Ask visitors for their details before they chat
Turn on a pre-chat form so visitors fill in their details - name, email, company, anything you need - before they can send their first message.
Who can do this: team owners and admins.
The form is part of the web channel, so it appears in the chat widget, iframe embeds and your bot's own page. It's available on every plan.
Steps
- Open your bot and select the Channels tab.
- Click the settings (cog) icon on the Web card.
- In the Pre-chat form section, turn on Require a pre-chat form.
- Optional: enter Intro copy, a short message shown above the form that explains why you're asking. Leave it blank to use the default.
- Add fields: click Add field and choose a field type. The form needs at least one field.
- Click a field to open its editor and set its options (see below). Drag the handle on the left of a field to change the order.
- Click Update settings.
Field types
| Type | What visitors get |
|---|---|
| Text | A short text box, for things like company name or job title |
| An email box that checks the address is valid | |
| Phone | A phone number box. No format is enforced. |
| Long text | A larger text box, for questions like "What are you trying to do?" |
| Select | A drop-down list. Add each option with a Value (required) and an optional Label shown to visitors. |
| Checkbox | A single on/off choice, for consent such as "I agree to be contacted" |
| Date | A date picker, for things like a preferred callback date |
Field options
Every field has:
- Label - the question shown above the field.
- Field type - one of the types above.
- Placeholder - example text shown inside the empty field.
- Help text - an optional hint shown under the field.
- Required - visitors must complete the field before they can start chatting.
Where the answers go
When a visitor submits the form, their answers are saved with the conversation as its user data:
- The bot can see them. The answers are given to the bot as context, so it can use the visitor's name or details in its replies.
- Your systems can receive them. Set up a webhook for when a conversation starts and read the
userDataobject in the payload. It has one entry per field.
Each answer is stored under a key made from the field's label: lower case, with spaces and punctuation replaced by underscores. For example, "Company name" becomes company_name. If you change a field's label, its key changes too, so settle on labels before you connect other systems to them.
Check it works
Click Open bot on your bot's dashboard. You should see your intro copy and the form. Fill it in and click Start chat; the normal chat should appear, ready for a message.
Troubleshooting
I can't save the settings
The form needs at least one field when Require a pre-chat form is on. A Select field also needs at least one option with a value. Two fields can't have the same key, so rename one of them if their labels are the same.
Returning visitors see the form again
Turn on Persist chat in the Widget behaviour section so a visitor's conversation carries over between visits on the same device.
Related
- Turn website visitors into leads with your bot
Set up a bot that answers buying questions, works out what visitors need, collects their details and sends each lead to your inbox, CRM or calendar.
- Webhooks
Send Chat Thing events such as new conversations, escalations and syncs to your own systems, Slack or Discord, and trigger data source syncs from a URL.
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