messenger and email. You can also add a WhatsApp button to your website.

Every message lands in a single inbox, on the web, on mobile and on desktop, for you and your team. Heep replies in the guest's own language.

Yes. Heep replies to Instagram direct messages just as it does on WhatsApp: bookings, opening hours, the menu, private hire. When a guest mentions you in a story, Heep thanks them once, without chasing them at every post.

Story reactions and messages with no real request do not trigger a reply: Heep first judges whether an answer is needed. You are alerted when an account with a large following writes to you.

Yes, Heep runs on Meta's WhatsApp Business API. Two options: we provide a dedicated number, or you keep your current one. In that case you carry on using the WhatsApp Business app on your phone and Heep replies alongside it.

Our team handles creating the account, Meta's verification (allow one to two working days) and getting your restaurant's name displayed. You do not have to find your way around Business Manager on your own.

Zenchef, SevenRooms, TheFork, OpenTable, Resy, Guestonline, Resengo, Tock, Servme and Zomato. Heep checks your availability and writes the booking straight into your software, following your venue's rules: services, rooms, table sizes, card guarantee if you use one.

Each entry on our Integrations page sets out the prerequisites and exactly what Heep does. Your software is not on the list? Tell us: we will give you an honest answer on what is possible.

Yes. With no software connected, Heep does not confirm a table itself: it qualifies the request (date, time, number of covers, occasion, contact details) and passes it to your team, who confirm. The guest is told that someone will come back to them.

That is how event venues and private-hire spaces usually work, on a diary or by email. With software connected, Heep books, changes and cancels directly.

For group and private-hire enquiries, Heep asks the right questions (date, number of guests, budget, type of event) then sends a structured email to your sales contact. Nothing to re-key.

Creating the lead automatically in Salesforce or HubSpot is set up on request, with our team. Raise it during the demo: we will tell you what is feasible for your setup.

€99 excl. VAT a month for a pack of 1,000 messages, with no commitment. You start with 500 free messages. Each additional venue costs €19 excl. VAT a month. Above 12,000 messages a month, we put together tailor-made pricing.

Every feature and the support of our team are included, whatever your volume. To work out your budget, count your missed calls and your messages for the month: the simulator on our Pricing page does the maths.

Each additional venue costs €19 excl. VAT a month, and your message packs can be shared across all your addresses or tracked restaurant by restaurant, whichever you prefer.

Above 12,000 messages a month, we build a tailor-made offer to suit your volume and your number of venues. Get in touch to talk it through.

None. You can stop whenever you like, at no cost and with no explanation, from your account or by writing to us.

No. Your 500 free messages give you access to every feature: missed calls, bookings, every channel, reviews, the mobile app, analytics.

We suggest testing it on a single venue for two weeks. At the end, our team hands you a written review with the numbers (messages handled, bookings, estimated revenue) that you can take to your partners or your management.

You follow your usage in real time in the app, with a projection for the end of the pack. If the pack runs out and you do not top it up, Heep is suspended until you do.

So that you are never cut off, you can switch on automatic overage: messages beyond the pack are billed automatically, without interruption. The option is set venue by venue.

Your conversations and the data the service needs are hosted in the United States with our sub-processors, whose list is available on request. Heep keeps the contact details and the history it needs to recognise your guests and reply to them; your booking software remains the reference for your bookings.

Credentials and secrets are encrypted at rest. You choose how long conversations are kept. A data processing agreement (DPA) is available on request.

Only the members of your Heep account. You manage the roles: a group manager sees every restaurant, a team member only sees their own venue. Each member can turn on two-factor authentication from their settings.

The Heep team only steps into a conversation for support, at your request, and those interventions are logged.

No. Your guests' conversations are never used to train our models or those of our providers. They serve only to answer your guests and to feed your venue's memory.

Heep draws on several AI model providers; the model used can be chosen venue by venue, with our team.

Yes. Heep only processes the data the service needs, encrypts secrets, lets you set the retention period and provides a DPA on request. On your side, you need to tell your guests that an automated assistant answers their messages.

For marketing campaigns, Heep only writes to guests who have given their consent (opt-in, through your booking software for instance) and honours opt-outs: a guest who asks to stop receiving messages stops receiving them.

Allow a few days, somewhere between two days and two weeks depending on your situation. What takes the time: Meta's verification of your WhatsApp account (one to two working days), access to your booking software and call forwarding with your telecoms provider.

Setting Heep up itself takes a few minutes: you answer a few questions about your restaurant, you upload your menu, and our team does the rest with you.

Yes. Someone from the Heep team walks you through it, from creating the WhatsApp account to connecting your booking software, then trains your team on the app.

After that, we stay reachable on weekdays, from the app, on WhatsApp or by email. At the end of your trial, you receive a written review of the period, with the numbers.

Yes, with every provider that offers call forwarding on no answer, which is very nearly all of them in France and across Europe: Orange, SFR, Bouygues, business providers and company phone systems.

You switch it on by dialling a code from your handset or from your provider's customer area. We give you the exact procedure for your line. If several handsets ring in your restaurant, we set the forwarding up with you.

You are the one who feeds it, and it doesn't take long. To begin with, you answer a questionnaire (typing or dictating), you upload your menu as a PDF or a photo, or you paste a link to your website. Heep pulls out the useful information.

After that, you add whatever changes from one week to the next: a temporary instruction ("terrace closed tonight") that expires on the date you choose, a special menu, a private-hire rule. Heep flags contradictions before saving, and shows you the questions it still has no answer for.

It does not guess. It tells the guest that a member of the team will come back to them, and your team gets a notification straight away, on their phones and in the inbox, flagged "action required".

Once you have answered, Heep offers to add your answer to its memory, in one tap. Next time, it will answer on its own.

Heep answers only from what you have given it and from your real data: the opening hours on your Google listing, the availability in your booking software. It does not decide you are full on its own, it looks at your diary. Before writing a booking, it checks that the slot is genuinely free in your software.

In the first few weeks, your team reads the conversations back from the inbox and corrects where needed; whatever was missing is added to the memory in one tap. You can also restrict the AI so that it hands over to a human more often.

Yes, completely. Formal or relaxed, greetings, sign-off, message length, emoji or no emoji: Heep sounds like your restaurant. You can even set a different tone by channel, shorter by SMS, fuller by email.

You adjust all of it whenever you like, simply by writing to Heep Copilot, your setup assistant, or from the settings.

Heep introduces itself as your restaurant's assistant. You decide how it introduces itself and what it answers if a guest asks whether they are talking to a human; we recommend saying so plainly and offering to hand over to a member of the team.

These instructions are set in the settings, or by writing to Heep Copilot. Remember as well to tell your guests that an automated assistant answers their messages, in your greeting message for instance.

In the guest's own language. Heep works out the language from the conversation, from the country code of the number or from what it already knows about the contact, then replies in that language: a tourist writes in Portuguese, they get an answer in Portuguese, and the booking is written into your software.

Your team can translate a conversation in one click from the inbox. The app itself is available in seven languages: French, English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German and Portuguese.