How do I ask visitors for their details before they start chatting?

A pre-chat form is a short set of questions a visitor fills in before the conversation starts, for example their name, email, or phone number. This is only available for website chat inboxes.

This is one of two ways to get a visitor's contact details. Turn the form on and they fill it in before typing a word; leave it off and the chat opens straight away, with the AI asking for the details inside the conversation instead, plus a gentle reminder if they try to leave without giving them. You do not get both at once, and with the form off, normally nobody is asked twice. One exception: if the AI later hands the conversation to your team and there is still no way to reach that visitor, it asks once more for an email, even if it already asked earlier in the same conversation, because a person is now needed and nobody could otherwise reach them. Turning the form on switches off every one of these in-conversation asks, including that one. See When does the AI answer, and when does it hand the conversation to me?

Turn it on

1. Go to Settings, then Channels, then Connections, and open your website chat inbox.
2. Go to its Pre chat form tab.
3. Check "Show the form before the chat starts".
4. Optionally write a short message that appears above the form.
5. Click Save changes.

Visitors see the updated form the next time the widget loads on your site.

Add and edit fields

1. Click Add field.
2. Set its label, what the visitor sees, its key, an internal name, and its type: text, email, or phone.
3. Check "Visitors must fill this in" for anything you do not want them skipping.
4. Use the up and down arrows to reorder fields; the order here is the order visitors see.

You can have up to 10 fields. A form turned on with no fields added cannot be saved: add at least one, or turn the form off.

Required fields are enforced when the conversation is actually created, not just as a hint in the browser, so a visitor cannot route around it by editing the page.

Where the answers go

• The first email field a visitor fills in becomes the contact's email, and the first phone field becomes the contact's phone number.
• Every answer, including your own extra questions, is listed in a private note at the top of the conversation. Only your team sees it; the visitor never does.

If an answer does not look like a real email address or phone number, it is not saved on the contact, but you still see it in the note. If another contact already has that email or phone number, it stays with that contact, and this conversation keeps its own record.

Turn it off

Uncheck "Show the form before the chat starts" and save. Your fields stay saved for next time; nothing is deleted.