A demo request form process that gets the right buyers onto a call
A demo request is a buyer raising a hand. The process around it should do three things quickly: learn enough to decide who takes the call, get the request in front of that person within minutes, and agree a time. Anticode handles the page, the form and the hand-off to HubSpot or Slack; your sales team handles the conversation and the calendar.
Choose the shape of the form
There are two routes on an Anticode site, and the choice turns on how much you need to know before the call.
| Built-in contact form | Custom form with a site function | |
|---|---|---|
| Fields | Name, email and a message | Up to 30 plain-text fields you define |
| Qualifying questions | Asked in the message prompt, answered freely | Company, role, team size, use case as separate fields |
| Filtering | By the rep, after reading | A formula can refuse a request, for example when team size is below a number you set, with your own message |
| Setup | Nothing beyond building the page | Define the form and its function in the builder |
For most early-stage teams, four questions are enough: work email, company, team size, and "what do you want to see?". Every extra field costs requests. Ask what changes who takes the call or how you prepare; leave the rest for the call itself.
Where requests go
- HubSpot turns every request with an email address into a contact, without duplicating someone already there. Your pipeline and follow-up tasks then live in HubSpot as usual.
- Slack posts each request in a channel such as #demo-requests, usually within a minute, so whoever is on rotation sees it.
- A webhook into Zapier, Make or n8n covers anything else: assigning by territory, creating a deal, or posting to a different channel per product.
- Email to the account owner is on by default, and every request is saved in the project in any case.
Connectors belong to the account or Team workspace, so if the same workspace also runs a careers site or a community site, those submissions reach the same channel tagged with the site's name. Either keep sales sites in their own workspace or filter by site name in your automation.
From request to call
- The request arrives in Slack and HubSpot. The rep on rotation claims it in the thread.
- The rep checks the company and decides: demo, a lighter call, a self-serve trial, or a polite no.
- The rep replies from their own email with two or three proposed times and one question to prepare with. Anticode doesn't send this email.
- The prospect picks a time; the rep sends the calendar invite from their own calendar tool.
- After the call, the outcome is logged in HubSpot. Nothing about the call flows back to the website.
When a booking calendar fits
Anticode's booking calendar lets a visitor pick a service, a day and a time, and refuses a slot someone already took, up to 120 days ahead. The times are fixed: six a day (09:00, 10:30, 12:00, 14:30, 16:00, 17:30), with Mondays skipped, and you can't set your own hours or call lengths. You confirm each booking yourself; Anticode doesn't email the prospect. It suits a single founder taking intro calls who can work to those times. It fits a sales team less well: the booking form asks for service, day, time, name, phone and email, so no qualifying questions; it doesn't sync with anyone's calendar, so a booked slot can clash with a meeting; and there are no staff rotas to spread calls across reps. Many teams use the form for the request and a calendar link from their own scheduling tool in the reply.
What goes wrong
- Requests sit unclaimed. Name a rotation and an expected reply time, and review unanswered ones daily.
- Students and competitors book demos. A team-size field with a refuse-when formula filters some; the rep's judgement filters the rest.
- A Slack outage swallowed a request. Connectors send once without retries; HubSpot, email and the saved submissions are your backup.
- Prospects expect an instant calendar. Say on the page what happens next and how soon: "We'll reply within one working day with times."
How you know it works
Every request has an owner within the hour, a reply within the promised window, and an outcome in HubSpot. The ratio of requests to held demos is steady or rising. And reps say the form gives them enough to prepare, without asking prospects things they already answered.
Limits
Anticode doesn't schedule meetings, assign leads, send confirmations or reminders, or record whether a demo happened. The calendar has no sync and no rotas. Custom form fields are plain text, with no file uploads or drop-down logic that runs as the visitor types, since published pages run no scripts. For the qualification step in more depth, see qualifying website leads; for the page, the product demo request page and HubSpot.
Questions people ask
Can prospects book a demo time on the site?
With the booking calendar, yes, at its six fixed times a day, with you confirming each booking. It doesn't sync with your calendar or spread calls across a team, so most sales teams reply with times instead.
What should a request a demo form ask?
Work email, company, team size and what they want to see. Ask only what changes who takes the call or how they prepare.
Do demo requests go to HubSpot automatically?
Yes, with the HubSpot connector: each request that includes an email address becomes a contact. Requests without an email are skipped.