If you’re trying to get more out of your live chat or bot, you’ve probably come across HubSpot Chatflows. It’s a tempting tool, especially if you want to scoop up leads right from your website. But just bolting Chatflows onto your site and hoping leads magically flow into your CRM? That’s a good way to end up with a mess—half-baked data, missed follow-ups, and a CRM that’s more clutter than help.
This guide is for folks who actually want their CRM and live chat to play nice, not just check a box for “automation.” Whether you’re in sales, marketing, or you drew the short straw for tech projects, here’s how to make Chatflows work for you (and not the other way around).
Why Integrate Chatflows with Your CRM at All?
Let’s get this out of the way: You don’t need to integrate everything just because you can. But if you want to:
- Capture leads from live chat (without re-entering them by hand)
- Keep sales and support from stepping on each other’s toes
- Actually follow up with people who chat in
...then you’ll need your tools to talk to each other. If you’re happy with leads living in five places, you can stop reading now. For everyone else: integration is the only way to avoid chaos.
Step 1: Get Your House in Order Before You Integrate
This isn’t the sexy part, but it’s where most people trip up.
What to do:
- Audit your CRM: What fields do you actually use for leads? Custom fields? Outdated stuff? Clean it up now.
- Map your lead process: Who handles new inbound leads? When does sales pick them up? What counts as a “qualified” lead?
- Decide what you want from Chatflows: Are you after name/email only? Or do you want to qualify leads in the chat? Be honest—more fields means fewer people complete the chat.
Pro tip: If your CRM is already a mess, Chatflows will just make it messier. Fix the basics first.
Step 2: Set Up Chatflows—Smart, Not Fancy
It’s tempting to build a chatbot that does everything. Resist. The best Chatflows are simple.
Practical tips:
- Start with one Chatflow: Don’t build a bot for every page. Pick your main lead-gen page and nail it.
- Keep it short: Ask for name and email, maybe one qualifying question. That’s it.
- Use routing rules sparingly: If you’re not a big team, complicated routing just slows things down.
- Test all paths: Actually go through the Chatflow yourself. You’d be surprised what breaks.
What to skip: Gimmicky bots that try to “delight” with jokes or trivia. They’re fun once, then annoying.
Step 3: Connect Chatflows to Your CRM—The Right Way
HubSpot makes it easy to connect their Chatflows to their own CRM. Integrating with Salesforce or something else? Still doable, but don’t expect “one-click.”
For HubSpot CRM users:
- Enable automatic contact creation: Make sure every chat gets logged as a contact.
- Set lifecycle stages: Decide if Chatflow leads should be “Leads,” “Marketing Qualified Leads,” or something else. Consistency matters.
- Customize notifications: Who gets pinged when a new lead comes in? Don’t spam everyone—pick the right owner.
For non-HubSpot CRMs (Salesforce, Zoho, etc.):
- Use native integrations or Zapier: Check if there’s a direct integration. If not, Zapier can usually handle the basics.
- Map fields carefully: Only sync what you need. Too many fields = more things to break.
- Test for duplicates: Make sure the integration doesn’t create a new contact every time someone chats in.
Watch out for: “Partial contacts” (when Chatflows grabs an email, but nothing else). Decide how you’ll handle these in your CRM.
Step 4: Qualify Leads—But Not at the Expense of Conversion
It’s tempting to ask for everything up front—budget, company size, the works. Don’t.
What actually works:
- Progressive profiling: If you already know someone’s email, don’t ask for it again. Ask for something new next time.
- Branching questions: If the lead says they’re ready to buy, route them to a rep. If not, send them more info.
- Don’t gate everything: Some folks just want a quick answer. Let them self-serve if possible.
What to ignore: Fancy lead scoring models unless you actually have the volume to need it. For most teams, simple rules (“Did they give a real email?”) are enough.
Step 5: Make Handoffs Crystal Clear
This is where most systems break down. You’ve got a new lead, but nobody knows who’s supposed to follow up—or even that the lead exists.
Best practices:
- Assign ownership: Every chat lead should have a clear owner in your CRM. Don’t let leads sit in a queue.
- Set up notifications: Use email, Slack, or in-app alerts. But don’t overdo it—nobody reads 100 notifications a day.
- Document the process: Write down, step by step, what happens after a chat comes in. Anyone should be able to follow it.
Pro tip: Run a “secret shopper” test—have someone go through the chat as a fake lead and see how fast (and well) your team follows up.
Step 6: Review, Tweak, and Don’t Settle for “Set It and Forget It”
Even the best integration gets sloppy over time. People ignore chats, data stops syncing, or the bot asks the wrong questions.
Keep things working:
- Check your data weekly: Are leads showing up in your CRM? Are fields mapping right?
- Get feedback from your team: Are reps getting the info they need? Or are they chasing down missing details?
- Update your Chatflows: If you see drop-off, simplify. If reps need more info, add a question.
What to skip: Fancy dashboards that “visualize” everything but don’t actually help you fix real problems.
A Few Honest Gotchas to Watch For
- Walled gardens: HubSpot Chatflows works best with HubSpot CRM. Integrating with others can get kludgy.
- Too many bots: If every page has a different Chatflow, nobody knows what’s going on—not your team, not your leads.
- Over-engineering: Just because you can automate a process doesn’t mean you should. Manual review is fine if you’re not getting swamped with leads.
- Bad data in = bad data out: If Chatflows collects junk, your CRM will be full of junk. Clean up questions, use validation, and delete obviously fake leads.
Keep It Simple—Iterate As You Go
Connecting Chatflows to your CRM doesn’t have to be a giant project. Start with the basics: clean data, one simple Chatflow, and a clear follow-up process. Get that working, then build from there. The fancy stuff can wait.
Don’t buy the hype that “automation fixes everything.” It just makes your problems happen faster if you’re not careful. So keep it simple, review often, and tweak as you go. You’ll save yourself (and your leads) a lot of headaches.