Ask AI to Automatically Collect Information from Your Contacts

The Collect Contact Data action in Workflows uses an AI agent to automatically collect information from your contacts. The AI agent acts as an extension of your team to engage with your contacts in one-on-one conversations to collect data and save it to their contact record. It can be used to collect contact information, such as first name, last name, and email address. It can also ask for sizes, favorites, preferences, or any other data for any contact field in SlickText, including custom fields.

The agent will ask questions and react appropriately to your contacts' responses to get clarification based on the instructions you provide when setting up the action object. You control when the conversation begins, which contacts it can engage, what information it attempts to collect, the conversational style it uses, and when it should disengage from the conversation. The agent will handle the rest.

In this Article:

Adding the Collect Contact Data Object to a Workflow

Configuring the Collect Contact Data Object

Adding the Collect Contact Data Object to a Workflow

The AI Data Capture Agent is an action object in Workflows. To add it to a workflow, you’ll need to create a workflow first, which can be done by selecting a template or starting from scratch.

1. In SlickText, navigate to Workflows.
2. Click Create Workflow or edit an existing one.
3. Complete the items in the Setup section.
4. Expand the Build menu to begin building the workflow.  
5. Click Select a Template to start from a template or add a Trigger to start building your workflow from scratch.
6. Add any Actions, Waits, or Conditions that need to happen in the workflow before the AI agent takes over to collect data.
7. Click on Actions and locate the Collect Contact Data object.
8. Drag the Collect Contact Data object onto the canvas and connect it to the trigger, or wherever you want it to take over in the workflow.
9. Click on the settings icon of the Collect Contact Data object to configure the settings. For more details, see the next section below.
10. Determine what happens when the Collect Contact Data object completes its task by connecting subsequent objects in the workflow based on these options:
11. All Data Collected -- All specified data was collected and entered into the contact records.
12. Partial Data Collected -- Some of the specified data was collected.
13. No Data Collected -- None of the specified data was collected.
14. Contact Not Subscribed -- The contact wasn’t subscribed, so the AI agent could not engage with them. 

Configuring the Collect Contact Data Object

After adding an AI Data Capture Object to a workflow, you’ll need to provide instructions for the AI Agent to follow, choose which data fields you want it to collect, and configure some additional settings:

AI Agent Instructions

The AI agent already knows to collect the specified data from contacts and populate the corresponding contact fields for contacts it engages with. This box is where you provide additional instructions, such as giving the AI agent a personality. You can describe the tone it should use when engaging with contacts -- friendly, formal, funny, etc. Add any additional information you think would help the agent collect the data from your contacts and provide your contacts the ideal experience. You can tell it why you are collecting data, describe your brand, and define whether it should introduce itself. Imagine you're giving these instructions to a person. 

Send an initial message to start the conversation. 

When toggled on, the AI agent will send an initial message to start the conversation. When toggled off, the agent will just begin collecting data, assuming a previous message has prompted the contact to begin the conversation.

Send a final message when the conversation is over. 

When toggled on, the AI agent will send a final message, confirming the end of the conversation. When toggled off, the agent will stop when all data is collected or it has met the other criteria you established to terminate the conversation. 

Contact Fields to Collect

This is where you choose which data fields the AI agent should attempt to collect. If the field is not listed, open a separate browser tab to create it as a custom field, then click Refresh Fields. For each field you want to collect:

1. Click Add Field 
2. Select a field from the dropdown.
3. Provide a description for the field to help the AI agent collect the right data.

The agent will request data in the order. You can adjust the order by dragging the fields up or down.

If the contact doesn’t respond after…

Specify the amount of time the AI agent will wait for a response before acting. After the specified time has elapsed, you can tell the agent to end the conversation or nudge (or remind) the contact. If you choose to nudge the contact, you can set the Max Nudges to limit how many times the AI agent will nudge the contact before terminating the conversation. You can also specify the days and times that the AI agent will nudge the contact.