How to capture leads from website chat

1. Build the form

1. Open Actions in the dashboard and click New form. Or click Browse templates and start from Contact us, Quote request or Callback request.
2. Under Basics, set the Purpose to Lead. A Lead form creates a row in Leads and emails your team. Request and Info forms are saved in Submissions only.
3. Give it a Form title and Button text.
4. Under Fields, click Add field for each thing you need. Types include Text, Email, Phone, Email or phone, Long text, Dropdown and Date. Mark what is Required.
5. Click Save changes, and make sure Enabled is on.

Name, email, phone, company and message fields also fill the lead's own details, so you see them in the Leads table. Use Email or phone when you don't mind which the visitor gives: it fills whichever they type.

2. Choose when the agent shows it

You don't schedule a pop-up. Under When should the agent show it?, you write in plain language when the form fits, and the agent decides from the conversation. The agent also fills in what the visitor already said, so they check and add the rest.

• Quote form: "When someone asks what a project would cost or wants a quote."
• Callback form: "When someone wants to talk to a person or asks to be called."
• Contact form: shown when the agent can't find an answer, and when your message credits run out, so a visitor with a question you can't answer yet still reaches you.

Good timing is after the agent has helped, not before. A visitor who just got a price is ready to ask for a quote. A visitor who has asked nothing yet is not. Use Try in Playground to test the phrase: ask a question that should trigger the form and see if it appears.

Paid plans can also let visitors book a meeting from the chat (Cal.com or Google Calendar). That suits sales calls and demos better than a form.

3. Send leads where your team works

Every submission is saved in Submissions, and every lead in Leads. To also send them elsewhere, add a destination.

1. Open Integrations and click Add destination.
2. Pick a type: Email (up to 5 addresses), Webhook, Slack, Telegram or HubSpot.
3. Fill in what it asks. Email needs the addresses. Slack and HubSpot ask you to sign in and pick a channel or account. Telegram gives you a bot to add to your group.
4. Under Send these events, choose New lead, Form submitted, or both. Click Send test to check it works, then Save destination.
5. Back in your form, under Send to, turn on the destination.

• Email: the quickest start. Also turn on Settings › Notifications › New lead for an email the moment someone leaves their details.
• Slack or Telegram: a message in a channel your team already reads all day.
• HubSpot: creates or updates the contact and adds a note with the conversation's details.
• Webhook: sends JSON to your own server, or to Zapier, Make or n8n, which can add the lead to Google Sheets, a CRM or WhatsApp. Requests are signed so your server can check they came from us.

If a destination keeps failing, we pause it, email the owners and send what's waiting once it works again.

4. Follow up

The Leads page lists each lead with its status (New, then Won or Lost), the intent the agent noted, the first page the visitor saw and a link to the whole conversation. Search, filter by status and click Export CSV to take them elsewhere.

Speed matters more than anything else you set up. Reply within an hour while the visitor still remembers asking. If your team can join live, open Conversations and click Take over to reply in the chat.

Three setups that work

Forms are most useful when each has one clear job. Here are three common setups, each built from the steps above.

• A services business: one Quote request form, shown when someone asks what a job would cost. Send new leads to email and a Slack channel so the first person free picks it up.
• A clinic or lab: one Callback request form with Name, Phone and a preferred time, shown when someone wants to book or talk to a person. Send it to the front desk's email or a Telegram group.
• A software company: a Contact us form for sales questions and a Request form for support. Sending sales leads to HubSpot keeps them in the CRM your team already uses, and the support form's submissions stay in Submissions.

Whichever you pick, start with one form and one destination. Look at the first ten leads, see what the agent wrote under intent, and then change the form's wording or the when-to-show sentence. Small changes to that sentence move the number of leads more than any other setting.

A short checklist

• One lead form with a clear purpose, two or three fields.
• A when-to-show sentence you tested in Playground.
• At least one destination your team reads daily.
• The New lead email on.
• A weekly look at Leads and at the Unanswered questions list: unanswered questions are often leads lost.

ReplyBash has a free plan with one form (the contact form); paid plans add more forms, booking and Shopify. See pricing, or start free. For setting up what the agent knows first, read how to train a chatbot on your website.