> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.illumichat.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Build a Sales Assistant

> Create an AI-powered sales assistant that qualifies leads, answers product questions, and captures contact information through your website widget.

## Overview

A sales assistant helps your website visitors get immediate answers to product questions, qualifies them as potential leads, and captures their contact information -- all without requiring a human sales rep to be online. This guide walks you through creating and deploying one from scratch.

## What You Will Build

By the end of this guide, you will have:

* An AI assistant with a sales-focused system prompt
* A knowledge base loaded with your product information
* An embeddable widget configured with a lead capture form
* Analytics to monitor lead quality and conversation performance

## Step-by-Step Setup

<Steps>
  <Step title="Create the Assistant">
    Go to your workspace and click **New Assistant**. Give it a name like "Sales Assistant" or your company name followed by "Sales."
  </Step>

  <Step title="Write the System Prompt">
    The system prompt defines how your assistant behaves. For a sales assistant, focus on being helpful, asking qualifying questions, and guiding visitors toward next steps.

    Here is a template you can customize:

    ```
    You are a friendly and knowledgeable sales assistant for [Company Name].
    Your goal is to help website visitors understand our products and services,
    answer their questions accurately, and guide qualified prospects toward
    next steps.

    Key behaviors:
    - Be warm, professional, and conversational
    - Answer product questions using your knowledge base
    - Ask clarifying questions to understand the visitor's needs
    - When appropriate, suggest scheduling a demo or speaking with sales
    - If you don't know something, say so honestly and offer to connect
      them with the team
    - Never make up pricing, features, or commitments

    Qualifying questions to naturally work into the conversation:
    - What problem are they trying to solve?
    - How many team members would use the product?
    - What is their timeline for making a decision?
    - Have they used similar products before?

    When a visitor seems qualified (clear need, reasonable timeline, decision-making
    authority), encourage them to fill out the contact form or schedule a demo.
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Connect a Knowledge Base">
    Create a project and upload your product documentation, pricing pages, FAQ documents, feature comparisons, and case studies. Then connect the project to your sales assistant.

    The assistant uses this knowledge base to answer product-specific questions accurately rather than making up information.

    Good content to upload:

    * Product feature descriptions
    * Pricing tiers and comparison tables
    * FAQ documents
    * Case studies and testimonials
    * Integration documentation
    * Competitor comparison sheets
  </Step>

  <Step title="Configure the Widget">
    Go to your assistant's **Widget Settings** and configure:

    1. **Enable the widget** -- Toggle widget access on
    2. **Set allowed domains** -- Add your website domain(s)
    3. **Welcome message** -- Write a greeting that encourages engagement:
       ```
       Hi there! I'm here to help you learn about [Product]. What brings you here today?
       ```
    4. **Suggested questions** -- Add 3-4 common questions visitors ask:
       * "What does \[Product] do?"
       * "How much does it cost?"
       * "Can I see a demo?"
       * "How is this different from \[Competitor]?"
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set Up Lead Capture">
    Enable the lead form in your widget settings. Configure the fields you want to collect:

    | Field   |   Recommended  | Notes                        |
    | ------- | :------------: | ---------------------------- |
    | Name    |       Yes      | First and last name          |
    | Email   | Yes (required) | Primary contact method       |
    | Phone   |    Optional    | Useful for high-intent leads |
    | Company |   Recommended  | Helps sales team prepare     |

    Choose when the form appears:

    * **After N messages** -- Show the form after the visitor has engaged (recommended: 3-5 messages)
    * **On demand** -- Let visitors choose when to share their info
  </Step>

  <Step title="Deploy to Your Website">
    Add the widget script tag to your website:

    ```html theme={null}
    <script
      src="https://widget.illumichat.com/v1/widget.js"
      data-assistant-id="your-assistant-id"
      data-primary-color="#6366F1"
      async
    ></script>
    ```

    See the [Widget Installation](/widget/installation) guide for platform-specific instructions.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Monitoring Performance

After deploying your sales assistant, monitor these metrics in the IllumiChat dashboard:

| Metric                         | What It Tells You      | Target                  |
| ------------------------------ | ---------------------- | ----------------------- |
| Conversations started          | Widget engagement rate | Growing over time       |
| Avg. messages per conversation | Depth of engagement    | 4-8 messages            |
| Lead form completions          | Conversion rate        | 10-30% of conversations |
| Response accuracy              | Quality of answers     | Review weekly           |

### Improving Lead Quality

<Accordion title="Refine the system prompt">
  If you are getting too many unqualified leads, add more qualifying criteria to the system prompt. If you are getting too few leads, make the prompt more encouraging and lower the bar for suggesting the contact form.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Update the knowledge base">
  Review conversations where the assistant could not answer a question. Add that information to your knowledge base to improve future responses.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Optimize suggested questions">
  Track which suggested questions lead to the highest conversion rates and prioritize those. Remove questions that lead to dead-end conversations.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Set up webhook notifications">
  Configure a webhook for the `contact.created` event to get instant notifications when a new lead is captured. Route these to your CRM or Slack channel for immediate follow-up.
</Accordion>

<Warning>
  Review your sales assistant's conversations regularly. AI-generated responses should be factually accurate. If you notice the assistant making claims about pricing, features, or timelines that are incorrect, update your knowledge base and system prompt immediately.
</Warning>

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Widget Customization" icon="palette" href="/guides/widget-customization">
    Customize colors, position, and branding to match your website
  </Card>

  <Card title="Webhooks" icon="webhook" href="/guides/webhooks">
    Send lead data to your CRM in real time
  </Card>
</CardGroup>