# How to Automate Sales Call Research With AI in Zapier > To automate sales call research, add screening questions to your booking page, then build a Zapier automation that triggers when a call is booked. It sends the answers and the lead's website to Perplexity AI, which has live internet access, asks for a one to two sentence summary and posts it to a Slack channel for your closers. Source: https://fluxomate.com/blog/automate-sales-call-research-with-ai.html Published by Fluxomate (https://fluxomate.com/), 2024-06-27. Section: Automation templates. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y42Wb7FLyjY ## Key takeaways - Collect the lead's website, business, goals and revenue range on your booking page, since the AI works from those answers. - Give the booked event a unique name and filter on it so the automation only runs for sales calls. - Perplexity AI can read live websites. ChatGPT, in our experience at the time, no longer scraped them. - Zapier sends the request to Perplexity through a webhook custom request with a prompt built from the booking answers. - Slack delivers the summary and call time to the closers, and you can add a CRM step as well. ## Why automate research before sales calls? Preparation helps you start a call better. When you speak to someone who does not know you or your agency, even surface level knowledge of their business can help build rapport in the first minute. A useful guideline is a preparation ratio of four to one, so a one hour meeting gets around 15 minutes of preparation. This automation does the first step for you. When a prospect books, it checks their website and booking answers, then sends a short summary to your closers. It suits sales calls, and the same idea can apply to client meetings or team meetings. It makes no promises about close rates, but it gives your team a head start. ## What tools do you need? - An automation tool. We use Zapier here. Make.com works too. Both have free trials, so try both and use the one you prefer. - A communication tool. We use Slack to message the closers. - An AI tool with live internet access. We use Perplexity AI because it can read the lead's website. - A booking tool with an API so it can trigger an automation. We use Calendly. GoHighLevel and Cal.com are alternatives. ## How do you set up the booking page? Create a one to one event and give it a unique name, such as sales call example. The name matters, because the automation filters on it to avoid running for every meeting type. Then add questions that appear after the lead selects a time. The aim is to get as much useful information as possible before the call. Questions to add in this example: - What is your website? (required, one line) - What is your monthly revenue? (required, drop down with ranges) - What is your business? (multi line) - What are your goals? (multi line) ## How do you build the Zap? The Zap has a trigger, a filter, an AI request, an optional CRM step and a Slack message. 1. Trigger: choose Calendly and the new invite created event. Test it to pull in a sample booking with its answers. 2. Filter: add a filter step where the event type name contains your sales event name. This keeps client calls and team calls out. 3. AI request: add a webhook step with a custom request to Perplexity. Set the method to POST and copy the URL from the Perplexity API documentation. 4. Headers: add a content type header set to application and json, and an authorization header with the word Bearer, a space, then your Perplexity API key. Keep the key private. 5. Data: copy the example request body from the Perplexity docs. The part you edit is the content of the message. 6. CRM (optional): add a step to create a record in your CRM, such as a Notion database or HubSpot, with the company information and call time. 7. Slack: choose send channel message. Post to a closers channel or to the assigned closer, with the summary and the call time. ## How do you write the prompt? Build the prompt in the content field by combining the booking answers with an instruction. Include the business, the goals, the monthly revenue and the website, then ask the AI to check the website and write a one to two sentence summary of what the lead does and anything useful for sales. Keep the prompt on one line. Line breaks or new paragraphs caused errors, so keep everything in one unbroken string inside the quotation marks. The prompt in our example was basic, and you can improve it. In our test the summary came back too long, so tighten the instruction if you want it short. ## How do you format the Slack message? The booking time comes through in a hard to read format. Add a Formatter step with date and time set to format the scheduled event start time into a clear day and hour, then use that in the message. A message like: New sales call booked, here is a quick summary, followed by the AI summary and the formatted time, is enough. You can rename the bot and change its icon. Make.com offers more control through Slack blocks if you want richer messages. ## How do you test it? Publish the Zap, then book a test call using your own booking link, with a real website in the form. The Slack message should arrive within moments of the booking. It should show the booking details, the answers and the summary of the website. You can then extend the idea to other meetings you need to prepare for, and add the CRM step to keep records linked to the Slack message. ## Questions people ask ### Why use Perplexity instead of ChatGPT for lead research? Perplexity has access to live internet data, so it can read a lead's website when they book a call. In the video, ChatGPT no longer scraped websites in the way needed for this automation. ### What booking questions should I ask to help the research? Ask for the website, monthly revenue range, what the business does and their goals. Use required fields for the website and revenue. The more useful information you collect before the call, the better the summary. ### How do I stop the automation firing for every meeting? Give the sales event a unique name in your booking tool and add a filter step in Zapier so it only continues when the event type name contains that name. ### Can I do this in Make.com instead of Zapier? Yes. Zapier and Make.com are similar no code tools. The same trigger, filter, AI request and Slack steps apply, and Make.com gives you more control over Slack message blocks. Tools used: Zapier, Calendly, Perplexity AI, Slack, Notion Free templates for this guide: https://fluxomate.com/resources.html?r=automate-sales-call-research-with-ai