Lead qualification questions and logic
Qualification is the whole point of the funnel. Ads bring everyone; the client's sales team only wants the ones worth a call.
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Qualification is the whole point of the funnel. Ads bring everyone; the client's sales team only wants the ones worth a call. The bot sits in between and finds out a handful of things about every new lead — then hands the conversation to a human with the answers already collected. Your job as the agency is to pick the right handful for each client's business.
In the product, qualification is two settings on the automation: Collect contact info holds the fields the bot fills in for every lead (how the setting works), and Additional instructions holds the conversational rules for how it asks. Set them on Main bot to qualify every lead the same way — or override them on one source, so leads from a particular ad campaign get their own extra questions while the rest of the traffic keeps the defaults. You can edit both at Fuely AI → Automations or by telling the AI Co-Worker what you want; the advice below is about what to put there.
How many fields?
As many as the client's sales process needs — there's no limit. Three is the recommended starting point: enough answers to tell "ready to buy" from "just looking", and short enough that a lead on WhatsApp actually finishes. But if the client's sales team genuinely can't prioritize a lead without five, ten, or twenty data points, add them all. Just price it in: every extra question costs completion, so start lean, watch real conversations, and extend where the sales team keeps asking for a missing detail.
Pick fields that map to how the client's sales team already decides who to call first. Ask them: "When a new inquiry comes in, what do you need to know to prioritize it?" Their answer is your field list.
Field sets that work, by niche
Proven starting points — pick the set that matches how your client sells:
| Client's niche | Set A | Set B |
|---|---|---|
| Real estate | District, budget, timeline | Property type, buy-to-live or invest, financing |
| Beauty / clinic | Service wanted, preferred date, budget | Service wanted, main concern, new or returning client |
| Courses / coaching | Goal, current level, timeline | Goal, budget, why now |
| E-commerce | Product interest, budget, delivery city | Product interest, size or variant, gift or for themselves |
| Anything else | What they need, budget, timeline | What they need, location, urgency |
Set A leans toward logistics (can we serve them, when); Set B leans toward intent (how serious are they). Either beats improvising.
How the bot asks
The AI doesn't run a questionnaire — it qualifies inside a natural conversation, following rules written into the automation's Additional instructions:
- One question per message. Ask the district, wait for the answer, then ask the budget. Stacking all three into one message reads like a form and kills response rates.
- Intent first. The opening question is "what are you looking for?" — not a demographic probe. Leads answer questions about themselves much more willingly once they've said what they want.
- Personal questions come with a why. Before asking budget or financing, the bot frames it: "so I can suggest options that fit your situation."
- WhatsApp register. Short messages, one or two sentences, mirroring the lead's tone — not "Please provide your requirements."
When the Co-Worker sets up qualification, it writes these rules in for you; you can read and adjust them any time in the automation's Additional instructions. Either way, test them: play a lead in the Test chat and check the conversation feels like chat, not paperwork.
What happens when all fields are collected
The moment the bot has all the answers, the Switch to human rule fires:
- The chat moves to the client's team inbox — out of the bot's hands, into a human's.
- The lead arrives with the collected fields on their profile plus their last message — e.g. District: Centro. Budget: $200k. Timeline: 3 months. Last message: "can we schedule a viewing?"
- The Chatfuel mobile app pushes a notification the moment a qualified lead lands, so whoever owns follow-up — the client's salesperson or your account manager — replies while the lead is still warm.
No scoring thresholds to tune: qualified means "all fields collected", and the bot won't hand off before that. If qualified leads aren't landing in the team inbox, Troubleshooting the qualification bot has the fix.
Note: setting it up takes one sentence. In the "Set up WhatsApp" onboarding, the Co-Worker proposes ready-made field sets tailored to the client's business — drawn from the business info you uploaded — and you pick one or name your own fields. To change them later, edit Collect contact info on the automation, or just tell the Co-Worker: "Change the qualification questions to service, date, and budget." Either way, the fields and the handoff rule update to match.