Lead Capture Chatbot for a Roofing Company

Problem

Mark's roofing company in Phoenix generates most of its leads through the website — storm damage season alone brings hundreds of inquiries. The problem: the contact form dumped submissions into an inbox that nobody checked consistently. Leads that came in on Friday afternoon were answered Monday. By then, three competitors had already called.

Mark knew he needed faster response but couldn't justify a full-time office manager just for lead handling.

Solution

A GPT-4o-powered chat widget integrated directly into the website:

1. Chat widget — Crisp chat embedded on every page. When a visitor opens it, the AI agent greets them and asks about their roofing situation
2. Qualification flow — The agent collects: issue type (repair vs. replacement), roof size estimate, property type, urgency, and location. Structured JSON is passed to n8n via webhook
3. Instant booking — If the lead is qualified, the agent offers available time slots pulled from Google Calendar and books a free estimate call on the spot
4. Lead scoring — n8n scores the lead (roof replacement = high value; minor repair = standard). High-value leads trigger an immediate Telegram notification to Mark with full context
5. CRM entry — All leads, qualified or not, are logged to a Google Sheet with conversation summary, score, and outcome

The agent handles the most common objections ("is this a real person?", "how much does it cost?") with honest, calibrated answers rather than deflecting.

Result

Response time: from 6–48 hours to under 1 minute No more lost weekend and after-hours leads Live in 6 days from kickoff to deployment

In the first month, Mark's team handled 40% more qualified estimate calls — not because traffic increased, but because leads stopped falling through the cracks.

What made it work

Speed was everything. The agent's first message goes out within 3 seconds of a visitor opening the chat. That immediacy sets a completely different expectation than a contact form.

The qualification script was written collaboratively with Mark. He knew exactly which questions separated serious buyers from tire-kickers. Getting that knowledge into the prompt took one afternoon — and it showed in the quality of booked calls immediately.

Stack

• n8n (self-hosted) — orchestration
• GPT-4o — conversation and qualification
• Crisp — chat widget and webhook integration
• Google Calendar API — real-time slot availability
• Google Sheets — lead log and reporting
• Telegram Bot API — high-priority lead alerts