AI that answers customers / job guide
AI lead-capture chatbots: qualify and book visitors before they leave
The software handles
Starts or answers conversations with visitors, asks qualifying questions, captures contact details and books meetings or routes leads to sales.
Where people stay involved
Sales reps take the qualified conversations and meetings; marketing decides the qualification rules and what the bot may promise.
Short answer. B2B teams with Salesforce or HubSpot and sales reps should compare Qualified’s Piper and Salesloft’s Drift, which route qualified visitors to the right rep and book meetings. HubSpot users can start with HubSpot’s free bot builder. Small businesses get quick results from Tidio or Landbot, and brands whose leads arrive in Instagram or WhatsApp messages should look at Manychat.
Check these before you choose
- Where leads arrive. Website chat, Instagram DMs and WhatsApp need different tools; few do all three well.
- CRM routing. Check that the bot writes leads into your CRM with the fields you need and routes by owner, territory or size.
- Known vs unknown visitors. Some tools recognise known contacts from CRM data and personalise; others treat every visitor the same.
- Rules plus AI. Fixed steps for required fields and AI for open questions keeps data clean.
- Pricing. Free tiers exist for simple bots; AI SDR products are quote-based and aimed at sales teams.
Recommended by situation
B2B with sales reps and Salesforce or HubSpot
Piper (Qualified)
Piper recognises known visitors from CRM data, qualifies unknown ones against your ideal-customer profile, creates the lead and books with the account owner.
Trade-off: Quote-based; built for B2B sales teams rather than small shops.
Route to reps, book when nobody is live
Drift Chat Agent
Drift’s chat agent qualifies visitors, routes them by account, region or size and books from reps’ calendars when no one is available.
Trade-off: Quote-based; several help pages predate the Salesloft integration, so confirm current features.
HubSpot users starting free
HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent
HubSpot’s free bot builder has lead-qualification and meeting templates that write straight to HubSpot contacts; the AI Customer Agent is in paid editions.
Trade-off: Rule-based on the free tier; AI conversations need a paid edition.
Small businesses and online shops
Tidio (Lyro and Flows)
Tidio combines Lyro, an AI agent that can collect details and book calls, with Flows, a rule-based builder with lead and booking templates, from a free tier.
Trade-off: Lyro and Flows are priced separately on top of the help desk plan, each with usage quotas.
Website and WhatsApp with clean data
Landbot
Landbot mixes fixed steps with AI answers, validates captured fields and syncs both ways with HubSpot and Salesforce, on the website and WhatsApp.
Trade-off: WhatsApp needs an approved WhatsApp Business API number first.
Leads from Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger
Manychat
Manychat triggers DM flows from comments and keywords, qualifies and segments leads and passes them to email tools.
Trade-off: Social-first: website chat is not its focus, and WhatsApp availability depends on plan.
Capability matrix
| Product | Type | Phone | SMS | Chat | Social | Handoff | Languages | Billing | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Piper (Qualified) | AI | ● | – | ● | ● | – | – | Routes to sales reps | Not stated on pages checked | Quote-based |
| Drift Chat Agent | AI | – | – | ● | – | – | – | Routes to sales reps | Not stated on pages checked | Quote-based |
| HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent | AI + human | – | – | ● | – | ● | – | Routes to sales reps | Not stated on pages checked | Free tier + paid |
| Tidio (Lyro and Flows) | AI | – | – | ● | ● | ● | – | Escalates to your helpdesk | Not stated on pages checked | Free tier + paid |
| Landbot | AI | – | ● | ● | – | ● | ● | Routes to sales reps | Not stated on pages checked | Mixed |
| Manychat | AI | – | ● | – | ● | ● | ● | Not stated | Not stated on pages checked | Free tier + paid |
● = channel documented by the vendor; – = not documented in the sources we checked, which is not proof it is missing. Compliance and integration claims below are the vendor’s own statements.
| Product | What to know | Integrations named | Compliance stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piper (Qualified) | AI SDR for B2B websites: recognises known visitors from CRM data, qualifies unknown ones against your ideal-customer profile, creates the lead and books with the account owner. | Salesforce, HubSpot | Not stated |
| Drift Chat Agent | Chat agent that qualifies visitors, routes them to reps by account, region or size, and books meetings from reps’ calendars when nobody is live. | Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Calendar, Outlook | Not stated |
| HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent | Free rule-based bots with lead-qualification and meeting templates that write to HubSpot contacts; the AI Customer Agent sits in paid editions. | HubSpot CRM, HubSpot meetings scheduler | Not stated |
| Tidio (Lyro and Flows) | Lyro, a conversational AI agent, and Flows, a rule-based builder with lead and booking templates, are priced separately on top of a help desk plan with a free tier. | Shopify, CRM integrations | Not stated |
| Landbot | No-code builder mixing fixed steps with AI answers, validating captured fields; runs on the website and a WhatsApp Business number with two-way HubSpot and Salesforce sync. | HubSpot, Salesforce | Not stated |
| Manychat | Captures and qualifies leads in Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger DMs from comment and keyword triggers; an AI assistant drafts flows you review before publishing. | Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Klaviyo, Mailchimp | Meta Business Partner (vendor) |
Qualification rules first, bot second
Agree with sales what makes a lead worth a meeting: company size, budget, timeline or use case. Put those as fixed questions, let the AI handle open questions, and route only qualified visitors to calendars. Everyone else gets a useful answer and stays in nurture.
Measure the right thing
Count meetings held and pipeline created, not chats started. A bot that books fewer but better meetings is the better bot.
For support conversations rather than sales, see AI customer support agents.
Sources
| Source | Used for | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Qualified | Piper (Qualified): Salesforce behaviour | |
| Salesloft | Drift Chat Agent: chat agent | |
| HubSpot | HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent: bot templates | |
| Tidio | Tidio (Lyro and Flows): Lyro lead capture | |
| Landbot | Landbot: lead generation | |
| Manychat | Manychat: lead capture | |
| Qualified | Piper (Qualified) — Salesforce behaviour | |
| Qualified | Piper (Qualified) — HubSpot version | |
| Salesloft | Drift Chat Agent — chat agent | |
| Salesloft | Drift Chat Agent — meeting booking | |
| HubSpot | HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent — bot templates | |
| HubSpot | HubSpot chatbot builder and Customer Agent — free builder, paid AI | |
| Tidio | Tidio (Lyro and Flows) — Lyro lead capture | |
| Tidio | Tidio (Lyro and Flows) — Flows vs Lyro | |
| Landbot | Landbot — lead generation | |
| Landbot | Landbot — channels, integrations | |
| Manychat | Manychat — lead capture | |
| Manychat | Manychat — AI flow builder |
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