Forms and Surveys

Forms and surveys are how structured information enters the system. A form is a single screen of fields: capture a name, a number, a service interest, a consent tick. A survey is a sequence of questions, usually one or a few at a time, that can branch on previous answers and can carry a score. Both write their answers to contact fields and both can trigger everything that happens next.

The mental model is that a submission is a write to the contact record plus an event. The write is the data: fields set, tags applied, custom values stored. The event is what the rest of the build reacts to: a workflow starting, an owner assigned, a notification sent, an opportunity created. Designing a form means designing both, and a form that collects beautiful data but fires nothing is half a build.

The other thing to hold onto is that every field costs you submissions. A form is a negotiation: the business wants to know things, the visitor wants to be finished. Surveys exist precisely so that a longer negotiation can feel shorter, by asking one question at a time and only asking what the previous answers make relevant.

Fields and question types

• Standard contact fields: name, email, phone, address, company, date of birth
• Custom fields of every type: text, number, dropdown, radio, checkbox, multi-select, date, file upload, signature where offered
• Hidden fields carrying source, campaign or page values into the record
• Required and optional marking, placeholder text, help text and validation rules per field
• Consent checkboxes with the exact wording stored as evidence of permission
• Field mapping, so each question writes to the contact field you intend rather than to a stray custom field

Logic and flow

• Conditional logic that shows, hides or requires a field based on earlier answers
• Multi-step forms with a progress indicator, and surveys that present one question at a time
• Branching paths through a survey, so an answer sends the respondent down a different route
• Scoring, where answers carry weights and the total determines qualification, routing or the message that follows
• Disqualification paths that end politely rather than collecting data the business cannot use
• Partial submission capture where offered, so an abandoned form still leaves a contactable record

Presentation

• Inline embedding in a funnel, website or blog page, as a popup, or as a standalone hosted link
• Styling to match the brand: fonts, colors, field shapes, button text and layout
• Mobile layout and keyboard behavior per field type
• Spam protection, including a challenge and honeypot-style checks

On submission

• Thank-you behavior: an inline message, a redirect to a prepared page, or a booking step
• Tags applied, fields written, owner assigned, opportunity created at a chosen stage
• Internal notification by email or SMS, and task creation for a named person or role
• Workflow trigger with the submitted values available to later steps
• Duplicate handling: whether a repeat submission updates the existing contact or creates another

Reviewing responses

• A submission list per form with the full answer set, timestamp and source page
• Export of responses, and the same values visible on the contact record
• Conversion reporting by form and by page, so a poorly performing form is visible
• Score distribution across respondents where scoring is in use

1. Write down why each question exists and what the business will do differently because of the answer. Any question that fails that test comes out before you build.
2. Decide form or survey. If the questions are few and unconditional, a form. If there are many, or later questions depend on earlier ones, a survey asked a step at a time.
3. Create the custom fields you need in the contact record first, with clear names and the right type. Creating fields on the fly inside a form is how accounts end up with three near-identical fields.
4. Lay out the fields in the order a person would say them aloud, with the easiest first. Asking for a phone number before a name reads as an interrogation.
5. Mark as required only what you cannot proceed without. Everything else is optional, and you will still get most of it.
6. Add the conditional logic, then walk every branch yourself. Hidden required fields are the classic cause of a form that refuses to submit with no visible explanation.
7. If you are scoring, write the scoring scheme down with the thresholds and what each band means, then check that a realistic bad-fit respondent actually lands below the line.
8. Add the consent checkbox with wording the client has approved, unticked by default, and make sure the exact text is recorded with the submission.
9. Add hidden fields for source, campaign and page so the submission carries its own attribution without anyone having to ask where the lead came from.
10. Map every question to its destination field explicitly, then submit a real test and open the contact record to confirm each value landed where you intended.
11. Configure the thank-you behavior with something useful: a booking widget, the promised download, or a clear statement of what happens next and when.
12. Attach the submission actions: tags, owner, opportunity, internal notification, task. Name the person who gets the notification rather than sending it to everyone.
13. Build the follow-up workflow immediately, with an exit on reply, so no submission sits unanswered while the team is busy.
14. Style the form to match the page and check it on a phone: tap targets, keyboard types for phone and email fields, dropdown behavior and the length of the scroll.
15. Turn on spam protection and then watch the first week's submissions. Bot submissions pollute contact counts, trigger workflows and waste the team's time.
16. Decide duplicate handling deliberately: should a second submission update the person, or create a new record? Getting this wrong is where duplicate contacts come from.
17. Test the unhappy paths: a submission with the minimum fields, an invalid email, a disqualifying answer, and the same person submitting twice.
18. Review the completion rate after two weeks. A survey with a step where most people stop has a question that needs rewriting or removing.

Forms are the front door of the contact database, which makes them upstream of almost everything. Funnels and websites host them, workflows are triggered by them, pipelines are created from them, calendars often follow them, email and SMS consent is captured in them, and reporting depends on the hidden fields they carry. Poor form design shows up later as duplicate contacts, unmarketable records and attribution nobody trusts.

Qualification before a sales call

A scored survey sits behind the inquiry button. High scorers are routed straight to the booking widget for a senior consultation and assigned to a rep. Mid scorers are offered a shorter call. Low scorers receive a polite alternative and enter a nurture sequence instead of consuming calendar time. The team's calendar fills with people worth meeting.

Intake before an appointment

After a booking, a workflow sends a longer intake form with conditional sections so only the relevant history is requested. The answers write to custom fields on the contact, so the practitioner opens the record and sees everything needed before the appointment starts, and the front desk is not transcribing paperwork.

Post-service feedback that feeds reputation

A short survey goes out after an attended appointment. A positive score routes the contact to the review request; anything less creates a task for the manager with the comments attached, so a problem is handled privately rather than becoming a public review.

• Hidden required fields block submission silently. Conditional logic that hides a field without clearing its required flag produces a form that will not submit and gives the visitor no clue why. Walk every branch.
• Unmapped questions create junk fields. An answer written to an auto-created field nobody knows about is data the business cannot segment on, and the account accumulates dozens of them.
• Every extra field reduces submissions. This is the most reliable rule in the module and the one clients argue with most. Collect the rest after the relationship exists.
• Consent collected badly is worse than not collected. A pre-ticked box, a buried line of text or wording the client never approved leaves a record that cannot lawfully be marketed to and may create liability.
• Duplicate submissions duplicate contacts. Without deliberate duplicate handling, one person who submits twice becomes two records, two threads and two sets of chase messages.
• Spam submissions trigger real workflows. Bots fill forms, and those submissions text, email and notify the team like any other. Protection is not optional on a public page.
• File uploads bring risk and weight. They consume storage, can carry sensitive material, and may need a retention policy the client has not considered.
• Scoring is a model, not a truth. A scheme built on assumptions routes real people away from the business. Check the bands against actual outcomes after the first month.
• Editing a live form changes it mid-campaign. Added required fields, renamed options or altered logic apply instantly to traffic already arriving, and historical responses will no longer match the current question set.
• Deleting a field does not remove the data from existing records, but it does remove it from the form's reporting, which can make past submissions look incomplete.
• A survey that branches heavily becomes untestable. Every path needs checking, and the number of paths grows quickly. Keep the branching shallow enough to verify.
• Thank-you redirects are often forgotten after a page rename, leaving a completed form pointing at a dead URL. The worst possible moment for a broken link.
• Partial submissions are a consent gray area. A half-finished form may have captured a phone number without the consent box ever being reached. Decide explicitly whether to contact those people.
• Mobile keyboards matter. A phone field that opens a text keyboard, or a date field that needs typing, loses submissions for reasons the client will never report.
• Forms embedded off-platform can lose attribution. Pasted into a third-party site, hidden source fields may not populate, and the leads arrive with no campaign.