Categories / Lead Follow-up & Sales
Inbound lead capture and qualifying
EV charging station maker · sales cycle cut from about 70 to 30 days
- Task
- capture and qualify a flood of inbound leads and stop double data entry between sales and fulfillment
- Result
- sales cycle cut in half in 18 months, from approximately 70 days to 30 days; web-traffic-to-lead conversion rate doubled; team grew from 7 to 17 active users; workflow automations "saved us hundreds of hours of data-entry"
- Tools
- Pipedrive (Advanced tier custom/important fields, Workflow Automation); LeadBooster add-on (Chatbot, Live Chat, Web Forms); Zapier (cold email → landing pages); Livestorm webinars synced to contacts and deals
- Setup
- migrate CRM data from Salesforce → define custom and important fields to score target leads → put Chatbot, Live Chat and Web Forms on the website so leads land qualified in the pipeline → build workflow automations to push deal data into fulfillment steps → sync webinar attendees from Livestorm onto contacts and deals → use Zapier for cold-email and landing-page flows
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A ready-to-send prompt built from this card. Your AI will ask a few questions about your business, then give you a beginner setup plan.
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Help me set this up for my business: "Inbound lead capture and qualifying".
Example business: US maker and installer of EV charging stations for businesses and property owners…. Task: capture and qualify a flood of inbound leads and stop double data entry between sales and fulfillment.
Reported result: sales cycle cut in half in 18 months, from approximately 70 days to 30 days; web-traffic-to-lead conversion rate doubled; team grew from 7 to 17 active users; workflow…
Tools: Pipedrive (Advanced tier custom/important fields, Workflow Automation); LeadBooster add-on (Chatbot, Live Chat, Web Forms);…
Setup outline:
1. migrate CRM data from Salesforce → define custom and important fields to score target leads → put Chatbot,…
Starter prompt from the guide (use it as a base):
I sell [PRODUCT] to [CUSTOMER TYPE]. Write 5 short chatbot questions that qualify a website visitor (need, timeline, budget range, location, contact details). Give answer options for each. Keep the tone friendly and do not promise prices.
First, ask me up to 5 questions about my business and tools. Then give me a beginner step-by-step setup plan, plus copy-paste prompts/templates I can use. Plain English, and tell me if any step needs a tech helper.
via autopilotbusiness.ai/use-case/ev-charging-maker-pipedrive-leadbooster-chatbotforms-workflow-automati/Step-by-step setup guide
> Cost: Paid. Pipedrive starts at $14 per user per month (annual billing); automations need Growth ($39) or higher, and LeadBooster and Smart Docs come with Premium ($59) or as add-ons on lower plans.
Honest note: The chatbot is scripted rules, not AI, and the automations are rules too. The cycle and conversion numbers are Pipedrive-published and the story mixes many causes (a CRM switch from Salesforce, team growth). Livestorm and Zapier parts of the story are not covered here.
Prerequisites
- A Pipedrive account on the plan the steps below need (they say which).
- Admin rights, because pipelines, automations and web forms are admin-only.
Step-by-step setup
Step 1. Add the custom fields you need. Go to Company settings → Data fields, pick the type (deal, person or organization) and add fields for what you want to filter and report on. Choose a field type (single option works best for anything you want to count later).
Step 2. Capture web inquiries with a form. Go to Leads → Web Forms → New Web Form, pick a template, click Create form, style it, and choose whether submissions save as a Lead or a Deal. Then Share and embed → Copy to clipboard and paste the code into your site. Web Forms are part of LeadBooster (Premium and up, or an add-on). Creating one needs deals admin rights.
Step 3. Add a Chatbot to qualify visitors. Go to Leads Inbox → Chatbot → New playbook. Pick a colour palette, set the bot name, picture and language, then choose a template (Get more leads, Book more meetings, Qualify and route leads or Chat with your leads) and click Create playbook. Edit cards with the pencil, add one with the + between cards, Save, and switch the active toggle on. Then open the playbook's Installation section and embed it on your site (manual code, WordPress, Squarespace or Google Tag Manager). Only one playbook per page. The Chatbot follows scripted rules; it is not AI.
Step 4. Let a person take over. Add a Live Chat card to a playbook under Leads → Chatbot. Set the online message, waiting time and offline message. In the Live Chat inbox switch online on bottom-left, open a chat in unassigned and click Assign to me. If nobody is online, the offline flow can still create a lead, deal or activity.
Step 5. Build the automation. Open the account menu → Tools and apps → Automations → + Automation, choose an Event trigger (deal, person, activity, lead, organization or project; added, updated or deleted) or a Date trigger (exact, before or after a date field), and click Apply trigger. Add optional conditions, then actions: create or update records, create an activity, send email (from your synced email account), or other actions the menu offers. Actions run top to bottom. Save and switch it Active. Automations need Growth or higher.
Easier: let your AI do it
Pipedrive has an official MCP server, a secure plug that lets an AI chat like Claude look up and update your deals with your permission.
- In Claude, open Customize → Connectors, click +, then Add custom connector. Name it "Pipedrive MCP", paste
https://mcp.pipedrive.ai/mcpand click Add (Claude's free plan allows one custom connector). Pipedrive is also in Claude's connector directory. - Sign in to Pipedrive and click Allow and install.
- Try: "Show me deals that haven't had an activity in 14 days, grouped by owner."
What success looks like
Hot inbound leads are captured at any hour and your team stops retyping data.
Common issues & fixes
- An automation did not fire: importing data does not trigger event-triggered automations (only date triggers and lead updates), so test with a record you create by hand.
- Feature missing from your menu: check your plan; several items here are add-ons on Lite and Growth.
- Chatbot does not appear on your site: open the playbook's Installation section and confirm the code is on that page and the playbook is switched active.
Optional: Maintenance
- Monthly: read chat transcripts and tighten the questions.
Copy-paste prompt
Use this with any AI chat. It helps you write the chatbot questions.
I sell [PRODUCT] to [CUSTOMER TYPE]. Write 5 short chatbot questions that qualify a website visitor (need, timeline, budget range, location, contact details). Give answer options for each. Keep the tone friendly and do not promise prices.Sources
- Case: Pipedrive case study (EV charging maker). Credit: the company's director of growth (vendor-published).
- Pipedrive Help: Workflow automation
- Pipedrive Help: Pipedrive MCP with Claude
- Pipedrive pricing
- Pipedrive Help: Chatbot
- Pipedrive Help: Web Forms
- Pipedrive Help: Live Chat
- Pipedrive Help: LeadBooster add-on
Industries: AI automation for Real Estate & Property Management
Results as reported by the source; not independently verified. Community-sourced from public sites and attributed to the source platform. Original author? Ask us to correct or remove it. Read the disclaimer.