A contact form bot welcomes your visitors and asks a series of questions to collect their details through the chat widget on your website. It helps you identify your visitors to allow the sending of your replies by email if they leave your website, and to add them to your contact list. 

Good to know

• The contact form cannot be added to a chatbot scenario yet.
• If the contact form is optional, the default thanksForMessage bot phrase is displayed to welcome your visitor after their first message. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.

Step 1: Choose when to display the contact form bot

To access the contact form bot settings, click the account dropdown and select Settings > Inbox > Contact form.

You can configure the display of the contact form bot:

• When agents are online
• When agents are offline or invisible

🟢 When agents are online

The When agents are online feature allows you to collect details from your visitors before answering them. You can know your visitor better without spending too much time on contact details questions.

To choose when to display the contact form bot when agents are online, select one of the options from the drop-down list. Expand the corresponding accordions to learn more about each option:

Immediately, after the first message

Select Immediately, after the first message to display the contact form bot after receiving your visitor's first message. If you choose this option, the Get messages only once the contact form is filled box displays. You can either: 

• [Recommended] Make the contact form optional
  Deactivate the Get messages only once the contact form is filled option to directly receive your visitor's message and make the contact form optional when agents are online.
  This will allow any visitor to contact you whether they agree to give their details or not. 
  
  💡 Good to know

  Before the contact form is displayed, the beforeForm bot phrase asks visitors to introduce themselves. After that, the startOnline or startOnline_email bot phrase is displayed to visitors in the chat widget. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.
• Make the contact form mandatory 
  
  ❗️ Important

  This might discourage visitors who do not want to share their details to contact you and thus decrease your conversion rate. 
  Activate the Get messages only once the contact form is filled option to receive your visitor's message only after they filled out the contact form and make the contact form mandatory when agents are online.
  💡 Good to know

  The default startOnline_email or startOnline_required bot phrase is displayed to your visitors in the chat widget. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.

If agents delay a response

Select If agents delay a response to make the contact form optional and display it when agents are online but have exceeded the maximum time to respond to the visitor's message.
In the Waiting time text field, specify the delay time after which the bot will start. 

💡 Good to know

The default startOnline or startOnline_email bot phrase is displayed to your visitors in the chat widget. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.

Never

Select Never to deactivate the contact form bot when agents are online.

⚪️ When agents are offline or invisible

The When agents are offline or invisible feature is activated by default and sends the contact form automatically after your visitor's first message. 

You can either:

[Recommended] Make the contact form mandatory Make the contact form optional

Activate the Get offline messages only once the contact form is filled option to receive your visitor's message only after they filled out the contact form and make the contact form mandatory when agents are offline or invisible. 
This will help you reduce the number of messages received when you are offline allowing you to filter visitors who decided not to give their contact details.

💡 Good to know

The default startOffline_email or startOffline_required bot phrase is displayed to your visitors in the chat widget. At the end of the contact form, the default details bot phrase is displayed. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.

Deactivate the Get offline messages only once the contact form is filled option to directly receive your visitor's message and make the contact form optional when agents are offline or invisible.
If visitors do not fill in the contact form, they will only receive your answer if they go back to your website. 

💡 Good to know

Before the contact form is displayed, the beforeForm bot phrase asks visitors to introduce themselves. After that, the default startOffline or startOffline_email bot phrase is displayed to your visitors in the chat widget. To learn how to customize bot phrases, check our dedicated section in this article.

Step 2: Customize contact form fields

💡 Good to know

The First name, Last name, E-mail, and Phone Number fields are default fields and their names cannot be edited. 

When activated, the contact form bot displays a short form asking visitors for details such as their name and email address after they send their first message. You can choose which information you would like your visitors to fill in from the Form fields section.

Step 3: Visitors consent

It's important to know when and how to request your visitors' consent in your contact form. 

When should you ask your visitors' consent?

If you want to use your visitors' data for any purpose, you must inform them how and why you will use their data and even ask for their consent in specific situations:

• Collect only relevant information for clear, legitimate purposes.
  For example, you don’t need a visitor’s birth date to contact them.

• Always explain how and why you’ll use their data (e.g., for statistics, service quality, or newsletters).

• You’re responsible for the processing and sharing of your customers’ personal data.

Requesting consent to process personal data is mandatory. Consent must be freely given, specific, informed, explicit, and unambiguous.

To comply with GDPR, you can edit the visitors consent checkbox messages and bot phrases in your contact form so visitors clearly understand and explicitly agree to your data usage.

Edit bot phrases and consent messages	Contact form on visitors' side

How to request visitors' consent?

You can ask your visitors' consent directly by clicking the account dropdown and selecting Settings > Inbox > Contact form. From the Visitors consent section, you can decide whether to collect your visitors' consent for your terms and marketing communications, and provide additional details about how and why their data will be used in the corresponding text fields:

• Request consent to your terms

  Check this box to ask visitors if they agree to your terms and conditions and confirm that they have read your website's Privacy Policy/notice, or any other relevant legal documents. Your visitors will have to check this box to be able to send their message, it is mandatory. Edit the default message to paste the link to your Terms of Service page and to add any additional data collection information your visitors should consent to.

• Request consent to your marketing communications
  ❗️ Important

  If you do not check this box or if your visitors do not consent to receive your marketing communications, they will automatically be blocklisted and will not receive your email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns. However, if the visitor's details were already stored in your contact database, they will remain unchanged. 
  To learn more about blocklisted contacts, check our dedicated article FAQs - What are the different types of blocklisted contacts?.

  Check this box to ask visitors if they agree to receive your marketing emails. Your visitors can leave this box unchecked, it is optional. You can edit the default message.

Step 4: Customize bot phrases

Bot phrases are the automatic sentences that visitors receive through your chatbot. The type of bot phrase that appears depends on your status, whether the form is mandatory or not, and other factors.

If you want to use your visitors' data for any purpose, you must inform them how and why you will use their data and even ask for their consent in specific situations. You can edit the default bot phrases to add specific information on how and why you use your visitors' data. To learn more, check our dedicated section in this article.

What are bot phrases and how to customize them?

Bot phrases are filled in by default but you can also customize them. They are displayed in a specific order in your chatbot.

To customize bot phrases:

1. Click the account dropdown and select Settings > Inbox > Contact form.
2. At the bottom of the Contact form page, click 🔧  Bot phrases.
3. Edit the desired fields.
4. (Optional) To restore the default bot phrases, delete everything from the field and click somewhere outside it.

Understand bot phrases

The following table shows which bot phrase will appear in each situation:

thanksForMessage

startOnline

startOnline_required

startOnline_email

startOffline

startOffline_required

startOffline_email

beforeForm

afterForm

afterForm_email

details

🤔 Have a question?

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