How do I capture leads from Shopify support chat?

Chatref's lead-capture feature turns live chat visitors into warm leads inside your Shopify store. As soon as someone starts a conversation, the agent can prompt them for their email, name, or any other detail you specify. Those details are stored against the chat thread and become visible in your Chatref shared inbox. There's no extra setup inside Shopify - you just drop the widget's embed snippet onto your store pages.

This means you don't lose a potential customer who had a quick pre-sale question. The agent gathers the information while still answering their query, grounded in your own Shopify content (product pages, policies, shipping guides) so the experience feels helpful, not intrusive.

To start capturing leads, open your Chatref agent settings and look for the lead capture toggle. When enabled, the widget will ask for visitor information either at the start of a chat or at a point you define. You can customize which fields appear - name, email, phone, and a custom question are all supported right out of the box.

Once activated, every new conversation on your Shopify storefront automatically collects the visitor's contact details before the AI responds. The lead is then ready for your team to follow up on later. Because Chatref accounts include all features without extra fees, lead capture is available even while you're using your $50 free credit trial.

For more specific data - like a Shopify order number, return reason, or product preference - you can set up custom actions. Custom actions let you design multi-step forms inside the chat itself. For example, you could build a sequence that asks "What's your order number?" then "Tell us what went wrong with the item" after a sale.

Each answer is attached to the same lead profile in the shared inbox. This turns a standard live chat into a structured lead generation tool. You can collect customer information that triggers internal steps - maybe creating a draft in your CRM or notifying a salesperson - because the action fires right in the conversation thread.

All leads flow into your Chatref shared inbox, where every team member sees the full conversation and the collected details. You can filter by tag, assign chats to a person, or hand off automatically when the AI can't resolve the question. The inbox retains the visitor's contact info and any custom action answers, so your follow-up is always fully informed.

This setup keeps your Shopify support chat productive: the AI agent handles repeat questions and captures leads at the same time, while your team steps in only for chats that need a personal touch. The shared inbox gives you a single place to reply to leads, manage ongoing conversations, and turn questions into actual customer relationships.

How to capture leads in Chatref for Shopify store

First, create a Chatref agent and upload your Shopify store content (product pages, policies, shipping details) so the AI answers from your own information. Next, embed the widget snippet on your Shopify site. In the agent's settings, enable lead capture and choose the fields you want to collect (name, email, etc.). You can also add custom actions to ask for order numbers or preferences directly inside the chat. Once live, every conversation automatically captures the visitor's details and stores them in your shared inbox where you can act on them.

Steps to collect customer information on Shopify

1. Go to your Chatref agent's settings and turn on lead capture.
2. Select which standard fields to ask for: name, email, and optionally a phone number.
3. If you need more specific data, set up a custom action. For example, create a flow that asks "What's your Shopify order number?" and "Which item do you need help with?" and link it to your widget.
4. Embed the Chatref widget on your Shopify store pages (just copy the code snippet into your theme).
5. Test the flow: open the chat, confirm the questions appear, and check that the responses land in your shared inbox.
6. Train your team to view the shared inbox regularly and follow up on captured leads via the information saved.

Generating leads from live chat

Chatref's lead-capture feature qualifies visitors while they get help. The AI agent can ask for contact details during any support chat - even if the visitor just had a simple FAQ. With custom actions, you can tailor the data you collect to match your sales process (pre-order size, budget, product interest). All this happens before a human ever steps in. After the chat, the lead's full history and every detail they provided are ready in the shared inbox, making it easy for your team to turn live chat interactions into nurtured sales prospects. Because everything is included on one account and pay-as-you-go, you pay only for the interactions your store actually uses.