Collect contact details and other data during a conversation: what to collect, when and how the AI Agent asks for it, and where the captured details go.
Smart Data Gathering allows your AI Agent to collect user information seamlessly during conversations. It engages with users naturally, asking relevant questions to gather details like name, email, phone number, or any other information you require. This data can then be sent to your CRM or other systems, enabling you to follow up effectively and convert potential leads into customers.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”Smart Data Gathering operates within the existing conversation flow, ensuring that the interaction feels natural and non-intrusive.
When a user interacts with your AI Agent, it:
- Detects opportunities to collect information, such as when a user expresses interest in your services or products.
- Asks specific questions tailored to your needs, like:
- “Can I have your name to better assist you?”
- “What’s the best email to contact you on?”
- Gathers and stores the responses, making them available for review or integration with your CRM system.
The feature is designed to minimize friction while maximizing the quality of leads captured.
Setting it up
Section titled “Setting it up”Enable Smart Data Gathering
Section titled “Enable Smart Data Gathering”- Navigate to the Actions & MCPs tab
- Find Smart Data Gathering card
- Toggle the feature on
Data to Collect
Section titled “Data to Collect”Configure up to 10 data points. Each row contains:
- Data point: A short name for the captured value, such as
Email,Name, orBudget. - Question to ask: The question you want the AI Agent to ask, written the way you would say it, such as
What is your job title?. - Format or example values: Guidance that helps the AI Agent recognize a useful answer, such as
0-10 | 10-50 | 50-100 | 100+. - Enabled: Whether the AI Agent should collect this data point.
New actions start with Email and Name enabled. Phone number, Budget and Company size are included as disabled examples. Enable any of them, reword their questions, or add your own rows.
Why You’re Collecting It
Section titled “Why You’re Collecting It”Reason for collecting information tells the AI Agent what the details are for, and who is worth asking. The text goes into the conversation instructions, so the AI Agent can give the reason when it asks, and leave alone the visitors it does not apply to.
One or two sentences, up to 500 characters. For example:
To send you a personalised quote and follow up on your order.So our team can follow up with setup help. Only ask visitors evaluating us for a real business or project: they describe their own site or use case, ask about pricing, or want a demo.
The second one also sets a bar. If you only want qualified leads, say here who counts as one, rather than collecting an address from everybody.
When to Ask for Data
Section titled “When to Ask for Data”Define when the AI Agent should ask for contact details.
- After exchanging a few messages
- Immediately after the user expresses interest
New actions start with After exchanging a few messages selected, which also keeps the AI Agent from asking on a greeting or an opening message that says nothing about the visitor. Immediately after the user expresses interest asks at the first opportunity, so pick it only when every visitor is worth asking.
How to Ask for Data
Section titled “How to Ask for Data”Customize how the AI Agent asks for information.
- Subtle: Integrates questions naturally into the conversation
- Direct: Explicitly requests the information in a straightforward manner
What the AI Agent Will Not Do
Section titled “What the AI Agent Will Not Do”Some rules hold for every action, whatever you configure:
- It answers first. The question comes after the answer, never instead of it, and an answer is never made conditional on getting the details.
- It does not ask for something it already has. If your site or app already passes the visitor’s name, email or phone number to the AI Agent, it will not ask for them again.
- It stops when someone declines. A visitor who says no is not asked again for the rest of the conversation, for any of your data points. If they offer the detail later anyway, it is still captured.
- It does not ask at a bad moment. Never in the same reply as a refusal, and never when the conversation is off-topic or abusive.
Smart Lead Generation enables your AI Agent to collect user contact details efficiently while ensuring compliance and providing a seamless conversational experience.
Using the details in Actions
Section titled “Using the details in Actions”Every data point is also available to your API Actions as a variable, such as {{metadata_budget}}, with contact details under {{metadata_visitor_email}}, {{metadata_visitor_name}} and {{metadata_visitor_phone_number}}. When the AI Agent captures an email, name or phone number the conversation didn’t have yet, it also sets lead_captured to true.
To send each new lead to your CRM or a Slack channel, set an API Action to When metadata matches, add the Run when condition lead_captured is true, and put the variables in its request body. See AI Action Variables for how names become variables and which ones are reserved.
Exporting the captured contact details
Section titled “Exporting the captured contact details”Follow these steps to export the details captured by your AI Agent:
- Go to the Inbox
- Click the export file icon to access export options.
- Select Export Gathered Data from the dropdown menu.
- Set Date Range: Specify the start and end dates for the data you want to export.
- Choose Format: Select the file format for your export (CSV, XLSX).
- Download: Click Download to save the exported data to your computer.