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Follow this guide to set up your agent, define its lead-capture behavior, and connect it to your sales tools.

What this agent can do

  • Collect contact details (email, phone)
  • Replace your contact form
  • Qualify leads (basic or BANT-style)
  • Book demos or callback requests
  • Capture newsletter sign-ups
  • Run discovery-style intake conversations
  • Send leads to CRM systems via Actions or Zapier

Before You Begin

Before setting up your Lead generation AI Agent, make sure you have the right elements in place. This ensures that your agent can store lead details and send them to your CRM.

Prerequisites

You’ll need an active Watermelon account. If you don’t have one yet, sign up first. and a list of lead details you want to collect (for example: budget, company size, demo request)
To set up this Agent, you need an Advanced, Business or Enterprise License.

What You’ll Do

1

Set up Custom Fields

Create the fields your agent will use to store lead information.
2

Build your Lead generation personality

Define how your agent should ask questions and guide visitors through the lead flow.
3

Create your qualification flow

Set up a basic or advanced sequence of questions to gather information from your leads and qualify them.
4

Make sure contact details are captured

Configure how the agent asks for email/phone details.
5

Connect your CRM

Sync leads to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Monday, Mailchimp or others using Actions or Zapier.
6

Set up human handover rules (optional)

Forward hot leads to your team or notify sales instantly.
7

Optimize for conversions

Use proven best practices to improve lead quality and completion rates.
8

Test & publish

Test your conversation, field mapping, and CRM integrations before going live.
Estimated time: 20 to 30 minutes from start to finish.

Step 1: Set up your Custom Fields

Your Lead generation AI Agent needs Fields to store the information it collects during the conversation. These fields make sure your CRM, Actions, or Zapier workflow receives complete and structured lead data.
1

Navigate to Fields → Custom Fields

Click Fields to open your field overview to create the fields your agent will use.
Select Custom Fields.
Custom Fields Menu
2

Add new fields

Click Create, give the Field a name, context and choose the field format.
  • Name: Provide a name for the Custom field. The name should make it very clear what data is displayed in the field.
Examples of relevant fields for lead generation:
  • Company size
  • Company name
  • Budget
  • Project type
  • Urgency / timeline
  • Preferred meeting time
  • Newsletter opt-in
  • Context: Each Custom Field includes an instruction box. Use this to tell the Agent exactly what kind of information belongs in that field. This way, the field can automatically be filled in during a conversation. Example instructions you can copy: Company name
    “Save the visitor’s company name exactly as they mention it.”
    Budget
    “Store the visitor’s budget as a number or range (e.g. €1000, €2–3k). Don’t add text.”
    Urgency / timeline
    “Save how soon the visitor is planning to start (e.g. ‘within 1 month’, ‘Q3’, ‘ASAP’).”
    Project type
    “Store the type of project the visitor wants help with, using a short description.”
    Preferred meeting time
    “Save the date or time suggested by the visitor.”
  • Field formats:
    • Short text
    • Numbers
    • Email
    • Phone
    • Currency
    • Date
Custom Fields Details

Best Practices

  • Keep field names short, clear, and recognizable
  • Only create fields you actually need for qualification
  • Use the AI instruction box to guide the agent
  • Use the default Email and Phone field, do not create custom fields for this
  • Don’t overload your agent with unnecessary fields — fewer fields = higher conversion
Tip: Want to know more about custom fields? Read our article here.

Step 2: Build your Lead generation Personality

Your agent’s personality defines how it asks questions, collects details, and guides visitors through the lead flow. In this step, you’ll create clear instructions so the agent knows exactly how to behave during lead generation.

Write your Personality

1

Go to your AI Agent

Navigate to Agents → Select your agent → Agent settings
2

Add your personality

Describe how your agent should speak and behave. Write this in short, clear instructions the AI can easily follow.
Tip: See the mix and match examples below to try within your agent.
3

Save your changes

Click Save before continuing.
Agent For Customer Service Personality

Use these building blocks (mix & match)

You can combine the blocks below to shape a strong Lead generation personality.
“Your goal is to collect visitor information, qualify the lead, and guide them toward the next step (demo, contact, quote, signup).”
“Ask short, clear questions one at a time.”
“Summarize key details when helpful.”
“Store collected information in the correct custom fields.”
“Make the conversation friendly and encouraging.”
“Always ask for email and phone number at the end of the conversation.”
“Don’t overwhelm the visitor with too many questions at once.”
“Don’t provide internal business details.”
“Don’t create unrealistic promises.”
“Always ask for email and phone number at the end of the conversation.”
“Politely re-ask if the information seems incomplete or invalid.”
“Follow this order when qualifying leads:
  1. Understand their need
  2. Gather project details
  3. Ask timeline/urgency
  4. Collect budget (optional)
  5. Capture email and phone.”
“Friendly, helpful, clear, and human.”
“Short sentences, no heavy sales pressure.”
“If a visitor refuses info, offer an alternative (email or phone).”
“If an email looks invalid, ask the visitor to confirm.”

Example personality template (copy & use)

You can paste this directly into your personality field:
You are a Lead generation AI Agent. Your goal is to collect visitor information, understand their needs, qualify the lead, and guide them to the next step. Ask short, clear questions one at a time. Keep your tone friendly and helpful. Follow this order: need → project details → urgency → optional budget → email → phone. Politely re-ask if information is unclear or incomplete. Don’t overwhelm the visitor, don’t make promises, and don’t share internal business details. Encourage the visitor and keep the conversation smooth and human.

Step 3: Create your Qualification Flow

Your agent guides visitors through a series of questions to understand their needs and qualify the lead. You instruct your AI Agent on what to ask and in which order.
1

Choose the questions you want to ask

Common examples:
  • What the visitor needs
  • Project details
  • Timeline
  • Budget (optional)
2

Add these instructions at Instructions

Tell the agent the order of questions and how to ask them.
Instructions Settings
3

Make sure each question maps to a Custom Field

Make sure your AI Agent knows what the answer should look like for each question.For example, if you ask for an address, explain what format is accepted so the agent can automatically fill the correct Custom Field.
Basic Lead Qualification Flow Add this into the Instructions:
Start by asking what the visitor is looking for. Ask one question at a time.
Then ask for project details and when they want to begin.
Once you understand the need, ask what the visitor would like to do next (demo, quote, callback). At the end, always ask for email and phone number so we can follow up.
Example conversation Visitor: I’m looking for help setting up a new website.
Agent: Thanks for reaching out! Can you tell me a bit more about your project?
Visitor: I want something simple for now.
Agent: Got it. When would you ideally like to get started?
Visitor: Within a month.
Agent: Perfect. Would you like to schedule a demo or have someone contact you?
Visitor: Yes, please contact me.
Agent: Great — could you share your email address?
Visitor: [email protected]
Agent: Thanks! And what’s the best phone number to reach you?
Agent Use Case Lead Generation Basic Lead
BANT-style flow
  1. Need
  2. Decision-maker
  3. Budget
  4. Timeline
  5. Email
  6. Phone number
Agent Use Case Lead Generation Bant Style
Tip for a smooth qualification flow: Keep questions short and ask them one at a time.Most businesses see higher conversion with 4–6 qualification questions.

Step 4: Process leads

After the Agent collected all the information from a lead, you need to process the leads, so you can follow up on them. Within Watermelon, you can directly follow up conversations by using the Handover functionality. However, you can also use Zapier or Actions to directly add the leads into your CRM system.

4.1: Use Handover to follow up leads

By using the Handover functionality in Watermelon, you can immediately communicate with your lead. To do so follow these steps:
1

Set up Handover

Go to Human Handover, add instructions and a trigger. Choose for the trigger word Submit Request.
Handover Instructions
2

Add instruction

Go to Instructions, create a new instruction where you explain to the Agent when to handover the conversation to your team
When you collected all necessary data from a lead, ask them to type, Submit request.
This way, you can forward the conversation to a human Agent.
More information about setting up the Handover can be found in this article.

4.2 Send leads to CRM systems via Actions or Zapier

When all data is collected, you can forward the data to your CRM System via Actions or Zapier.
  • Actions: Connect the API of your CRM system to Watermelon and automatically forward all data. More information can be found here.
  • Zapier: Set up an automation via Zapier to forward leads into your CRM without the help of a developer. Use this guide to help you with the set up.
Checklist before go live:
  • Mapping is set up
  • Required fields are being filled in
  • Test lead shows in CRM
  • Consent saved

5. Publish & go live

Once you’re satisfied with your Lead generation Agent’s responses, it’s time to make it live! Navigate to the “Activate” tab in your agent, and click on “Connect channel” button to connect your desired channel. For Customer Service Agents, it is important to know via which channel most your questions come in. In most cases, adding a Chat Widget to your website is already a great start. Adding WhatsApp can improve the customer service experience for your customers as they can easily reach out to you.

Activate agent

After you have connected your channel, click ‘activate’ and your agent is now live on the connected channel!

🎉 Congratulations!

You’ve successfully created, tested, and published your Lead generation AI Agent!