Lead Capture: meet your visitors before the first message
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[← Back to blog](https://chatthing.ai/blog)Blog # Lead Capture is live: meet your visitors before the first message
Ella
8 May 2026
~ 3 min read
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Every chat on your website starts the same way.
A stranger arrives. They ask their question. Your agent answers. They leave.
You never find out who they were. They might have been your ideal customer. They might have been ready to buy. You will never know, because nothing asked.
That changes today.
### Meet your visitors before the first message
Lead Capture shows a short form to visitors before the chat opens. They fill in their name and email, or whatever your team actually needs to know, and then the conversation starts.
By the time they send their first message, you already know who they are.
### Your team knows who called
Every form submission is saved to the conversation. Open any chat in Chat Thing and the visitor's details are right there at the top, before the first message.
If you want those details in your CRM, your inbox, or your team's Slack channel, you can connect that too. It is optional, but it means your team can follow up the next morning knowing exactly who they spoke to, what they asked, and what they came in for.
### Ask for what you actually need
The default form asks for a name and an email. That is usually enough.
But if your team needs more, the company, the product they are asking about, a callback date, you can add those fields too. Drag to reorder. Mark the ones that matter as required.
There is also a short intro message you can put above the form. Use it to explain what the chat is for, set the right expectation, or just make people feel welcome before they fill anything in.
### Why asking up front works
Most teams try to capture emails at the end of a chat. A popup. A nudge. A "before you go" moment.
The conversion on those is brutal. The visitor got their answer and they are already on their way out.
Asking at the start works because the visitor is already here. They came to get help. Filling in a short form is not friction, it is an introduction. And when they do it, the whole conversation that follows is warmer, more personal, and easier to follow up on.
### Where this makes the biggest difference
If you sell anything with a sales process, demos, pricing questions, onboarding, Lead Capture means your team goes into every follow-up with context instead of a cold email address.
If you run a B2B site, knowing the company before the chat starts is the difference between a useful conversation and a polite one.
If you do lead generation, this replaces the popup form entirely. Same details. Better experience. And the visitor gets their questions answered on the way in.
### The honest caveat
Lead Capture is on the web channel for now. It does not work on WhatsApp, Slack, or Discord, those channels do not have a natural place for a form before the conversation starts. We will think about how this could work on other channels in the future.
### Privacy, kept simple
Visitors see the form before they share anything. Required fields are marked. The intro copy is yours to write, including any consent line your jurisdiction needs. Their details stay in your Chat Thing account and only go to the tools you choose to connect.
### Getting started
Live today on Pro and Business plans.
Go to your agent, open Channels, find the web channel settings, and turn on "Require a pre-chat form." Pick your fields. Save. The next visitor who opens your chat will see it.
### Related articles
[](https://chatthing.ai/blog/email-power-up) [Capture Leads with AI - The Email Power-up
](https://chatthing.ai/blog/email-power-up)
Every conversation your website agent has is a missed opportunity if it just disappears. The Email power-up changes that, letting your agent capture visitor details, flag bugs, and send conversation summaries straight to your team's inbox, no forms and no friction required.
[](https://chatthing.ai/blog/shareable-conversations) [Shareable Conversations: Every Chat Has a Link
](https://chatthing.ai/blog/shareable-conversations)
Every conversation in Chat Thing now has its own shareable link. Copy it straight from your browser or grab it with one click from the chat widget, then send it to anyone: no login required. Perfect for showing off a great agent response, debugging with your team, or documenting the Q&A threads worth keeping.
[](https://chatthing.ai/blog/chat-thing-mcp-server) [Chat Thing's MCP server is live: describe your agent, let AI build it
](https://chatthing.ai/blog/chat-thing-mcp-server)
Connect the Claude app, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client to Chat Thing. Describe what you want your agent to do and your AI builds it, tests it, fixes what's wrong, and keeps an eye on it once it's live. 47 tools, no terminal required.
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