When sales happen in chats, the CRM often lives in a manager’s head. A customer wrote on Instagram, followed up on Telegram, disappeared for a week and came back — and the history of the conversation is scattered across chats and phones. A month later nobody can say how many inquiries there were, how many turned into purchases and at which step customers drop off.

A CRM for chats solves a simple problem: every inquiry becomes a lead, every lead has a stage and an owner, and the whole history is in one place.

Why spreadsheets and notes stop being enough

While there are few messages, a spreadsheet or notes on a phone will do. Problems start when there is more than one channel and more than one person replying:

  • the lead was recorded, but nobody noted where the customer came from or what they asked;
  • two managers gave one customer different answers;
  • someone promised to call the customer back tomorrow — and forgot;
  • it’s unclear which channel brings purchases and which brings only questions.

Messaging has long been a normal way to reach a business: 73% of people prefer to message a business rather than call. So chats deserve the same tracking as phone calls and website orders.

Source: Kantar for Meta, 2025.

The path from message to deal

  1. Message. The customer writes in any channel. All chats come into one feed, so none of them gets lost.
  2. Lead. As soon as the conversation contains contact details or a clear intent, a lead appears: name, phone number, what they’re interested in, where they came from.
  3. In progress. The manager clarifies the details, answers questions, agrees on a time, delivery or payment.
  4. Outcome. The deal is won or lost — and in both cases it’s clear why.

In the Mated workspace the pipeline starts with four stages: “New lead” («Новая заявка»), “In progress” («В работе»), “Won” («Успешно») and “Lost” («Отказ»). You can rename the stages and add your own, but these are enough to begin with. Make the pipeline more detailed once you can see at which step customers get stuck.

What details a lead needs

A lead should answer the questions of a manager who sees the customer for the first time. The minimum set:

  • name and phone number — how to get in touch;
  • channel — where the customer came from;
  • the request — what they were interested in, in a sentence or two;
  • amount — the expected deal value, if it’s already clear;
  • next step — what was promised to the customer and by when.
Example For Gorizont, a fictional training center, the set also includes the course, the student’s age for children’s groups and a convenient class time. Decide which fields matter to you and write them into the agent’s rules — then it will collect those details right in the conversation.

Rules for the team

A CRM only works if everyone keeps it the same way. Agree on a few rules and write them down:

  • Every lead has an owner.
  • The stage changes on the same day the situation changes.
  • The reason for closing is recorded: too expensive, the time didn’t suit, chose something else, not responding.
  • Agreements are recorded in the lead, not in a manager’s personal chat.
  • New leads, including the ones from the night, are reviewed at the start of the working day.

Who should get access to what — chats, leads, agent settings — is covered in “Team roles in a sales chat”.

What to do with customers who went quiet

In chats, customers often disappear mid-conversation: they got distracted, decided to think it over, went to compare. That isn’t a refusal yet. Agree on a simple follow-up rule:

  • if the customer didn’t reply to your offer, write again the next day — briefly, with one specific question;
  • instead of “are you still thinking?”, offer the next step: an available time, the course program, a trial lesson;
  • if there is still no reply after the second message, move the lead to “Lost” with the reason “not responding” — then the pipeline shows the real picture instead of a list of forever-“new” leads.

What to watch in analytics

The goal of a CRM isn’t a pretty board but understanding where you lose customers. Once a week, look at a few numbers:

  • Incoming inquiries — how many people wrote and in which channels.
  • Leads — how many inquiries reached contact details or a clear request.
  • Conversion — what share of leads ended in a deal.
  • Reasons for refusal — what most often gets in the way of a purchase.

If there are many inquiries but few leads, the problem is in the first replies: customers don’t get the information they need or wait too long. If there are many leads but few deals, look at the managers’ work and at the offer itself.

Keep a separate eye on first response time. A study of website leads found that replying within 5 minutes makes you 21 times more likely to qualify a lead than replying after 30 minutes.

Source: InsideSales / MIT, 2007.

Where the AI agent fits in

The agent takes the first step: it answers common questions, collects the contact details and the request, and creates a lead with a short summary of what the customer was interested in. Instead of “hi, how much is it?”, the manager gets a lead with context and spends time on people who are ready to buy. The agent replaces neither the CRM nor the managers: it makes sure every inquiry gets into the pipeline, including in the evening and on weekends. How not to lose inquiries outside working hours is covered in “How to answer customers at night and keep sales”.

How it works in Mated

In Mated, chats, leads, the CRM pipeline with stages and analytics are in one workspace. A lead has contact details, an amount, a note and a stage, and the pipeline stages can be set up to match your process. Team accounts with roles are coming soon: a manager will handle leads, an analyst will see only the numbers. Explore all features, compare plans or sign up to try the workspace.