Working with Leads
A lead is a customer who left an email address or a phone number in one of your chats: website chat, Messenger or Instagram. KnowStack saves it for you, so a contact never gets lost in a long conversation. Each channel has its own 'Leads' tab, where your team follows up and records how it went.
How a chat becomes a lead
- Every message a customer sends is checked for an email address or a phone number, in all three channels. The check runs even when a person has taken over the conversation, when it is paused, and outside business hours.
- On website chat, the widget also offers a contact card when the AI has no answer or the visitor asks for a person. The card has an email field and a phone field; one of the two is enough.
- Messages that KnowStack recovered after Meta failed to deliver them are checked too. See Messenger & Instagram, Recovered Messages.
Each conversation gives at most one lead. If the customer adds a phone number later, or the AI learns their name on website chat, the empty fields are filled in. Details already saved are never overwritten. A name alone doesn't create a lead.
The check is generous on purpose: a long number such as an order number can be saved as a phone number. Mark such leads 'Lost' or delete them.
Where to find leads
- In the sidebar, open 'Communications' and choose 'Website chat', 'Messenger' or 'Instagram'.
- Click the 'Leads' tab. The number on the tab counts all of that channel's leads.
You see the leads of the channels your role can open. Leads are included on Business, Enterprise and the free trial, together with the chat channels.
Reading the table
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| 'Contact' | The name ('No name given' if there is none), email, phone, the page the website chat started on, and where the details came from: 'From the form' (the website contact card) or 'From a message' |
| 'Status' | The lead's status, who changed it last and when |
| 'Conversation' | 'Open chat' takes you to the conversation the lead came from |
| 'Their question' | The question the AI could not answer, or the customer's message |
| 'Captured' | When the lead was saved |
Use the search box to find a lead by name, email, phone or question, and the status buttons above the table to show one status. The table shows 50 leads at a time; click 'Load more' for older ones.
Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 'New' | Nobody has followed up yet. Every lead starts here |
| 'Contacted' | Someone from your team has written or called |
| 'Qualified' | The customer is a real prospect |
| 'Won' | The customer bought |
| 'Lost' | No sale, or not a real lead |
To change a status, click the status in the row and choose another one. You can also change it from Telegram: lead alerts have 'Contacted', 'Qualified', 'Won' and 'Lost' buttons, and every teammate's copy of the alert shows the new status. See Account & Settings, Telegram Notifications.
Changing a status or deleting a lead needs the manage permission for that channel: 'Website Chat' for website chat, 'Messenger Replies' for Messenger and Instagram. People who can only view the channel can read, search and export leads.
Export and delete
- 'Export CSV' downloads the leads of the channel you're in, with the status filter you picked, up to 5,000 rows. The search text isn't applied to the export.
- To delete a lead, open the menu at the end of the row and choose 'Delete lead'. The contact details are removed for everyone and from the Telegram alerts. The conversation itself is kept.
Notifications about new leads
When a lead is saved, people who can manage that channel get a notification in the bell, and in Telegram if they turned on 'Customer left contact details'. Lead notifications are not sent by email. Later details added to the same lead don't notify again.
Sending leads to your CRM
To get each new lead in your CRM, Zapier, Make or n8n as soon as it is saved, add a lead webhook. See Integrations, Lead Webhooks. A lead's status stays in KnowStack and is not sent to the CRM.