Lead funnel — stages and automatic transitions

What it is

Each lead has a stage that indicates where they are in the sales process. ZeroChats moves leads between stages automatically as the conversation evolves.

The AI evaluates each message and moves the lead to the next stage when the condition is met.

Three views to manage leads

You can work with your leads from three views that coexist in the dashboard:

• List — table with every lead. Designed to review and filter many at once (by stage, tag, agent, date, etc.).
• Visual funnel — kanban with one column per stage. You see how many leads you have at each phase and can drag a lead from one column to another to change their stage manually.
• Message inbox — list of conversations to reply lead by lead, without leaving the chat.

The three views work on the same data: any change (stage, tag, automation) is reflected instantly in the others.

List view filters

Above the table there is a Filters button. They can all be combined and apply at the same time:

Filter	What it does
Name	Searches by the lead’s name or Instagram username (with or without @).
Instagram or phone	Searches by Instagram username or by phone (the WhatsApp one, or the one collected during the conversation).
Last message from / to	Date range of the conversation’s last message.
AI Agent	Keeps only the leads handled by a specific agent, or those under Default.
State	Keeps only leads sitting in one funnel stage.
Contact	Keeps only the leads you can’t simply write to right now: Unanswered welcomes (you wrote to them and they never replied by DM), Window closed (24 h+) (they wrote more than 24 hours ago) or Blocked by another app (another app connected to your account holds the conversation and Instagram refuses ZeroChats’ messages).
Automated Status	Automated (the AI replies) or Manual (the AI is paused on that lead).
Tags	Keeps only the leads carrying a tag, by typing its name. Only shown if your business has tags.
Min / Max Messages	Narrows by how many messages the conversation has.
Verification	Verified or Not verified, based on Meta’s verification of the lead’s Instagram account.
Follows account	Follower or Not a follower of your Instagram account.
You follow them	Followed or Not followed: whether your Instagram account follows the lead.
Min Followers	Keeps only leads with at least that many Instagram followers.

“Last message from / to” are dates, not hours

Both fields are date-and-time pickers, not “X hours ago”. From sets the start of the range and to the end, and both ends are included in the result. To find leads that have gone quiet, leave from empty and set to to the date beyond which you no longer want to see them.

The moment being matched is the conversation’s last message, whether the lead or your business wrote it (you or the AI). An automatic follow-up also counts as the last message. Leads with no messages yet do not appear when you use these two fields.

The funnel stages

Stage	Meaning	Who sets it
Open	Conversation started by the business (outbound).	ZeroChats
Discovering	New lead, conversation still active and unclassified.	ZeroChats
Qualifying	The AI is evaluating whether the lead fits your offer.	A condition you define
Proposal	Qualified, ready to receive the sales proposal.	ZeroChats (when a link is sent)
Booked	Has a confirmed appointment on the calendar.	A condition you define
Paid	Has confirmed the payment.	A condition you define
Postponed	Paused for now; contact manually later.	A condition you define
Unqualified	Doesn’t fit your offer.	A condition you define
Lost	Went silent or abandoned the conversation.	ZeroChats (24 h with no reply)

Automatic transitions

In the business settings you define natural-language conditions for when to move a lead to a stage. Only five stages have a configurable condition, and these are they:

• To move to Qualifying: “when the lead clearly explains what they’re looking for”.
• To move to Booked: “when the lead has confirmed an appointment”.
• To move to Paid: “when the lead confirms they have paid”.
• To move to Postponed: “when the lead asks you to reach out later”.
• To move to Unqualified: “when the lead clearly doesn’t fit (wrong location, no budget, etc.)”.

The AI evaluates these conditions after every message. If a condition is met, the lead moves to that stage. An empty condition leaves the transition disabled.

If you let the AI book, be careful with the Booked condition

When you have Calendly or GoHighLevel connected so the AI can book, the screen warns you as you write this condition. The reason: the condition decides from the conversation alone, so it can mark the lead as Booked as soon as they accept a time, before the appointment actually exists in your calendar — which also needs their full name, their email, and the slot still being free.

Keep it strict, or leave it empty so that only a real booking sets that stage.

Stages that are not configured with conditions

ZeroChats sets the remaining four stages on its own, so you won’t find them in the list of conditions in the business settings:

• Open — the business wrote first and the lead hasn’t replied yet.
• Discovering — the conversation is active and still unclassified. It’s also the stage a lead returns to from Lost or Unqualified if they write again.
• Proposal — set when the AI sends the lead one of your sales links. There’s no condition to write: set the link up in Sales links and the stage applies on its own when it’s sent. It only moves leads that sit earlier in the funnel: a lead already in Proposal, Booked or Paid keeps their stage even if they receive another link (for example, a prepare-for-your-call link).
• Lost — set when more than 24 hours pass with no message at all in the conversation. The 24 h count from the last message from either side, not just the lead’s: every AI reply, every follow-up and every message you write restarts the count. So if you have a follow-up at 21 h, the lead moves to Lost about 24 h after that follow-up, not 24 h after their own last message. It only happens from Discovering and Qualifying: a lead already in Proposal, Booked, Paid or Postponed doesn’t move to Lost through inactivity, and neither does one with an open Resume conversation reminder (see Reminders).

Some transitions cannot happen

Once a lead has moved forward, it doesn’t go back to the initial evaluation stages:

• From Proposal, Booked, Paid or Postponed, a lead doesn’t go back to Qualifying and doesn’t move to Unqualified.
• From Paid, a lead doesn’t move to Booked.

If you wrote a condition for one of those stages and it never applies, check which stage the lead is in: most likely it had already moved past it. For those cases, change the stage by hand.

Leads in Postponed are on hold

While a lead is in Postponed it receives no follow-ups and doesn’t move to Lost through inactivity. It’s the stage for leads you’ll pick back up manually later.

Best practices

Start with only the transitions that are critical for your business (usually Qualifying, Booked and Paid) and leave the rest empty. Add the others once you’re clear on which phrase describes the change at each stage.

Manual control

You can always change the stage manually from the dashboard, regardless of automatic conditions. The manual change prevails until a new condition is met.