Website FAQ Chatbot with n8n + Claude (free workflow)

What this workflow does

Stop losing visitors who ask a question when nobody is online. This workflow gives you a public AI chat page (or a widget for your website) that answers questions from a Google Doc you control, in the visitor's language. When someone wants to book, buy or talk to a person, it asks for their name and phone or email, saves the lead to Google Sheets and emails you right away.

1. When Website Visitor Sends a Message opens a public chat page hosted by n8n. You can also switch it to Embedded Chat and add it to your website.
2. Workflow Configuration holds your business name, FAQ document link, owner email, contact line and fallback message.
3. Get FAQ Document reads your Google Doc on every message, so edits to prices or timings go live instantly. No vector database needed.
4. Answer Visitor with AI (an AI Agent with Claude Chat Model) answers only from that document, replies in English, Hindi or Hinglish, and uses Remember Conversation to keep the last 10 messages of each chat.
5. When a visitor shares a name and a phone number or email, the agent calls Save Lead to Google Sheets (date, name, email, phone, interest, summary, session ID) and Alert Owner by Gmail once each.
6. Send Reply to Visitor returns the answer to the chat. If Claude fails, Send Reply to Visitor and Send Fallback Reply return your fallback message with your contact details, so the visitor is never left with an error.

Who it is for

Clinics, salons, coaching institutes, real estate agents, local shops, agencies, SaaS founders and anyone who answers the same customer questions every day.

What you need

• n8n (Cloud or self-hosted)
• An Anthropic API key (or swap in OpenAI or Gemini)
• A Google account with Google Docs, Google Sheets and Gmail

The workflow, step by step

Step 1 · Receive the message

The visitor types a question, and your settings load.

• When Website Visitor Sends a Message (Chat Trigger)
• Workflow Configuration (Set)

Step 2 · Load the FAQ

Fresh doc content on every message.

• Get FAQ Document (Google Docs)

Step 3 · Answer and capture leads

Claude answers from the doc and saves leads with its tools.

• Claude Chat Model (Claude model)
• Answer Visitor with AI (AI Agent)
• Remember Conversation (Simple Memory)
• Save Lead to Google Sheets (Google Sheets tool)
• Alert Owner by Gmail (Gmail tool)

Step 4 · Reply in chat

The AI answer, or your contact details if AI fails.

• Send Fallback Reply (Set)
• Send Reply to Visitor (Set)

Setup

1. Download the JSON below and import it in n8n (Create workflow > ⋯ > Import from File).
2. Write your FAQ in a Google Doc: services, prices, timings, address, policies, offers. Plain text and headings are enough.
3. Create a Google Sheet with the header row Date, Name, Email, Phone, Interest, Summary, Session ID, and pick it in Save Lead to Google Sheets.
4. Add Anthropic, Google Docs OAuth2, Google Sheets OAuth2 and Gmail OAuth2 credentials.
5. Open Workflow Configuration and set your business name, the FAQ document URL, your email, your contact line and the fallback message.
6. Activate the workflow. Share the chat URL from When Website Visitor Sends a Message (for example in your Instagram bio or Google Business profile), or set Mode to Embedded Chat and add the n8n chat widget to your website.
7. Test it: open the chat URL and ask about a price from your doc, then type "I'm Ravi, 9876543210, I want to book a check-up". Expect a correct answer, a new lead row and an owner email. A question that isn't in the doc should get an "I'm not sure" reply.

How to customise

• The sample system message and fallback text are a starting point, not a fixed format. Rewrite them for your business.
• Answer Visitor with AI: tone, rules and when to collect a lead
• Alert Owner by Gmail: lead email
• fallbackMessage, contactLine: fallback reply
• Set the trigger Mode to Embedded Chat for your site
• Tone, length and rules: edit the system message in Answer Visitor with AI (for example "always offer the free consultation").
• Model: replace Claude Chat Model with an OpenAI or Google Gemini chat model.
• Chat look: change the title, subtitle, welcome message and placeholder in the trigger options, or add custom CSS.
• Alerts on another channel: add a Slack, Telegram or WhatsApp tool to the agent next to Alert Owner by Gmail.
• Long FAQs: for documents over about 30 pages, move to a vector store tool instead of loading the whole document.

Why Claude

This workflow uses Claude (Anthropic Chat Model, Claude Sonnet 5). I compared it with OpenAI and Gemini for this exact job: - Stays inside the FAQ. A customer-facing bot must not invent prices or promises. Claude follows "answer only from this document" system prompts very reliably and says "I'm not sure" instead of guessing, which matters more here than raw speed. - Reliable tool calls. The agent has to decide when it has enough details, then call Save Lead to Google Sheets and Alert Owner by Gmail exactly once. Claude is strong at multi-step tool use with an agent. - Natural Hinglish and Hindi. Indian visitors mix languages; Claude replies in the same style and keeps a warm, short tone.

Gemini would be cheaper per message and is a good choice for very high traffic; OpenAI GPT models are a close alternative. Both drop in by replacing the Claude Chat Model sub-node, with no other change.

Troubleshooting

• Credential errors after import: imported workflows never include credentials. Open each node marked red and select your own account.
• Nothing runs on its own: test runs only fire once. Activate the workflow so the trigger keeps running.
• Odd times or dates: set your timezone in Workflow Settings.