Guides
Step-by-step guide to building an AI voice agent that calls every inbound form fill within 60 seconds, qualifies the lead, and routes hot prospects to your team — using Thoughtly's no-code Agent Builder and Automations.
The gap between a form submission and first contact is where most leads die. Industry data consistently shows that responding within 60 seconds dramatically increases conversion rates — yet the average B2C company takes over 40 hours to follow up. Every minute of delay is a minute your competitor uses to call first.
This guide walks you through building a speed-to-lead AI voiceAI voiceAn artificially generated, natural-sounding voice produced by a TTS model. Thoughtly supports a library of AI voices and brand-specific cloning. agent in Thoughtly that calls every inbound form fill within 60 seconds, qualifies the lead on that first call, and either books an appointment or warm-transfers to your team — before the prospect closes the browser tab.
By the end, you'll have a working agent that handles the entire speed-to-lead workflowWorkflowAn automated, multi-step process — usually triggered by an event (form fill, new lead) and orchestrating one or more voice / SMS / email actions.: trigger → call → qualify → route → CRMCRMThe system of record for leads, contacts, deals, and activity. Thoughtly reads from and writes to your CRM continuously. update. No code required.
Before you start building, make sure you have:
Time required: roughly 30–45 minutes for a functional first version. You can iterate from there.
Thoughtly agents are built as visual conversation graphs using four node types: Start, Speak, Transfer, and End. Before opening the builder, sketch the flow on paper or a whiteboard:
A typical speed-to-lead flow has 5–8 nodes. Resist the urge to over-engineer on the first build — start with the happy pathHappy pathThe ideal conversation flow where every input matches expectations and the agent reaches the intended outcome with no detours. and add edge cases after testing.
Create a new agent in the Agent Builder. The Start node is your opener — the first thing the lead hears. Everything in the Start node's Message field is spoken verbatim, so write it exactly as you want it delivered.
A good speed-to-lead opener does three things in under 10 seconds:
If your industry requires recording consentRecording consentState-by-state legal requirement to disclose call recording. Some states require all-party consent; Thoughtly enforces the right script per state. or opt-in disclosures, include them in the Start node with the Verbatim setting enabled. This guarantees the compliance language is delivered identically on every call.
Tip: keep the opener under 20 seconds. Leads who just filled out a form expect speed, not a monologue.
This is where your agent does the actual qualification work. Add 2–3 Speak nodes using the Prompt variant, which lets the agent compose adaptive responses based on conversation context.
For each qualification question, create a corresponding VariableVariableA named value the voice agent stores during a conversation — caller name, intent, qualifying answers — and uses to drive routing and post-call actions. to capture the answer. Variables extract immediately after the caller responds and before Outcomes evaluate — so your routing logic always sees the latest values.
Use Current speak node as the source when you want to extract only from the caller's most recent reply. Use Conversation history when the caller may have mentioned the information earlier in the call.
Outcomes decide where the conversation goes after each node. For a speed-to-lead agent, you'll use a mix of prompt-based and rule-based outcomes.
After your initial qualification question, add prompt-based outcomes to interpret the caller's intent:
Keep outcome labels concrete and distinct. "Wants to book" is better than "Positive." "Busy, call back later" is better than "Maybe."
After capturing Variables, use rule-based outcomes for deterministic routing:
Rule-based outcomes are evaluated top to bottom — the first match wins. Always add an Else/Default outcome at the bottom to catch anything that doesn't match your explicit rules. Without it, the agent gets stuck.
When the agent qualifies a lead as hot, use a Transfer node to hand the call to a human rep. Thoughtly supports two transfer modes:
For speed-to-lead workflows, Phone Router is the most common choice. The pre-transfer message is spoken verbatim, so write it exactly as you want it delivered.
If you need the receiving rep to see call context before picking up, enable Early Summaries on the Transfer node. This generates a summary before the transfer completes, so downstream systems or the rep's screen popScreen popAutomatic display of caller information — name, account, history — on the rep's screen the moment a call connects. can display what the AI agent learned during qualification.
The agent is built — now you need to trigger it the instant a form is submitted. This is where Thoughtly Automations come in.
Go to Tools → Automations and create a new automation. Choose your trigger based on your form source:
If your form tool has a native Thoughtly integration, use it directly:
For speed-to-lead, ensure your trigger fires instantly — not on a polling schedule. Webhook triggers and Typeform's native integration fire within seconds. HubSpot and Salesforce triggers depend on their webhook delivery timing; test the actual latency before going live.
After configuring, activate the automation. Draft automations never execute, even when trigger events occur — a common gotcha.
Back in the Agent Builder, open Settings to fine-tune voice, behavior, and post-call workflows.
Choose a voice that matches your brand. Thoughtly offers voices from multiple providers (ElevenLabs, Cartesia). For speed-to-lead in the US market, pick a natural American English voice with a professional-but-warm tone. Test pronunciation with Call Me — some voices handle industry jargon better than others.
Presence settings control how the agent decides when the caller has finished speaking:
Enable voicemail detection for outbound calls. When the agent reaches voicemail, it leaves a short message and ends the call. Keep voicemail messages under 20 seconds, include a callback number or URL, and avoid sensitive information. A good voicemail: "Hi, this is Sarah from Acme Solar. You recently requested a quote — I'd love to walk you through your options. Call us back at [number] or visit [URL]."
Add a short advanced prompt (3–6 lines) to define persona and tone across the entire agent. Example:
"You are a friendly, professional sales agent for [Company]. Be concise and direct. Ask one question at a time. If the caller seems confused, summarize and clarify. Do not make promises about pricing — transfer to a specialist for specific quotes."
Keep routing logic in your Speak nodes and Outcomes — the advanced prompt is for persona and guardrails, not navigation.
Thoughtly provides two testing modes — use both before going live.
Click Test Agent to interact with your agent in text. Run through these scenarios:
Watch for: correct outcome paths, variables extracting accurately, no dead-end nodes.
Click Call Me to receive an actual phone call from your agent. Listen for:
Run at least 5 test calls before activating the automation. Adjust Presence settings based on what you hear.
Once testing passes, deploy your agent. For speed-to-lead, outbound deployment is the primary path:
If you also want the agent to handle inbound calls (leads calling you back after a voicemail), connect the same phone number for inbound deployment. You can buy a number directly from Thoughtly or forward calls from your existing number.
Track these metrics to evaluate your speed-to-lead agent:
Use Thoughtly's Analytics and the On Call Completed automation trigger to pipe call outcomes into your CRM and reporting tools. Build a dashboard that shows speed-to-lead, contact rateContact rateThe percentage of inbound leads your team actually reaches by phone. Most B2C teams hover around 25%; Thoughtly typically delivers 90%+., and qualification rate by day and by lead source.
With a webhook or instant trigger, Thoughtly initiates the call within seconds of receiving the event. End-to-end — form submission to first ring — is typically under 60 seconds. The bottleneck is usually the form tool's webhook delivery speed, not Thoughtly.
No. The entire workflow — agent design, automation triggers, CRM integration — is built in Thoughtly's visual builder without code. If you want to add custom logic later, Thoughtly does support a Code node for JavaScript in automations, but it's optional.
If voicemail detection is enabled, the agent leaves your pre-configured voicemail message and ends the call. You can set up a follow-up automation using the On Call Completed trigger to send an SMS, schedule a retry call, or create a task in your CRM.
Yes. Thoughtly has native mid-call Actions for Calendly, Cal.com, Acuity, GoHighLevel, Mindbody, and Zoho Bookings. The agent checks availability, offers time slots, and confirms the booking — all while the lead is on the phone.
Pass lead source information as Metadata in your automation's Call Phone Number step. The agent can reference this metadata in Speak node prompts to personalize the conversation — for example, mentioning the specific product the lead inquired about or the landing page they came from.
