# Request Router docs Request Router is a speed-to-lead system. When someone fills out the contact form on your website, your agent replies within seconds — with one tailored qualifying question, written by AI trained on your business. It captures their answer and forwards the whole conversation to your inbox, enriched and ready to close. You don't change your website. You don't install anything. You point your existing form's notification email at an address we give you, and every lead gets an instant, on-brand first reply — 24/7. ## How the pieces fit 1. **Your contact form** keeps working exactly as it does today. Its notification email — the one that currently lands in your inbox — goes to your agent's **inbound lead address** instead. 2. **Your agent** reads the submission, filters out spam and sales pitches, and emails the lead one sharp qualifying question, usually in under a minute. 3. **The lead replies** by email, like they would to a real person. 4. **You get the whole package**: their contact info, original message, and the question-and-answer exchange, forwarded to any inboxes you choose. Hit reply and you're talking straight to the lead. ## What it is — and isn't Request Router is deliberately narrow, because the first five minutes are what matter: - **Email only.** Your agent replies by email — no SMS, no voice calls. - **One question per lead.** The agent asks a single qualifying question and gets out of the way. No drip sequences, no chasing, no pretending to be a salesperson. - **You close the deal.** The agent's job is to respond instantly and qualify; yours is everything after. ## Find your way - [Getting started](/docs/getting-started) — create an account and your first agent. - [Training your agent](/docs/knowledge-sources) — feed it links and files so it sounds like your business. - [Agent settings](/docs/agent-settings) — everything you can configure. - [Test leads](/docs/test-leads) — try the full pipeline before paying anything. - [Going live](/docs/going-live) — connect your form and switch on real leads. - [The lead pipeline](/docs/lead-pipeline) — exactly what happens to every submission. - [Best practices & limits](/docs/best-practices) — get the most out of it. ## For the robots Every page in these docs is available as plain markdown — append `.md` to the URL (for example, `/docs/getting-started.md`). The whole set is also published as [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) and [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt) for AI assistants. --- # Getting started Everything up to real leads is free. You can create an account, build an agent, train it on your business, and send yourself test leads without entering a card. You only pay when you switch on real leads. ## 1. Sign in Go to [requestrouter.com/signin](/signin) and enter your email. We'll send you a six-digit code (or you can use the magic link in the same email) — no password to remember. ## 2. Create your first agent An **agent** is a dedicated inbound email address plus everything the AI knows about your business. One agent covers one business: you can point as many contact forms as you like at it, and they all share its training and settings. From the dashboard, give your agent a name — usually just your business name, like *Cedar & Main Plumbing* — and hit **Create**. You'll land on its settings page. Run more than one business or location? Create a separate agent for each. Every agent has its own training, its own inbound address, and its own subscription. ## 3. Train it Add a few links or files under **Training** — your homepage, pricing page, service pages. The AI distills them and uses them to ask sharper questions. Details in [Training your agent](/docs/knowledge-sources). ## 4. Test it Use **Send a test lead** to fire a sample inquiry through the exact same pipeline a real lead goes through, with the reply delivered to your own inbox. Iterate until it sounds right. Details in [Test leads](/docs/test-leads). ## 5. Go live When you're happy, activate the subscription — a flat **$49/month**, month-to-month, cancel anytime. That unlocks your inbound lead address; point your form's notification email at it and you're done. Details in [Going live](/docs/going-live). ## What's free vs. paid | | Trial (free) | Active ($49/mo) | |---|---|---| | Build & configure an agent | ✓ | ✓ | | Train it on your links & files | ✓ | ✓ | | Send test leads | ✓ | ✓ | | Handle real leads from your form | — | ✓ (up to 500/mo) | On the trial, real submissions aren't processed — the trial is for building and testing. The moment you activate, your agent starts answering real leads. --- # Training your agent Your agent's edge is that it doesn't send the same generic auto-reply as everyone else. It asks questions that sound like someone who works at your business — because you've shown it your business. That happens through **sources**: links and files you add under the **Training** tab. ## What you can add - **Links** — paste a URL and the agent fetches the page. Your homepage, pricing page, and service pages are the usual suspects. - **Files** — upload documents. Any filetype is accepted, but `.pdf`, `.txt`, and `.md` work best. 10 MB limit per file. When you add a source, the AI reads it once and distills it into a compact brief it can use at reply time. That takes a moment: a source shows as **pending**, then flips to **ready** (or **error** if it couldn't be fetched or read). ## Managing sources Each source in the list can be: - **Toggled on or off** — keep a source around but stop the agent using it. - **Renamed** — give it a friendlier title than the raw URL or filename. - **Refreshed** — re-fetch a link and re-distill it. Do this after you update your pricing page. - **Deleted** — gone for good. A source that errors or is switched off is simply skipped. It never blocks or slows down lead handling — your agent always replies with whatever it has. ## What to feed it The goal is material that helps the agent ask a *better first question*. Highest value first: 1. **Pricing and packages** — so it can reference minimums, ranges, or tiers ("Our kitchen remodels start at $40k — is your project in that range?"). 2. **Services and service area** — so it knows what you do and where you do it. 3. **The questions you already ask** — if your intake call always starts with the same three questions, write them in a file and upload it. The agent will lead with what matters. 4. **Anything a sharp new hire would read on day one** — sales sheets, FAQs, a page about how you work. Skip the fluff: blog archives and press pages rarely make the first question better. Changed your training? [Send a test lead](/docs/test-leads) to see the difference immediately. --- # Agent settings Everything you can change lives on your agent's settings page, under two tabs: **Training** (what the agent knows and how it behaves) and **Test leads and billing** (try it on a fake inquiry, find your inbound address, and manage your subscription). ## Name Your business name as the agent uses it — it appears in the emails leads receive ("Thanks for reaching out to Cedar & Main Plumbing"). Keep it exactly as customers know you. ## Forward qualified leads to Where your leads land. One address or several, comma-separated — you, a partner, a shared `sales@` inbox. Every forwarded lead arrives with **Reply-To set to the lead**, so whoever gets it just hits reply and is talking directly to the customer. Change recipients anytime; it takes effect on the next lead. ## Agent guidance Free-text instructions that steer how the AI writes its qualifying question. This is the most direct lever you have. Good guidance is specific: - *"Always ask where the property is located."* - *"Make sure they know our minimum retainer is $5,000."* - *"We only take commercial work — politely say so if it's residential."* Guidance shapes the question; [sources](/docs/knowledge-sources) supply the facts. Use both. --- # Testing with test leads Before a single real customer touches your agent, you can watch it work. The **Send a test lead** form on your agent's **Test leads and billing** tab drives a fake inquiry through the *identical* pipeline a real lead goes through — same training, same settings, same AI — and delivers the reply to any email address you choose. Test leads are free, work on the trial, and never count toward your monthly totals. ## How to run one 1. Open your agent and go to **Test leads and billing**. 2. In **Send a test lead**, enter the address the reply should go to (yours), an optional subject, and a message — write it the way a real customer would. *"Hi, my water heater is leaking, how soon can someone come out? I'm in Round Rock."* 3. Hit **Send test lead** and check your inbox. The reply usually lands within seconds. What you receive is exactly what your customer would receive: the agent's qualifying question, in your business's voice. ## The iteration loop Test leads are how you tune your agent: 1. **Send** a realistic inquiry. 2. **Read** the question it asked. Too generic? Missing the thing you always ask first? 3. **Adjust** — add [guidance](/docs/agent-settings) ("always ask about location") or better [sources](/docs/knowledge-sources) (your pricing page). 4. **Resend** the same message and compare. Two or three loops is usually enough to get questions you'd be proud to send yourself. Try a few different customer types too — the urgent one, the vague one, the price-shopper — and make sure the question adapts. When it sounds right, you're ready to [go live](/docs/going-live). --- # Connect your form & go live Going live is one payment and one copy-paste. No code, no plugins, no website changes. ## 1. Activate your agent On the **Test leads and billing** tab, hit **Activate — $49/mo**. It's month-to-month; cancel anytime. Once you're active, your agent's **inbound lead address** appears on the same tab. ## 2. Point your form at it Every contact form product — Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, Webflow, Gravity Forms, Jotform, all of them — can send a **notification email** when someone submits. It's the email that currently lands in your inbox with the submission details. Find that setting in your form builder and set the notification address to your agent's inbound lead address (copy it with the copy button). That's the whole integration. The agent parses whatever the form sends — the lead's name, email, and message are picked out automatically, and replies go to the *lead's* address, never the form mailer. Got several forms? Point them all at the same address. They share the agent's training and all count toward the same plan. **Tip:** if you still want raw submission emails yourself, most form builders let you notify more than one address — keep yours on the list alongside the agent's. ## 3. Watch the first one land Run a real submission through your own form as a final check: 1. Submit your form like a customer would (use a personal email, not your business one). 2. Within a minute or so, that address should receive the agent's qualifying question. 3. Reply to it, like a lead would. 4. Your forward-to inbox receives the enriched summary — contact info, original message, and the Q&A. 5. Hit reply on that summary and confirm it's addressed to the lead. If all five check out, you're live. From here on, every lead gets an answer in seconds — including the ones that arrive at 11pm on a Saturday. Curious what's happening under the hood at each step? See [What happens to a lead](/docs/lead-pipeline). --- # What happens to a lead The full timeline, from the moment someone hits *Submit* on your form to the moment the conversation lands in your inbox. ## Second 0 — the submission arrives Your form's notification email hits your agent's inbound address. The agent immediately works out two things: - **Is this a real lead?** Actual inquiries go forward. Spam, sales pitches, and vendor emails are classified as non-leads and set aside — they never count against your plan. (When it's genuinely ambiguous, the agent errs toward treating it as a lead — better to ask a stray question than to ignore a customer.) - **Who is it?** Name, email, and phone are extracted from the submission, whatever shape your form sends them in. ## Seconds later — the question goes out The AI writes one qualifying question tailored to the inquiry, using your [training sources](/docs/knowledge-sources) and [guidance](/docs/agent-settings), and emails it to the lead from your agent. Speed is guaranteed by design: if question generation ever takes more than a few seconds, the agent doesn't wait — it instantly sends a fallback question instead. ## The lead replies The lead answers by email, like they would to a person. The reply threads straight back to your agent, which recognizes exactly which conversation it belongs to and captures the answer. ## Delivery — the enriched summary Your forward-to inboxes receive one tidy package: - the lead's contact details, - their original message, - the question the agent asked and the lead's answer. The email's Reply-To is the **lead**, so you reply once and you're in a direct conversation. From here, it's yours to close. ## If the lead goes quiet Not everyone answers. If a lead hasn't replied after about **15 minutes**, the agent forwards you a "no answer yet" summary with everything it has — the contact info and the original message. No lead ever sits invisible in a queue. If they answer later, you'll get the full enriched summary then too. ## Non-leads By default, spam and sales pitches are quietly dropped. If you'd rather see them, we can [turn on non-lead forwarding](/docs/agent-settings) — they arrive clearly marked so you can skim and delete. --- # Best practices & limits What separates a good agent from a great one, plus the plan details in plain terms. ## Getting the best questions - **Write guidance like you'd brief a new hire.** Short, concrete rules beat essays: *"always ask for the property address"*, *"mention that estimates are free"*, *"we don't do emergency calls"*. See [Agent settings](/docs/agent-settings). - **Feed it your pricing.** Questions that reference real numbers ("projects start at $5k — is that in your budget?") qualify leads dramatically better than "can you tell me more?". See [Training your agent](/docs/knowledge-sources). - **Keep sources fresh.** Changed your prices or service area? Refresh the source. The agent only knows what you've shown it. - **Ask us for a strong fallback question.** It's what goes out on the rare occasion AI generation is slow, so make it one that would qualify most of your leads — *"What's the job, and what's your zip code?"* beats *"How can we help?"*. - **Test after every change.** One [test lead](/docs/test-leads) takes thirty seconds and shows you exactly what customers will see. ## Deliverability Replies reach leads more reliably — and look better — when they come from your own domain. We can set up a **branded from-address** (requires verifying your domain) during onboarding; [email us](mailto:drew@workandwhistle.co) to arrange it. And keep your own inbox in the loop: when you reply to a forwarded lead, you're mailing them directly from your normal email, which is exactly how it should look. ## Plan limits - **$49/month per agent**, flat. One agent covers one business, with as many contact forms as you like pointed at it. - **Up to 500 real leads a month.** Spam and sales pitches never count. If you go over, nothing breaks — your agent keeps answering every lead, and we'll reach out about a plan that fits your volume. - **Month-to-month.** No contract; cancel anytime from the billing page. ## Billing states, in plain terms | Status | What it means | |---|---| | **Trial** | Build, train, and test freely. Real submissions aren't processed yet. | | **Active** | Fully live — real leads are answered and forwarded. | | **Past due** | A payment failed. Update your card to keep real leads flowing. | | **Canceled** | Real-lead processing is paused. Your agent, training, and settings are optionally kept so you can reactivate anytime. | ## Scope, on purpose Request Router is email-only and asks exactly **one** qualifying question per lead — no drip campaigns, no fake follow-ups, no impersonating a sales rep. The product is the first five minutes: instant response, one sharp question, and a clean handoff to you. That focus is why it works.