The moment it happens
Answer product questions by text from a sheet catalogue
Customers who text a question get an answer from the products in your sheet within seconds.
- Runs
- The moment it happens
- Apps
- Google Sheets, Twilio
- AI
- Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
- Access
- Twilio send; Sheets read
Send this to your assistant
Create a ClickRuntime automation: when someone texts my Twilio number with a product question, answer from my Catalogue sheet with price and availability, or say we'll get back to them if it isn't listed.
First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.
Why use it
Why teams use this automation
Local shops and suppliers get texts asking whether something is in stock or what it costs. Each one interrupts work, and the answer is usually already written in a stock sheet.
Answering straight from the catalogue sheet gives customers a quick, accurate reply, and keeping the sheet up to date is all it takes to keep the answers right.
What you get out of it
Quick answers
Customers get price and availability in seconds.
Always matches your sheet
Update a price or stock level and answers change with it.
Fewer interruptions
Routine questions no longer pull you away from customers in front of you.
Honest when unsure
If a product isn't listed, the customer is told someone will check.
How it works
What happens, step by step
A customer texts a question to your Twilio number.
It reads your product catalogue from the sheet.
AI finds the matching product and writes a short answer with price and availability, or says the team will check.
The answer is sent back to the customer by text.
Before it runs live
- Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use
- Connect Twilio
- Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings
What you get
Build your own
Need it to work differently?
Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.
Changes you can ask for
- Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
- Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
- Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
- Combine it with other Google Sheets and Twilio steps into one automation
Under the hood
The code that runs this automation
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from twilio.rest import Client
from clickruntime import on_event, credentials, http, ai
SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"
FROM = "+15005550006"
def sms(to, body):
return Client(credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"), credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")).messages.create(to=to, from_=FROM, body=body)
sheets = lambda: build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values()
@on_event
def handle(event):
f = event.json or {}
question = (f.get("Body") or "").strip()
if not question:
return {"skipped": "empty"}
rows = sheets().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Catalogue!A:D").execute().get("values", [])
catalogue = "\n".join(" | ".join(r) for r in rows)[:12000]
answer = ai.generate(question[:500], max_output_tokens=120,
system=f"Answer in under 300 characters using only this catalogue. If not listed, say we'll check and reply.\n{catalogue}").text
Client(credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID"), credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")).messages.create(
to=f["From"], from_=f["To"], body=answer.strip())
return {"answered": True}FAQ
Common questions
Does it work on WhatsApp too?
What should the catalogue sheet have?
How big can the catalogue be?
What permissions does it need?
Does it need AI?
How many runs does it use?
Can I change how it works?
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