Compare
A brain, or a contact form.
A form collects a message. A brain has the conversation, then hands your team what it heard.
| Compared on | Contact form | A brain |
|---|---|---|
| What the visitor experiences | Typing into fields and waiting for a reply | A conversation with your best person's brain, spoken or typed |
| How the conversation goes | One message, one way | It listens, asks what it needs to, and answers the way your best person would |
| Answers questions | No | Yes, from what you've approved |
| Where answers come from | Your team, later | Only the sources approved with you |
| When a question is outside its remit | Nothing happens until someone reads it | Says so, and the question reaches your team with the conversation |
| After hours | Collects a message | Yes, at any hour |
| What your team receives | The fields the person filled in | The whole conversation: what they asked, what they were told, what still needs a person |
| Best for | A few simple requests | Important questions your best people answer every week |
Categories, not product reviews. Features vary by product and change over time.
What it does well
Simple requests with no questions attached: a callback, a document, a change of address.
Using both
Keep the form for people who want to leave a message. The brain answers the ones who want to ask something first, and hands your team the conversation.
When it is enough on its own
If people rarely have questions before they write to you, and your team replies within the day.
When a brain fits
- The same important questions reach your best people every week, often outside working hours.
- A slow or wrong answer costs you the person asking.
- The answers change with your business, and you want to govern them.
Tell us who needs to reach you, and what it should answer first.
Four fields to start. A person reads it, and you hear back within two business days.