How to Use Close to Call Inbound Leads Within Five Minutes

The short answer: set up a phone number, build the enquiry form in Close with URL parameter tracking and a submission alert, create a Smart View of new inbound leads not called in the last few hours, start a workflow on the form submission with a call step for the rep group and an email if the call misses, work the Smart View with the Power Dialer, and check Call Reports and Workflow Reporting against Close's five-minute target.

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The job: marketing generates demo requests, and the first call happens the next afternoon. Close's own inbound response guide sets a practical target of five minutes during business hours, with one hour as the outer limit and an acknowledgement email for leads that arrive after hours. This walk-through builds that path in Close. For what the product is and costs, see the Close glossary entry.

Before you set it up:

• Price the plan this needs. Workflows and the Power Dialer start on Growth. For example, two SDRs and a manager on Growth cost 3 x $99 = $297 a month billed annually, on the pricing page (checked on 24 October 2026). If they make 600 calls of 3 minutes, that is 1,800 minutes at the page's typical $0.02 a minute, so 1,800 x $0.02 = $36.
• Reuse what you have. Keep your current lead statuses and add one, such as New inbound. The fields on your existing enquiry form become the Close form.
• Pick the three numbers you will read. Close's guide names pickup rate on inbound calls, calls per lead in the first 24 hours, and median time from submission to first call.

What you need

• Growth or Scale. Workflows are only available on those plans, per the workflows guide, and the Power Dialer guide excludes Solo and Essentials.
• A phone number per rep. Depending on the country, Close's calling setup guide may ask for address or ID documents in a regulatory bundle before the number is issued, so start this first.
• Consent where you need it. Close's GDPR page asks customers to make sure they have the consent to track email opens or record calls, and to turn those features off otherwise.

Step 1: Build the form in Close

Go to Settings, Connect, Forms and click New Form, per the Forms guide. Close adds name and email; add phone, company and your qualifying question from the field templates, which map to Close fields without manual mapping. In the Settings tab, tick Track URL Parameters and add utm_source and utm_campaign, mapped to custom fields, so you can later split response time by source. Enter the addresses that get a submission alert. Click Publish, copy the embed code onto your demo page, or use the share link.

Step 2: Make the queue

Create a Smart View called New inbounds. Close's calling Smart View guide builds it from filters: lead status New inbound, no call in the last 4 hours (its own example for an inbound funnel), and no incomplete tasks, so leads a rep already scheduled drop out. Sort by newest first. The guide also suggests filtering by time zone so nobody is called at night.

Step 3: Start the follow-up on submission

Go to Workflows, click New Workflow, choose Select a trigger and pick Form Submission event, then your form, as the Forms guide describes. Add the steps from the workflow steps guide:

• Update Lead to set the status to New inbound.
• Call, assigned to a Specific Group of reps. Every member gets the task, and when one of them completes it, it disappears for the others.
• Email, after the call step, referencing the form. By default a completed call is required before the run moves on; mark the call step Optional, with a timeout in days, if the email should go out regardless.

Under Recipient & Schedule, set the communication window to business hours. The incoming email, SMS, call and meeting booked goals are on by default when there is a recipient, so a lead who answers or books stops the run, per the workflows guide. Save it as a draft, test it with your own submission, then activate.

Step 4: Dial the queue

Open the New inbounds Smart View and click Call to start a Power Dialer session. The dialer rechecks the Smart View every five minutes or less, so a newly submitted lead sorted to the top is called next, per the Power Dialer guide. Shared Smart Views are safe: the dialer stops two reps calling the same lead. By default it rings for 32 seconds; Reduced Ring Time cuts that to 20, which means fewer voicemails left.

Step 5: Let an assistant check the gaps

Close's MCP server connects to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or n8n. Connect it with the mcp.read scope only, which is read-only. Each morning, ask it which leads created from the form yesterday have no call logged, and which rep owns each one.

The assistant drafts the list; the sales manager checks it against the New inbounds Smart View and reassigns by hand. Keep the write scopes off for this job: mcp.write_safe can change data and mcp.write_destructive can also delete it. Close's own AI agent, Chloe, can take the call step itself. Its inbound guide notes that AI voice calls need their own consent under American rules; settle the same question for the countries you call before you assign one to Chloe.

Step 6: Read the numbers

Configure call outcomes under Settings, Outcomes, then open Call Reports filtered to the New inbounds Smart View: it shows calls, durations, dispositions, unique leads dialed and pickup rate, per the inbound response guide. Workflow Reporting shows response rate and goals met for the cadence. The guide's targets are a pickup rate above 30% for inbound and two attempts in the first 24 hours. Median time to first call is not a native report; the guide says to use Explorer or a CSV export.

Pitfalls Close documents

• Expecting the form to screen addresses. Close forms accept any properly formatted email, with no validation, no block on free email domains and no typo correction, per the Forms guide.
• Keeping a third-party form. Close cannot capture an external form with a JavaScript snippet; send those submissions in by webhook or Zapier instead.
• Reactivating an archived workflow. Paused runs skip straight to their next step with no delay, per the workflows guide.
• Start from Scratch in the dialer. It dials every lead in the view again, including those who answered recently.
• SMS on the wrong number. SMS works only on numbers in the countries Close lists, and not between numbers from different countries apart from the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, per the usage article.

Close's guidance articles are written to keep reps dialling inside Close, which is also where Close earns its call minutes. The targets are reasonable; the cost of each extra attempt is yours, so watch the usage balance in Billing as the cadence grows.

FAQ

Can I keep my existing website form?

Yes, but it will not feed Close natively. Close's inbound response guide says to send outside submissions by webhook or Zapier so that no one types the lead in by hand.

How do I stop two reps calling the same lead?

Share one Smart View and dial it with the Power Dialer, which prevents duplicate calls, or assign the workflow's call step to a group, which removes the task for everyone once one rep completes it.

What happens to leads that arrive at night?

The workflow's communication window holds the call task until business hours. Close's guide recommends an immediate acknowledgement email for after-hours leads, so they know a call is coming the next morning.