How to Capture Leads From Your Website With an AI Chatbot

A contact form waits for a visitor who already decided to get in touch. A chatbot can ask while they are still reading, answer the question that was stopping them, and collect the details in the same conversation.

This guide builds that, end to end: a workflow that qualifies the visitor, collects their details, and delivers the lead to your inbox and to ClickUp.

Time: about an afternoon. You need: a Chatleadr account on Starter or above, and the widget installed.

1. Decide What a Lead Actually Is#

Before building anything, write down the smallest set of fields that lets you follow up properly. For most businesses that is three:

• A name.
• One way to reach them, either an email address or a phone number.
• What they want.

Every field beyond that lowers completion. A form asking for company size, budget, and a preferred contact time gets abandoned by visitors who would have answered the first three.

2. Give the Bot Something to Answer With#

A bot that collects details without answering anything is a form with extra steps. Before building the workflow, load the knowledge base with what people ask before they enquire:

• Pricing, or the ranges and what moves them.
• What you do and do not do.
• Areas served, lead times, delivery.
• The three questions your sales inbox answers every week.

Write these as facts, not as instructions to the bot. See knowledge is not instructions.

3. Build the Lead Capture Workflow#

In the dashboard, open the bot and create a workflow. The workflow is four nodes.

Connect the Form node's error port to a Message node as well. A visitor who abandons the form should not leave the workflow hanging silently.

4. Write the Description That Makes It Fire#

The description is the only input to the assistant's decision to run this workflow, so it decides whether any of the above ever happens.

Collects a visitor's name, email address and enquiry so the sales team can
follow up, and confirms when they will hear back.

USE WHEN the visitor asks to be contacted, asks for a quote, asks someone to
call them, or says they want to discuss a project.
DO NOT USE for general questions about pricing, delivery or availability.
Answer those from the knowledge base instead.

The DO NOT USE line does most of the work here. Without it, this workflow fires on "how much is delivery?" and asks a visitor for their details when they wanted a number.

5. Send the Lead Somewhere You Will See It#

Configure delivery in the bot's lead settings, so a captured lead reaches somebody:

• Email notification. Available on Starter and above. Goes to any address you set, in real time.
• ClickUp sync. Available on Growth and above. Creates a task in the list you choose, with the captured fields mapped onto it.
• The leads table. Always on, with tagging and CSV export.

Map the form's field keys onto the lead fields. If a workflow dispatches a lead without setting the fields your configuration expects, the editor warns on save. Unset fields arrive as "Not provided".

6. Test It Like a Visitor#

Open the site in a private window and try the three phrasings that matter:

1. The obvious one. "Can someone call me about a quote?" Should trigger.
2. The oblique one. "im looking at redoing my patio, who do i speak to". Should trigger.
3. The one that must not. "how much is delivery to bloem?" Should be answered from the knowledge base, not trigger.

If the third one triggers the workflow, tighten the DO NOT USE line. If the second does not, widen the USE WHEN line with the phrasing a real visitor used.

7. Put the Conversation Where the Intent Is#

The widget waits to be clicked. On the pages where someone is closest to enquiring, put a button that opens the chat with the question already asked:

<button type="button" id="ask-quote">Request a Quote</button>

<script>
  function whenReady(fn) {
    if (window.Chatleadr) { fn(); }
    else { window.addEventListener('chatleadr-ready', fn, { once: true }); }
  }

  whenReady(function () {
    document.querySelector('#ask-quote').addEventListener('click', function () {
      window.Chatleadr.sendMessage('I would like a quote for a patio installation.');
    });
  });
</script>

The message goes through normal workflow matching, so word it the way a visitor would. See web controls for the full API.

8. Read the First Twenty Leads#

Read the first twenty leads and adjust:

• Are the enquiry fields usable? If they say "info", the question in the form is too vague.
• Which pages produce leads? If one page produces most of them, that is where the button belongs.
• Where did people stop? The execution log shows which node each run reached. A pile of runs ending at the Form node means the form is too long.

Common Questions#

How Many Fields Should a Lead Capture Form Have?#

Three, in most cases: a name, one contact method, and what they want. Every extra field costs completions, and a lead with a name and an email address is already enough to follow up. Add a fourth only when you can name what you will do differently because of it.

Should the Chatbot Ask for a Phone Number or an Email Address?#

Ask for whichever one you reply on. Requesting both lowers completion and usually earns one real value and one thrown-away one. For trades and services, follow-up usually happens on WhatsApp, so a phone number is the more useful of the two.

Will the Bot Capture Leads Outside Business Hours?#

Yes. That is most of the value: the enquiries arriving at 21:00 on a Saturday get answered and captured rather than lost, and land in your inbox for Monday.

What Happens If a Visitor Abandons the Form Halfway?#

The workflow waits an hour, then continues down the Form node's error port. Connect that port to a Message node so the visitor gets a reply rather than silence, and so the run ends cleanly in the log.

Do Captured Leads Count Against My Conversation Allowance?#

Leads are not charged. The conversation that produced the lead is, once when it starts and again for each hour it stays active. See what counts as a conversation.

Related#

• How a lead is captured
• My lead did not arrive
• Take bookings from the chat
• Set up a WhatsApp chatbot