BotXO is a chatbot builder for chatbots on websites and Facebook Messenger. The question is: Should you use BotXO to create your chatbots?
Let’s find out!
Table of Contents
User Interface
When you are going to create your chatbot in BotXO, BotXO uses a Visual Flow Builder:
Once you click on one of the chatbot elements, a pop-up opens and you can determine the messages that are sent to the user:
And also determine what happens if a user responds to that message (called a Connection in BotXO):
Ultimately, you want to test your chatbot before it actually goes live. This is also possible with BotXO:
What I mainly like about their test feature, is that you can send a test link to people that don’t have a BotXO account, which allows you to let your chatbot be tested by a lot of people (without having a BotXO account).
Overall, the interface of BotXO is easy to use and it is also pretty easy to set up your chatbot.
- 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
BotXO provides a lot of chatbot elements, they only don’t have Location sharing, attachments and vertical lists.
But these are definitely no deal-breakers, so they perform pretty well on this one.
- 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
With BotXO, you can just ask a question to the user and store the answer in a custom field.
Based on those custom fields, you can create user segments in BotXO.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to assign tags to users, but this is not a huge drawback. You can use a custom field as a tag by setting the value to “Yes” or “No”.
- 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
In BotXO, you can send a broadcast to your complete audience or a part of your audience.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to use sequences with BotXO.
Also, you cannot use conditions in your chatbot flows. This is a huge drawback, because you cannot create personalized experiences for your chatbot users.
Moreover, it is possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages, but you cannot easily translate your chatbot.
- 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
With BotXO, you can understand the intent of the user by using their built-in AI engine.
What I really like about BotXO is that they already provide lots of pre-built intents that you can use with one click:
On the other hand, you can only add and edit intents by uploading them via an Excel spreadsheet, which seems a bit weird to me.
Also, it is not possible to use entities with BotXO, which is a drawback.
- 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
BotXO provides four channels you can put your chatbot on:
- Your website
- Facebook Messenger
- Zendesk chat widget (also for your website)
- And Azure
So basically you can put a chatbot on your website and on Facebook Messenger.
This is a bit of a drawback, because you cannot 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
BotXO has a built-in live chat, which is the most important integration of any chatbot software:
Moreover, they have an integration with Zapier, which allows you to connect your chatbot with almost any software application on earth.
Lastly, you can create your own webhooks in BotXO.
- 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
BotXO marketing possibilities are really limited.
They only provide a native website widget, where you can set the styling of the widget:
It is not possible to set a greeting message for your website users, which is a big drawback (because this is a really good way to attract more chatbot users).
- 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
I was shocked when I saw the prices of BotXO. When I first used BotXO and looked at their features, I expect them to be in the $10-$50 per month price range. But that wasn’t the case, it was 10 times that.
BotXO provides a 14-day free trial which allows you to test their platform. When the 14 days have expired, you need to choose one of their plans.
Their Essential plan costs €500 per month and comes with 1 chatbot, unlimited chats, 1 user and the conversational Web SDK (no idea what that is):
If you want to expand to more chatbots, you need to go with the Business plan, which costs €800 per month for 3 chatbots, all the features of the Essential plan, the Analytics API, and the Conversational AI API.
There are two drawbacks of the pricing of BotXO:
- It is unclear what the “Conversational Web SDK”, the “Analytics API” and the “Conversational AI API” mean. I have no idea what they do and why I need them.
- It is really expensive for the features they provide. For this price, you would expect far more advanced chatbot features such as an advanced live chat, more channels, the possibility to condition in chatbot flows, more marketing possibilities, an option to edit intents in the software, entities in AI & NLP, and an analytics dashboard (see next section).
- 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?
500 - 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 BotXO are really minimal.
They only provide a “dashboard” where you can see all the interactions people had with your chatbot:
But this is just a table with when the conversation happened, which chatbot flow was triggered and what message was sent.
There is no graph with the number of messages and users in a specific time period. Also, it’s hard to analyze the user input that the chatbot didn’t understand, which is a disadvantage, because that allows you to easily improve the answers of your chatbot.
- 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
Unfortunately, BotXO doesn’t provide any direct eCommerce integrations.
- 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
BotXO provides 4 templates that can help you to get started with building a chatbot.
Unfortunately, you cannot create these templates yourself and share them with others.
On the other hand, you can duplicate your chatbot flows, so that you can easily reuse them.
- Templates
How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
4 - 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
BotXO doesn’t provide any optimization, such as A/B Testing.
- A/B Testing
Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?
Support
BotXO provides video tutorials on Youtube and documentation on their own website.
Besides, they provide customer support via 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 BotXO to create your chatbots?
No, I wouldn’t recommend that.
On itself, the platform isn’t that bad, the price is just way too high. For €500 per month, you would expect far more advanced chatbot features, such as an advanced live chat, more channels, possibility to condition in chatbot flows, more marketing possibilities, an option to edit intents in the software, entities in AI & NLP, and an analytics dashboard.