Pre-chat form or capture_lead: when to ask
Lead generation lives or dies on timing. SiteTrellis gives you two collection methods, and the choice changes who sees what. Read the lead capture reference for every field; this table is the decision.
| Pre-chat form | capture_lead in the conversation | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | You: every visitor sees it | The agent, guided by your instructions |
| When it appears | Before the first message | After the visitor shows interest |
| Cost to the visitor | A gate before any help | One friendly question mid-chat |
| Suits | Gated chats, support that must know who is writing | Enquiries, quotes, demos, “call me back” |
| Risk | Visitors leave rather than fill it in | The agent asks too early or too often |
For most lead generation, use the tool and leave the form off, or make it optional. A visitor who has just received a useful answer gives an email address far more readily than one facing a form. The AI chatbot lead capture guide compares the patterns in more depth.
Qualifying questions that earn their place
Every extra required field costs you leads. Ask for the minimum your team needs to decide who calls first: a way to reply plus one qualifier. Here is a field set for an invented garden-design firm; the budget field is a select so the answers are comparable.
name text optional
email email required
project select optional Garden redesign | Patio or decking | Planting only | Not sure yet
budget select optional Under 5k | 5k to 15k | Over 15k | Prefer to discuss
timeline text optional "When would you like work to start?"Make only the email required. Optional fields still get filled in when the conversation flows, and the agent will not push for what the visitor skips. Validation happens on the server, so a malformed email is returned to the agent, which asks the visitor to correct it.
What the exchange looks like
Do you build patios? I have a small back garden.
Yes, patios and decking are part of our work, and small gardens are common. A site visit is free and lets the designer give a proper quote.
Ok. Can someone call me?
Of course. What name and email should they use? A phone number is optional.
Jo Marsh, [email protected]
Thanks, Jo. The design team will email you within one working day to arrange a visit.
Notice what is missing: the agent did not interrogate. It answered first, offered a person when the visitor asked for one, and asked for two things.
Instructions that stop it nagging
The lead capture instructions field (up to 1,000 characters) is where timing is set. Be specific about the trigger and about when not to ask.
Offer to take the visitor's details when they ask for a quote, a site visit or a call, or when
they ask about timing. Ask for name and email in one friendly message. Ask at most once per
conversation. Never ask before you have answered their first question. If they decline, carry on
helping and do not raise it again. After saving, say what happens next and by when.- Tell the agent never to quote prices that are not in the knowledge; a lead who was promised a number you do not honour is worse than no lead.
- Turn on the built-in
show_linktool if you want a “Book a site visit” button as an alternative to leaving details. - If someone is online, an escalation rule for “buy”, “quote” and “today” can hand a ready visitor to a person instead of a form.
Notifications, speed and webhooks to your CRM
Add up to 10 notification addresses and each new lead is emailed once. On Starter and above you can also subscribe a signed webhook to lead.captured. There is no native CRM connector: the webhook posts JSON to a URL you control, or to an automation service that writes the row for you. The payload looks like this:
{
"event": "lead.captured",
"site": { "name": "Northgate Gardens" },
"data": {
"lead_id": 42,
"conversation_id": "conv_example",
"fields": { "name": "Jo Marsh", "email": "[email protected]", "project": "Patio or decking" }
}
}Verify the signature, return a 2xx quickly and ignore duplicates; see webhooks and signature verification. Without a webhook, the leads list has statuses (new, contacted, qualified, closed), notes and a CSV export.
Consent and privacy basics
- Say why you are asking and what happens next, in the agent’s own words.
- Collect only what you will use. Do not ask for card numbers, passwords or health information.
- Use the widget’s consent text, or require consent before chatting, if your privacy notice needs it.
- Tell visitors that an AI answers, that chats are stored, and that the text goes to your AI provider.
- Know how to delete a lead on request, and how long your plan keeps history.
This is general information, not legal advice. Take advice for your jurisdiction. More in security and privacy.
What to measure afterwards
- Leads per hundred conversations, counted from the leads list against your conversation count. Track your own trend; we publish no benchmark.
- The share of leads your team actually contacted, and how long that took.
- Which questions came just before a visitor left without sharing details.
- Lead status movement from new to qualified, by the field you asked (for example budget).
Playground tests never create real leads, so test capture on the live widget once before you trust it.
Honest limits
The agent can misjudge interest or ask at the wrong moment, so read early transcripts. Knowledge is pasted text with no crawler, there is no voice or WhatsApp channel, and CRM sync goes through webhooks or your own automation. Post-chat analysis on Pro and above summarises each finished chat and can extract fields such as a budget, but SiteTrellis does not score leads, so read them yourself. For the support side of the same site, see customer support; for scheduling, appointment booking; for property businesses, real estate.