The trade you are making
A pre-chat form trades conversations for information. Every field filters out some visitors who would have asked their question — the casual browser, the mobile typist, the person who just wanted one quick answer. That trade is sometimes worth making; the mistake is making it by default, with fields nobody downstream ever uses.
The audit: who reads each field?
For every field on your form, name the person who acts on the answer. Name captures greeting personalization — an agent uses it. Email enables follow-up when the chat drops — support uses it. "Company size"? If no one routes, prioritizes, or replies differently because of it, the field is a toll booth collecting a currency you don't spend. Delete it.
What usually earns its place
- Name — cheap to give, makes the whole conversation warmer. Keep it.
- Email — the one field with real downstream value: transcript delivery and follow-up if the visitor leaves. Worth its cost on support chats; consider optional on sales pages where friction hurts most.
- Question / "How can we help?" — starts the conversation before an agent arrives and gives the AI layer something to answer instantly. High value, low resistance.
- Department — only if departments genuinely route to different people. A dropdown that all lands in the same queue is pure theater.
When to skip the form entirely
High-intent, low-patience moments — pricing pages, checkout, a proactive invitation the visitor just accepted — deserve a bare composer. You invited them; do not hand them paperwork. You can always ask for an email inside the conversation once it is worth continuing ("Want me to send you this transcript?") — consent asked at the moment of value converts far better than a gate asked before any value exists.
Offline is a different form
When no agent is online, the calculus flips: now email is essential (it is the only way to answer) and expectations matter more than fields. Say when they will hear back, and mean it. An offline form that promises nothing is a message in a bottle; one that says "we reply within one business day" is a commitment people accept.
Watch one number
Form starts versus chats begun. If many visitors open the widget and few conversations start, the form is your leak — remove a field and watch the number move. In MyLiveChat, pre-chat fields are configurable per deployment, so testing this costs a settings change, not a build.