Botmother Review

Botmother is a chatbot builder for Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, VK and OK. They are one of the few chatbot builders that originated in Russia (which you can see from the channels they provide). The question is: Should you use Botmother to build your chatbots?

Let’s dive in!

User Interface

When you are going to build your chatbot, Botmother uses a Visual Flow Builder:

On the left-hand side, you have your chatbot flows (called Screens in Botmother) and on the right-hand side, you can choose the elements in your flow.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to test the chatbot before you actually put it live.

In general, I must say that the interface of Botmother is pretty easy to use. But at the same time, it is not easy to set up your chatbot (you can’t set it up in a few minutes). Botmother doesn’t provide any tutorials or templates that can get you started, so you must first look at how the interface works, which can take some time.

• Visual Flow Builder

  Create chatbot dialogs with a visual flow builder.
• Test chatbot

  Is it possible to test the chatbot before putting your new flows or changes live?
• Interface easy to use?

  Is the chatbot platform easy-to-use?
• Easy to setup a chatbot?

  Is it easy to set up your chatbot with this chatbot platform?

Chatbot elements

Botmother provides a lot of chatbot elements you can use to create your chatbot.

They only don’t provide delays, attachments, vertical lists, persistent menu and date validation, but these are no deal-breakers.

• Delays

  Use delays between messages in your chatbot
• Images

  Can you send images via your chatbot?
• Video

  Can you send video via your chatbot?
• Audio

  Can you send audio via your chatbot?
• Attachments

  Can you send attachments via your chatbot?
• Gallery (Horizontal list)

  Show a gallery of cards inside your chatbot. A card consists of an image, title, subtitle and button.
• Vertical list

  Show a vertical list of items inside your chatbot
• Emojis

  Can you use emojis inside your chatbot?
• Persistent Menu

  Can you add a persistent menu to your chatbot?
• Quick Replies

  Can you add quick replies to your chatbot where users can click on?
• Buttons

  Can you add buttons to your chatbot where users can click on?
• Free text input

  Can chatbot users freely type text to your chatbot whenever they want to?
• Location sharing

  Can users share their location inside the chatbot?
• Email validation

  When a chatbot user gives their email, can the platform validate it's a correct email address?
• Phone number validation

  When a chatbot user gives their phone number, can the platform validate it's a correct phone number?
• Date validation

  When a chatbot user gives a date, can the platform validate it's a correct date?

Users

In Botmother, you can see a complete overview of all the users that talked to your chatbot:

Additionally, you can also add custom fields en tags to the users of your chatbot.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create segments based on those custom fields and tags.

• Custom fields

  Store information from your chatbot users inside fields. For example, you can ask for someone's email and store it inside the "email" custom field.
• Tags

  Add tags to users in your chatbot flows to organize and categorize contacts.
• User segments

  Can you create user segments based on custom fields and tags?

Messages

With Botmother, you can send broadcasts to the users of your chatbot.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to send sequences to your users.

Moreover, it is possible to have a chatbot in multiple languages at the same time, but it is not easy to translate your chatbot (you need to duplicate everything and translate it manually).

• Broadcasts

  Send a message to all or a part of your chatbot users at a specific date and time
• Sequences

  Send messages on a pre-defined schedule with a certain time interval between those messages
• Conditions

  Make checks in your chatbot flow based on if-then logic. For example, if the user has not given their email, ask for their email.
• Multiple languages

  Is it possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages?
• Easy to translate

  Can you translate text to other languages without using a third-party platform and without creating duplicate flows?

AI & NLP

In Botmother, you have a FAQ section where you can set up questions and answers for your chatbot:

With this, your chatbot can recognize keywords and automatically answer to them. A drawback of their FAQ section is that you always need to reply with a message (and possibly add a button or image), but it is not possible to respond with a chatbot flow.

Unfortunately, you cannot understand the intent of the user or use entities with Botmother.

NOTE: I have never got the FAQ section to work actually. Every time I typed in “What are your opening times?”, the bot gave no response. 

• Keywords

  Trigger chatbot flow based on certain words or phrases a user says to the chatbot.
• Intents

  Trigger a chatbot flow by understanding the intent of the user.
• Entities

  Capture specific information from sentences. For example, if a user says "veggie pizza", the chatbot can understand it's not a regular pizza, but a veggie pizza.
• Dialogflow integration

  Does the chatbot platform provide a direct integration with Google's AI Platform?

Channels

With Botmother, you can put a chatbot on:

• Your website (Facebook widget)
• Facebook Messenger
• WhatsApp
• Telegram
• Viber
• VK (Social network in Russia)
• OK (Social network in Russia)

Because they support 6 channels to put your chatbot on, you can create an omnichannel chatbot experience for your users.

• Website

  Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
• Facebook

  Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
• Instagram
• Whatsapp

  Can you publish your chatbot on WhatsApp?
• Telegram

  Can you publish your chatbot on Telegram?
• SMS

  Can you publish your chatbot on SMS?
• Slack

  Can you publish your chatbot on Slack?
• Skype

  Can you publish your chatbot on Skype?
• Email

  Can you publish your chatbot on email?

Integrations

Botmother provides a built-in live chat, which is the most important integration of any chatbot software:

Moreover, they provide an integration with Zapier, which allows you to connect with almost any software application on earth.

Unfortunately, they don’t provide the ability to create your own webhooks.

• Livechat

  Direct integration with live chat, either via a built-in live chat functionality or a third-party live chat platform.
• Zapier

  Direct integration with Zapier, one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
• Make (formerly Integromat)

  Direct integration with Make (formerly Integromat), one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
• Google Sheets

  Direct integration with Google Sheets, to store or retrieve data from sheets.
• Webhooks

  Can you call an API inside your chatbot flow to send or get data from other applications?

Marketing

The marketing possibilities of Botmother are pretty limited.

It is only possible to create a Facebook website widget or to create a Send to Messenger button for your website.

• Facebook website widget

  Embed your chatbot as a Facebook Widget on your website.
• Native website widget

  Embed your chatbot as a native widget (your own branding & colors) on your website.
• Landing pages

  Can you create a simple landing page to drive users to your chatbot?
• Facebook Ads

  Start a conversation with your chatbot when someone clicks on a Facebook Ad
• One-Time Notification

  Send one-time notifications via Facebook Messenger for a topic that a chatbot user has opted-in for
• Facebook comments auto-reply

  Automatically reply with your chatbot to users who comment on your Facebook Posts
• Button creator

  Add a button to your website to drive users to your chatbot
• Custom URLs for your chatbot

  Generate a simple URL that can be shared anywhere to send users to your chatbot

Pricing

Botmother provides a free plan that allows you to test out their features. With their free plan, you can test out all the features on all the channels for a limited number of test users.

If you want to actually put your chatbot live, you need to pay. Their first paid plan is $17 per month, which comes with all the features for one chatbot:

If you want more than one chatbot, you can go with higher plans, which gives you 5 chatbots (for $70 per month) and 20 chatbots (for $200 per month).

Moreover, if you want to use WhatsApp as a channel, you need to pay extra. To use WhatsApp, you need to pay around $67 per month. Also, you need to pay $40 to make the connection with WhatsApp (only one-time).

• Free trial

  Does the chatbot platform provide a free trial?
• Free plan

  Does the chatbot platform provide a free plan?
• Price per month

  What is the lowest price per month for creating a chatbot on this platform?
  17
• Monthly pricing available?

  Is it possible to pay monthly?
• Money back guarantee

  Is there a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform?

Analytics

The analytics of Botmother are really minimal.

Botmother only provides one dashboard where you can see the number of users of your chatbot:

And that’s it. With these minimal analytics, it is not possible to analyze your chatbot and optimize your chatbot flows.

• Dashboard

  Dashboard that provides general analytics of your chatbot.
• User input

  Get the input from users that your chatbot didn't understand.
• Sent messages

  The number of messages that were sent by your chatbot.
• Open rate

  The percentage of chatbot users that opened a message inside your chatbot.
• Click rate

  The percentage of chatbot users that click on a button inside your chatbot.
• Conversion rate

  The percentage of users that converted through your chatbot. For example, the percentage of users that gave their email address
• Fall back rate

  The percentage of interactions where the chatbot did not know an answer to a question.
• Custom dashboards/reports

  Can you create your own dashboard or reports?

eCommerce

Botmother provides multiple payment integrations:

• Telegram Payment (own native Telegram payment integration)
• Yandex.Kassa
• PayOnline
• BePaid
• Robokassa

With these integrations, it becomes possible to let the user pay for your products inside your chatbot.

Moreover, if you use the Telegram payment option, you can see a complete overview of all your payments inside Botmother.

• Payments

  Collect payments inside your chatbot
• Shopify

  Direct integration with Shopify to get products, order information and cart data.
• WooCommerce

  Direct integration with WooCommerce to get products, order information and cart data.
• Buy directly within the chatbot

  Ability for chatbot users to buy products or services directly from a chatbot
• Cart abandonment

  Trigger messages in the chatbot when a user abandons their cart on a website or inside the chatbot

Templates & Cloning

Botmother doesn’t provide any templates on their platform.

On the other hand, it is possible to duplicate your chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  0
• Make template

  Can you make templates yourself?
• Share template

  Can you share self-created templates with others?
• Duplicate chatbot flows

  Is it possible to duplicate chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them?
• Duplicate chatbot elements

  Is it possible to duplicate chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them?

Optimization

Unfortunately, Botmother doesn’t provide any optimization.

• A/B Testing

  Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?

Support

Botmother provides minimal documentation on how you can use their platform, which is a drawback (especially if you are just starting with chatbots).

Moreover, they provide customer support through their social media channels and email.

• Tutorials

  Does the chatbot platform provide tutorials on how to use its platform?
• Documentation

  Does the chatbot platform provide documentation on how to use its platform?
• Customer support

  Does the chatbot platform provide customer support?

Conclusion

So, should you use Botmother to create your chatbots?

No, you shouldn’t.

There are two reasons why I wouldn’t recommend Botmother. First of all, you cannot set the welcome message of your chatbot (first message if you interact with the chatbot) or the default reply (message when the chatbot doesn’t understand your question). These are two of the most basic messages of a chatbot, and Botmother doesn’t provide these messages.

Secondly, regardless of all the features that Botmother provides, I just couldn’t get it to work. The chatbot doesn’t send messages to me if I trigger words that are in the FAQ. And a working chatbot is pretty important…