A professional services CRM for client intake that starts in a message.
Prospective clients increasingly text or WhatsApp a firm before they ever fill out a form. inChat is designed to give each inquiry an intake owner, a consistent set of questions and a clear path to a booked consult.
inChat is in early access. Features shown are in development.
Intake happens in fragments, on the wrong phones
An immigration firm gets a WhatsApp message from someone whose status expires in eight months. A tax practice gets twelve texts in the last week of March. A consultant gets a referral in her DMs. The inquiry is answered by whoever saw it first, the intake questions are asked from memory, and when the consult comes around nobody has the documents. Prospects who don’t hear back by the next morning have often messaged two other firms.
- 01
Intake questions asked three times
The receptionist asks the basics, the paralegal asks again, and the attorney asks again at the consult because nothing was written down where she could see it.
- 02
Consults booked, documents missing
The checklist was sent once by text. Nobody followed up, so the first meeting is spent asking for papers instead of giving advice.
- 03
The partner’s phone is the intake line
Referrals text the partner directly. When she’s in court or with clients, those inquiries sit unanswered, and nobody else on the team can see them.
A repeatable intake, from first message to engagement
Here’s the intake flow inChat is designed to support. The product is in development; intake steps that need specialist systems stay outside it.
Inquiry arrives at the firm, not a person
Messages to the firm’s WhatsApp or text number land in a shared inbox, routed by matter type (family, employment-based immigration, tax, advisory) to the right intake person.
Ask the same intake questions every time
Matter type, key dates, jurisdiction, how they heard about you. Answers are saved as fields so the attorney or accountant sees them before the consult.
Run conflict checks where they belong
Conflict checks happen in your practice management system, outside inChat. Intake leaves an internal note with the result and the deal waits at “Conflict check” until it’s cleared.
Book the consult
Offer times in the thread, record the consult date and move the deal forward. If the prospect goes quiet, a reminder brings it back to the intake owner.
Request documents, the right way
Send the checklist from the conversation and track what’s outstanding, while directing sensitive files to your secure portal rather than chat.
Engagement and handoff
Once the engagement letter is signed in your usual tool, mark the deal won. The full intake history stays on the client record for whoever handles the matter.
An employment-based immigration inquiry. Intake asked the right questions once, the conflict check ran in the system built for it, and the attorney walks into the consult with the matter type and deadline already on the record. The documents go to the firm’s portal, not the chat.
The parts of inChat that matter here.
Intake owner on every inquiry
Route by matter type or practice area so referrals and cold inquiries reach intake, not a partner’s personal phone, and every thread shows who owns it.
See conversation assignmentIntake answers as structured fields
Matter type, key deadlines, jurisdiction and referral source become fields on the contact, ready for the consult and filterable later.
See custom fieldsInternal notes for conflicts and handoffs
Record that a conflict check was run and cleared, and @mention the attorney or accountant, without any of it reaching the prospect.
See team collaborationSummaries a person reviews
The AI assistant in development can summarize a long intake thread and suggest field updates. A person reviews and approves every summary and change before it’s saved.
See the AI assistant- Conflict checks, matter management, trust accounting, document management and e-signature stay in your practice management system. inChat doesn’t do them and has no integrations with those tools.
- Ask clients not to send identity documents, financial records or other sensitive files over chat. Use your secure portal and keep the conversation about logistics.
- inChat holds no security certifications today. Check your bar or professional body’s rules on client communications and confidentiality with your ethics counsel before adopting any messaging tool.
- Intake conversations shouldn’t include legal or tax advice before an engagement is in place. That’s your policy to set, and inChat doesn’t enforce it.
Professional services: your questions.
What inChat is designed to do for professional services, and what’s still being decided.
Ask us something elseNo. Conflict checks belong in your practice management system. inChat is designed to hold the intake conversation, record the result as a note or field, and keep the deal parked until the check clears.
inChat is in development and holds no security certifications, so we don’t make confidentiality or compliance claims. Most firms use messaging for intake logistics and keep substantive and sensitive material in their secure systems. Check your professional rules with counsel.
WhatsApp, through the WhatsApp Business Platform, is a launch channel and in development now. US business texting (SMS) is the other launch channel. Instagram DMs come next after launch.
Not on its own. AI lead qualification is an early concept: it would suggest a qualification from what the prospect wrote, and a person on your team confirms or changes it. It never decides whether to take a matter.
inChat is pre-launch and in early access. There’s no self-serve signup and pricing isn’t published yet. Request early access and we’ll follow up.
Other ways teams use inChat.
Real estate
Showing requests, buyer and seller leads, and team handoffs in one shared inbox.
ExploreEducation
Enrollment inquiries, trial classes and intake deadlines, with parent and student linked.
ExploreAgencies
New-business inquiries, discovery calls, retainer proposals and the client threads after.
ExploreEcommerce
Pre-purchase questions, order status and returns over DM, handled by a real person.
ExploreMake every conversation count.
Join the early-access list to see inChat in action, help shape what we build next, and be first to know when your team can start.
- A walkthrough built around your channels
- Early look at pricing and plans
- A direct line to the product team