Lead collection lets your chatbot capture visitor contact details - name, email, and phone number - so you can follow up with potential customers. Every captured contact lands in your bot's Leads tab, and you can optionally get an email each time a lead arrives.
If you have not created a chatbot yet, see how to create your first chatbot first.
Where to find lead collection settings
Select your chatbot, click the Settings tab, then select Lead Collection in the left sidebar.
Enable lead collection
Toggle on Collect leads at the top of the page. When enabled, the configuration sections appear below. Changes on this page are saved automatically - a "Saved" indicator appears in the header after each change.
Form shown to the visitor
The Form card at the top of the settings decides which form your chatbot presents to visitors. Open the Form shown to the visitor dropdown to choose:
- Built-in form (name, email, phone) - the default. A simple form with name, email, and phone fields, configured in the Fields to Collect section below.
- A custom form - any custom form you have built under Settings > Forms appears here by name. Custom forms let you add extra fields (dates, choices, file uploads, and more) and split long forms into multiple steps. See the Custom Forms article for how to build one.
- + Create a new custom lead collection form... - a shortcut that takes you straight to the form builder with a lead-form template.
Only custom forms that contain a Name field and an Email or Phone field are listed - lead collection needs a way to contact the visitor. When you select a custom form, the lead's name, email, and phone are mapped automatically from the first Name, Email, and Phone fields of that form, and the field labels, the encouragement message, and the thank-you message all come from the form itself. The Fields to Collect section is hidden in that case. Everything the visitor submits is stored with the lead and shown in the Form data column of the Leads tab.
Custom forms are available as a premium feature - if your plan does not include them, the Form card is not shown and your chatbot uses the built-in form.
Fields to collect
When the built-in form is selected, choose which contact details to capture by toggling each field on or off:
- Collect name - visitor's name
- Collect email - visitor's email address
- Collect phone - visitor's phone number
Each field has a customizable Label that appears on the form. At least one of email or phone must be enabled.
Messages
- Message encouraging user to leave details - the text displayed above the lead collection form. Supports markdown for links.
- "Thank you" message after submitting the form - the confirmation message shown after the visitor submits their details. Supports markdown.
When a custom form is selected, these messages come from the form builder instead and this section does not apply.
Form trigger
Toggle Require user to fill the form at conversation start to display the lead collection form before the visitor can begin chatting. When enabled, the form appears immediately when the chat opens and must be completed before the conversation can continue.
For more advanced trigger options, see AI-powered lead collection actions below.
Notification
Enable Email me when lead collected to receive an email each time a visitor submits their contact details.
- Enter one or more notification email addresses (comma-separated). By default this is your account email.
- Toggle Include conversation content in email to receive the full chat transcript along with the lead details.
AI-powered lead collection actions
In addition to requiring the form at conversation start, you can configure AI-powered triggers in Settings > Actions. Click Lead collection in the Filter by Platform panel to see the available options (the Manage lead actions button at the bottom of the Lead Collection settings takes you to the same place):
- Lead collection after x messages - automatically displays the lead collection form after a specified number of messages in the conversation.
- AI driven lead collection - uses AI to detect the best moment during a conversation to ask for contact details. You can customize the detection prompt with your own instructions.
- Smart AI lead detection - records contact details in the background when the visitor mentions them naturally in the conversation (for example typing their email while asking a question), without displaying a form. This action is not available when Require user to fill the form at conversation start is enabled - the form already collects the details up front.
How lead collection looks to visitors
When the lead collection form is triggered, visitors see a form inside the chat widget asking for their contact details. They fill in the fields and click OK to submit, then see your thank-you message.
You can try this yourself in the Overview tab, which shows a live test version of your chatbot.
Viewing collected leads
Select your chatbot and click the Leads tab. The leads table shows all collected contact details with the following columns:
- Name, Email, Phone - the contact details provided by the visitor (column headers match your configured field labels)
- Collected - date and time the lead was captured
- Entry point - the page URL or channel where the visitor interacted with the chatbot
- Form data - for leads collected through a custom form, every submitted field and its value
- Conversation - a button to open the full conversation associated with that lead
Use the date range picker to filter leads by time period. Click the download button to export the displayed leads as a CSV file.
Privacy policy consent
You can require visitors to accept a privacy policy before submitting the lead collection form. This is configured separately in Settings > Consent & Privacy - toggle on Require Privacy Policy consent for lead collection and provide a consent label with a link to your policy.