Leads

Some visitors would rather be contacted than keep asking. The chat can ask them for their details in a short form, and each lead reaches you by e-mail and on the Leads page of the agent. It is part of every plan from Starter up.

Switching it on#

Under Settings on the agent, in the card Contact details, switch on Ask visitors for their contact details. The form needs two things before it can be saved:

• Your privacy notice: the address of your own privacy notice, starting with https://. The form links to it beside its button.
• An e-mail address or a phone number among the details it asks, so that the visitor can be answered.

What it asks#

What the form asks sets name, e-mail, phone and company, each Not asked, Optional or Required. By default the form asks for an e-mail address and nothing else. Every extra field costs a share of the visitors who would have sent the form, so ask only for what you will use.

Introduction and Thank-you are your own words, up to 300 characters each. Left empty, the widget uses a standard line in its own language. Above its button the form always says who receives the details and what for, and links to your privacy notice.

When it appears#

When is one of two:

• Before the first message: the form takes the place of the message box. With Visitors may skip it switched on, a visitor can skip it and ask straight away; switched off, they have to leave their details before they can ask anything.
• During the conversation, at the moments you switch on:
  • After this many questions: after the visitor's question with that number, up to 10. 0 is off.
  • After an answer that may have missed: after an answer your sources had little for, with a confidence below 50, offering to be contacted instead. See Confidence and grounding.
  • A button to leave details: a button under the conversation, there whenever the visitor wants it.

The form comes by itself at most once in a conversation. "Not now" and "Skip" are remembered, after a reload too; the button stays for a visitor who changes their mind.

The agent never sees the details. It is told only that the visitor left them, so that it does not ask for them again.

News and offers#

Tick box for news and offers adds a second box to the form, never ticked in advance, with your own words or a standard line. Only visitors who tick it may be sent marketing. Whether they did is kept with the lead.

Where leads go#

• Leads, on the agent: newest first, each with a link to its conversation, the page it was left on, and whether the visitor wants news and offers. Where a visitor gave a business address and no company, the address's domain is shown as a hint of the company. An address at a mailbox provider such as gmail.com says nothing about an employer and is left alone.
• Export CSV: every lead, up to 5,000, with the words each visitor was shown and when. That is the record of what they agreed to, for your own files. A value that a spreadsheet would read as a formula is written so that it stays text.
• E-mail: each lead is mailed to you, the workspace's owner, and to up to 5 more addresses under Who is e-mailed each lead. An address you add receives nothing until it confirms through a link we mail it, and every mail after that lets it stop. Replying to the mail about a lead writes to the visitor. Nothing a visitor typed goes in a subject line. The mails come in your workspace's name, from your own address once you have set one up under Your own domain.
• Activity marks a conversation in which the visitor left their details. See Activity.
• The API and the MCP server can list, read and delete leads. Who is e-mailed can only be changed in the dashboard.

No mail about a lead is ever sent to the address the visitor typed.

Leads and tickets#

With tickets switched on as well:

• When the ticket card and the form could both follow the same answer, the ticket card does.
• The form is not offered in a conversation that has a ticket: your team has the visitor's address already.
• By default, each ticket and each reply to one is e-mailed to you and to the addresses under Who is e-mailed each lead. The ticket settings can name other addresses instead.

How long they are kept#

3 years from when they were left, and then they are deleted by themselves. You delete one sooner with Delete on the Leads page, or by deleting its conversation, which takes its lead with it. Deleting the agent deletes its leads.

A visitor who asks to be forgotten: find their lead on the Leads page, then delete the lead and its conversation.

Limits that protect you#

• One lead per conversation.
• At most 200 leads per agent per day.
• At most 10 mails about single leads per agent per hour. Any more in that hour arrive together in one mail after it.
• The same limit per visitor as the chat's messages, counted on its own.

What the law asks of you#

Not legal advice: check with whoever advises you. What we understand the rules to ask:

• Your privacy notice says what you do with the details and how long you keep them. The form links to it.
• Marketing e-mail goes only to visitors who ticked the box.
• When you use the details for marketing, your first message to the visitor says they can object to it.
• In Belgium, a phone number is checked against the "Bel me niet meer" list before a sales call.
• There is no data processing agreement to sign in the product yet. Data and privacy says how to ask for one.

Plans#

From Starter up. After a move below it, the form stops appearing; the leads already left can still be read, exported and deleted, and are still deleted after 3 years. While an agent is paused it takes no leads, as it answers no questions.