How to set up and use the AI Lead Assistant

The AI Lead Assistant captures structured enquiries from customers and delivers them to you through the same Leads & Quotes system as every other Annuvell Local enquiry. There is no separate inbox and no second set of rules. It is available on the Premium plan and above and is switched on per business from AI Apps.

What a lead is

A lead is one customer's request to hear from you. Each lead records:

• the customer's name;
• an email address that can receive replies;
• a phone number, if they chose to give one;
• their message (a short description of what they need);
• a preferred date or time, if they gave one, as a date or as plain text;
• their consent to be contacted;
• where the request came from: your profile, the Ask assistant, a hosted page or your own website.

The assistant does not collect anything else. Duplicate or repeated submissions are recognised and are not delivered twice.

How leads reach you

Delivery follows one rule for every enquiry on Annuvell Local:

• A claimed business with an approved recipient address receives leads automatically. The lead appears in Leads & Quotes and an email is sent to the recipient address that Annuvell Local has approved for your business. Imported or public email addresses on a listing are never used.
• An unclaimed business does not receive customer messages automatically. The request is stored and held for review by Annuvell Local; nothing is emailed to the listing.
• A claimed business without an approved recipient address has its leads held for review until an address is approved.

The app card tells you if your business is in the held state. To have an address approved, claim your listing if you have not already, then ask through the contact form.

Who can send a lead

Customers using your Annuvell Local profile must be signed in with a verified email address before they can ask you to contact them; this keeps enquiries genuine. On your own website (through the website integration) you can choose whether visitors may send a request without an account. Either way the customer must tick the consent box.

Where you see and answer leads

Every lead, from the assistant or from the standard enquiry form, appears in Leads & Quotes with its status. From there:

• read the message and the customer's contact details;
• reply directly to the customer by email or phone, using the details they gave;
• keep the list tidy by working through new leads promptly; customers who do not hear back go elsewhere.

You can choose whether to receive email notifications for enquiries and quote requests in your dashboard settings. Turning notifications off does not stop leads being recorded.

Working with AI Customer Support

If both apps are active, a customer chatting with the Ask assistant can ask you to contact them. That request becomes a lead exactly like any other, subject to the same delivery rule. If you activate only the Lead Assistant, the standard enquiry option on your profile continues to work and its enquiries follow the same rule too.

Test before you activate

1. Check that your business is claimed and that the app card does not show the "held for review" notice.
2. Sign in with a verified customer account and send yourself a short enquiry from your profile.
3. Check it appears in Leads & Quotes and, if an approved recipient address exists, that the email arrives.
4. Reply to it as you would to a customer.

Collect only what you need

The assistant asks for a name, an email address, an optional phone number, the message and, optionally, a preferred time. Do not ask customers to include anything sensitive in the message, and do not use the enquiry form to collect passwords, card details, identity documents or health information. Enquiries follow Annuvell Local's Privacy Policy: keep them for as long as you need to respond, and no longer.

Updating or deactivating

Press Deactivate on the app card to switch the assistant off. Leads already recorded stay in Leads & Quotes, and the standard enquiry form on your profile keeps working under the same rules.