A useful lead-qualification chatbot collects the few details your team needs to respond: what the visitor needs, when they hope to start, and how they prefer to be contacted. Keep the intake short, let people explain unusual requests, and state what happens next without promising a booking, a lead score, or a response time you cannot support.
Define the job before writing questions
Start with the response your team wants to make after reading an inquiry. Do you need to understand which service the visitor is asking about? Is timing important for deciding what to say next? What contact detail is necessary for a reply? Write down the answers before adding questions.
For a general business inquiry, a minimal intake usually needs three pieces of information:
- Business need: What does the visitor want help with?
- Timeline: When are they hoping to begin or get help?
- Contact: What is their preferred contact method, and what detail is needed to use it?
The word “usually” matters: your team’s actual first response should determine what belongs in the intake. If a detail will not change that response, consider leaving it out. Avoid collecting extra personal details just in case, or asking questions intended to infer personal traits or willingness to pay.
Write a simple completion rule for your team, such as: “We can review an inquiry when we understand the request, have a rough timeline, and know how the visitor wants us to follow up.” This is a planning rule, not an automatic qualification score. It helps you keep the questions tied to a useful next step.
Draft the three questions
Ask about the need first. Prefer everyday language over internal service names, and include a way to describe a request that does not fit a list. For example: “What would you like help with? Choose a service or describe something else.” If you use options, make sure visitors can still explain their own situation.
Next, ask about timing in a way that does not imply urgency earns priority or that a particular date is available. For example: “When are you hoping to get started: soon, in the next few months, later, or are you still exploring?” Choose ranges that make sense for your work. Include an unsure option rather than asking people to guess.
Then ask for the minimum contact information your team needs. For example: “What is the best way for us to follow up? Share an email address or another contact method you prefer.” Explain what you will use the detail for. If a phone number is not necessary, do not make it a required field by default.
These are sample prompts, not a script that fits every business. Adjust them to match the services you offer and the words your visitors use. Do not nudge a visitor toward the answer that sounds most attractive to your team; the purpose is to understand the request well enough to respond appropriately.
Decide what follow-up you can honestly promise
Before writing the closing message, decide who reviews inquiries and what they actually do next. Is a person checking each submission? Is the visitor expected to hear back by email, or will your team decide which contact method to use? Only describe a process that your business has chosen and can support.
For instance, if a person reviews each request but no appointment is arranged through the chat, a closing message could say: “Thanks. We’ll review your request and follow up using the contact method you provided. This chat has not booked an appointment.” Adapt the wording to your real process. If you cannot reliably meet a particular response time, do not put that deadline in the message.
Plan for common exceptions too. What should the chatbot say if a visitor is only exploring, asks for something outside your services, or declines to share contact information? Acknowledge the answer and explain an appropriate next step. Do not keep asking for a detail after the visitor has declined to provide it.
Map the intake from welcome to next step
Sketch the conversation in this order before configuring it:
- Welcome the visitor and say what the intake can help with.
- Ask what business need they have.
- Ask about timing, with an option for people who are unsure or exploring.
- Ask for a preferred contact method and the minimum information needed to use it.
- Explain who reviews the inquiry and what the visitor should expect next.
For every question, note why your team needs the answer. If you cannot give a practical reason, remove the question or make it optional. Keep the path clear for a request that does not fit the usual categories, and avoid wording that suggests the chatbot has booked a meeting, created a CRM record, or scored the inquiry unless you have separately verified that action.
Owners can ask the Architect to change Agent instructions, appearance and workflow in conversation. Those changes remain drafts until the owner publishes them. The Architect can change the text or label of one existing workflow step without rebuilding the rest of the flow. Workflow changes restart the draft preview conversation. After a workflow edit, review the preview again to check that the question still makes sense and the following message sets the right expectation.
Use this inquiry worksheet
Fill this in before finalizing the conversation:
- Need: What would the visitor say that lets your team understand the request?
- Timeline: Which ranges are useful, and how can someone say they are unsure?
- Contact: What is the minimum detail needed for follow-up? Have you said why you are asking?
- Review: Who will look at the inquiry, and what will they do next?
- Exception: What can a visitor do if the request is outside your usual services or they do not want to share contact details?
- Closing message: Does it describe a real next step without implying a guaranteed reply time, booking, or qualification result?
Use an illustrative inquiry to check whether the fields are enough: a visitor wants help updating a company website, hopes to begin next month, and prefers an email reply. The intake now gives a person the request, rough timing, and contact preference. It does not establish whether the work is a fit, confirm a price, or book a project. Those decisions belong to your actual follow-up process.
Now check three different paths: someone who is still exploring, someone with an unusual request, and someone who declines to provide contact details. Write down what the chatbot should say at the end of each path. The response should be respectful and useful, even when the visitor does not complete every field.
Include a route to a person
Decide how a visitor can ask for human help if the intake does not address their request. Authorized Workspace members can take over a conversation and reply as a human. Waiting or human-takeover conversations do not receive an AI response from the widget. Human handover is a route for help, not a response-time guarantee.
Tell visitors how to request a person, and avoid implying that someone is immediately available unless your business can support that expectation. For related setup considerations, see the human handover feature and the guide to setting up chatbot-to-human handover. For an industry-specific example of inquiry capture, see the real estate chatbot guide.
Review the conversation before publishing
Read the full intake as a first-time visitor. Can you understand each question without knowing your internal terminology? Is it clear which details are optional? Does the closing message match your real follow-up process? Remove unnecessary questions and revise any wording that sounds like a promise your team has not made.
Owners can ask the Architect to change Agent instructions, appearance and workflow in conversation. Those changes remain drafts until the owner publishes them. Check the revised conversation in the preview, including the exception paths, before deciding whether it is ready to publish.
After launch, keep the message aligned with your actual process. If the person reviewing requests or the next step changes, revisit the relevant wording. A focused intake gives your team useful context and gives visitors an honest account of what happens next; it does not guarantee conversion or replace the judgment involved in following up.
Example intake and the resulting record
For a fictional web-design service, ask: “What are you building?”, “When do you want to launch?”, and “How should our team follow up?” Example answers: “A five-page restaurant site”, “Next month”, and “Email after we confirm the scope.” The useful record is the project type, timeframe, preferred contact route, and any unanswered requirement, not an invented qualification score.
Keep “I already have an account and need help” as a support route. Inspect the saved conversation after submission; if a CRM record is required, verify the receiving record separately. The HubSpot comparison provides a field-mapping example. Apply the same intake design to real-estate enquiries or construction requests.