Scaling fast is great…until your team struggles to keep up.
La Repa de Sueños, one of Costa Rica’s leading mattress companies, was expanding rapidly.
But this meant their sales team was too busy to catch their breath (or any ZZZs), while customers waited hours for a response. They craved faster, more personal interactions.
So La Repa, in partnership with their local marketing agency, TBS Marketing, turned to Manychat’s WhatsApp Automation and AI Step to set a reset button for their entire sales operations, from handling high-volume Black Friday sales to personalized mattress recommendations.
Here’s how they:
- Generated 9,000% ROI on WhatsApp with a smart Black Friday campaign
- Increased sales by 35% using customer interactions with AI
- Cut response times from a dismal 4 hours to a speedy 5 minutes
Part 1: Waking Up to a 9,000% ROI, or the Reward for Not Sleeping on Automation
The challenge
Before WhatsApp automation, La Repa’s sales team had a manual nightmare.
- Customers could respond to a campaign, asking about Black Friday deals
- Staff had to respond manually to every request
- Follow-ups were slow, leading to missed sales
“We refused to do a generic marketing campaign,” explains La Repa CMO and TBS Marketing CEO, Trilce Jiron Garro. “Past leads are your best future customers, but sending out a massive SMS feels impersonal and money-grabby. On a normal WhatsApp, we would’ve had to send a message lead by lead. With Manychat, we were able to overcome the scalability challenge.”
The goal
La Repa needed to:
- Turn past leads into paying customers with a snappy holiday campaign
- Automate WhatsApp messages while keeping it personal
- Drive Black Friday revenue without overloading the sales team
How it worked
Step 1: Create a high-converting WhatsApp template (that won’t put the audience to sleep)
Instead of sending a dry, impersonal mass text, La Repa:
- Created a 40-second personalized video inviting contacts to their Black Friday event
- Highlighted key selling points, like their 100-night sleep trial, old mattress removal, and exclusive discounts
- Kept it fun and engaging, even throwing in a joke about eggnog. Because who doesn’t love eggnog?
Step 2: Get the WhatsApp broadcast ready to send
La Repa created a WhatsApp template that Meta approved. It was sent to 11,800 contacts using Manychat’s Broadcasts feature.
WhatsApp Business API limits daily broadcasting according to your quality rating; La Repa had a limit of 10,000 messages per day.
So they used Manychat’s Randomizer and Smart Delay features to “group” their contacts into specific send times so they wouldn’t overwhelm the sales team, and were able to send the message within their daily limits.
Step 3: Give folks all the info they need
After the video, La Repa sent store hours and next steps so customers had all the information they needed.
They also included an opt-out option, where folks could reply “squash” to unsubscribe from WhatsApp broadcasts.
The results
- 9,000% ROI on this WhatsApp campaign
- Sales hit $85,000 (almost 300% above projections)
- Minimal opt-outs, only 88 out of 11,800 contacts unsubscribed
The campaign was so effective that La Repa had to bring in extra sales staff and stay open after hours.
Why this worked (and why you need it too)
The old way: A total snoozefest: Cold emails that would get lost in the inbox avalanche, mass texts that felt like spam, and slow WhatsApp replies sent leads straight to sleep.
The new way: A Black Friday sales event that was instant, personal, and impossible to ignore, where automation handled the follow-ups that made every customer feel like a VIP.
Swipe this strategy
Want to use WhatsApp automation for your next campaign? Try this:
- Make it personal. Use video (or audio) messages instead of plain ol’ texts.
- Use WhatsApp templates. Create your template, get it approved by Meta, and see how you can finally use the WhatsApp API to improve deliverability and scale your marketing campaigns.
- Time your messages right. Use Manychat’s Smart Delay to avoid message (or send limit) overload.
- Give an easy opt-out. Keep your audience engaged, not annoyed.
Part 2: Sweet Dreams, Sales Team 😴 AI Just Took Over the Night Shift
But the story doesn’t end there.
The challenge
La Repa’s sales process required a lot of back-and-forth.
Since no two people sleep the same way, their “sleep technicians” had to:
- Ask detailed questions about sleep habits, mattress preferences, and health concerns
- Manually respond to every inquiry
- Spend hours gathering info before even making a sale
It wasn’t scalable. And with response times stretching longer than an afternoon siesta, customers were checking out before they even checked out.
The goal
La Repa needed to:
- Automate pre-sales conversations while keeping them personal
- Gather key customer info fast
- Reduce the workload on the sales team so they could focus on closing deals
How it worked
Breaking it down step by step.
Step 1: Meet Julio, La Repa’s AI assistant
Instead of a generic chatbot, La Repa partnered with TBS Marketing to create Julio, their virtual sales rep, using Manychat’s AI Step for WhatsApp.
- Julio greeted customers, explained his role, and started a conversation
- Customers saw Julio as a real assistant; some even called him “Julito”, a nickname for Julio, and thanked him for asking the questions!
Step 2: Automating sales and repair inquiries
La Repa set up two AI workflows:
- For new mattress sales:
- Asked about size, firmness, and body type
- Explained why mattress weight matters for comfort
- Collected delivery location
- For mattress repairs:
- Checked mattress size and type
- Asked about firmness and back pain issues
- Collected location for same-day pickup
- Requested a photo for assessment
Step 3: Making handoffs to human sales reps easy
- Once Julio gathered key details, he summarized the conversation
- Sales reps got pre-qualified leads with all the necessary info upfront
- Julio made sure there were no more repetitive questions.
The results
In just one month, La Repa achieved:
- 35% increase in sales
- 90% less manual work for the sales team
- Response times dropped from 4 hours to just 5 minutes
- Over 3,000 automated interactions in one month
Why this worked (and why you need it, too)
The old way: Sales reps were stuck on repeat, while customers lost interest and stopped responding faster than you could hit snooze on your alarm.
The new way: Julio did the busywork, customers got answers instantly, and reps finally had time to close the deal without getting lost in the DMs.
Swipe this strategy
Here’s how:
- Identify common customer questions. What info do sales reps ask over and over?
- Use AI to pre-qualify leads. Gather key details before a human steps in.
- Be like Julio. Name your assistant, give them a personality, and build trust.
- Test, track, and tweak. Test different prompts and refine responses over time.
La Repa built a high-converting, hands-free sales machine on WhatsApp without overworking their team.
Now it’s your turn. Whether you’re gearing up for a peak sales period or drowning in daily DMs, automation can handle the grunt work while you scale your business.
Don’t sleep on this — your competition definitely won’t.
Here’s how you can get started with Manychat.
| Step 1: Sign up for Manychat (oh, did we mention it’s free?!) Join 1 million+ smart brands and sign up for a risk-free trial. No lock-in contracts here. | Step 2: Build your first automation (with a lil help)Choose from one of our ready-to-go templates and get it up and running faster than a “u up?” text from an ex. | Step 3: Secure the bag! 💅No, really. Get more sales from Instagram every time you post. |
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