Crisp Review

Crisp is a live chat and chatbot builder for multiple channels, such as websites, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Telegram. But should you use Crisp to create your chatbots?

Let’s find out!

 

What is Crisp?

Crisp can be used to create chatbots and have a live chat on multiple channels, but it is much more than that.

With Crisp you can also:

• Create your own help desk
• Make complete email campaigns
• Have video calls with chat users
• Monitor the online status of your website

With that many features, it must be said that Crisp is mainly focused on live chat and customer service. But, by using Plugins you can add extra functionality to that. For example, if you want to add a chatbot to Crisp, you can add the “Bot” plugin. And if you want to automatically reply to questions, you can add the “Auto-Responder” plugin:

In this tutorial, I will only focus on the chat side of Crisp.

 

User Interface

When you log in at Crisp, you immediately see the latest chats of your live chat. On the left, you see a menu with:

• Inbox – This is the live chat
• Visitors – All visitors that are currently on your website
• Contacts – All contacts that chatted with your chatbot
• Campaigns – Send email campaigns
• Helpdesk – Create your own helpdesk in Crisp
• Plugins – To add extra functionality
• Settings

If you are going to build your chatbot flows, Crisp provides a visual flow builder:

When you click on one of the elements in the flow builder, you can edit the content of the element:

Also, you can test out your chatbot before you deploy the changes:

In general, the interface of Crisp is really easy to use. But I didn’t think it was really easy to create your own chatbot, because it takes some time to fully understand the interface of Crisp.

First of all, the “Bot” feature was a little bit hidden in the interface and it took me some time to find out it was a plugin. Secondly, some simple things take a lot of elements in Crisp. For example, if you want to ask someone’s day of birth in Crisp, you need 3 elements to do that:

1. Ask the user for their day of birth
2. Save that value in a temporary field
3. Save the value in the temporary field to a custom field (where it is permanent)

You have to figure these things out yourself basically, but once you understand it, you will quickly get the hang of it!

• 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

Crisp provides enough chatbot elements to create your chatbot flows.

They also lack some elements, such as Images/Video and Audio, which is a small disadvantage. On the other hand, it is possible to use GIFs in your chatbot flows.

But the most important elements (text and buttons) are possible with Crisp!

• 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 Crisp, you can see an overview of all the user that talked with your chatbot:

And you can also see all the specific information per user:

Also, you can ask a question to the user and store the answer in a custom field. The same is true for tags, you can just apply tags to certain users (which are called “Segments” in Crisp).

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create user segments in Crisp.

• 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 Crisp, it is not possible to send broadcasts or sequences.

Gladly, it is possible to use conditions in your chatbot flows, which allows you to create personalized chatbot experiences for your users.

Also, it is possible to have a chatbot in multiple languages. And the best part: it is possible to easily translate messages to other languages. For every message in Crisp, you can create an immediate translation for each language you want to support:

• 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 the “Auto-Responder” plugin of Crisp, you can understand the intent of the user and automatically reply to it with your chatbot:

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use Entities.

But Crisp solves this by providing a Dialogflow integration. There is only one drawback of that integration, you cannot understand the intent of the user with Dialogflow and respond with a Crisp chatbot flow. If you use Dialogflow to understand the intent of the user, you must also send a Dialogflow reply.

• 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 Crisp you can put a chatbot on 6 channels:

• Your website
• Facebook Messenger
• SMS (using Twilio)
• Line
• WhatsApp (using WhatsApp)
• Telegram

Furthermore, you can send email campaigns from Crisp.

This is extremely good, because you can create an omnichannel chatbot experience for your users with Crisp.

• Website

  Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
• Facebook

  Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
• Instagram

  Can you publish your chatbot on 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

Crisp provides a live chat integration, which is the most important integration of any software:

They also have an iOS app and Android app, which allows you to respond to customer questions on the go. Moreover, they provide an integration with Slack, so you can reply to customer questions from your Slack channel.

Moreover, they provide a Zapier integration and Make (formerly Integromat) integration so you can connect with almost every software application on earth.

If that is not enough, you can also create your own webhooks with Crisp.

• 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 a webhook inside your chatbot flow to send data to other applications?

Marketing

Regarding marketing possibilities, it is noticeable that Crisp is mostly focused on websites.

They provide a pretty advanced native website widget that you can fully customize to the colors and branding of your website:

Moreover, you can also set up triggers on specific pages of your website (using the “Triggers” plugin of Crisp). With these triggers, you can initiate a conversation with the user:

Regarding other channels, such as Facebook Messenger, there are no marketing possibilities.

• 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

Crisp provides a free plan that comes with 2 live chat agents and limited features (live chat, team inbox, mobile app and notifications).

If you want more features or live chat agents, you need to upgrade to the Pro plan, which is $25 per month. This plan comes with 4 live chat agents and more features, such as more channels (FB Messenger, Twitter, Email and Telegram), Triggers and widget customization (still no chatbot feature).

Lastly, Crisp provides the Unlimited plan, which is $95 per month and the plan you need if you want to create a chatbot with Crisp. This plan comes with unlimited live chat agents and all the features of the platform:

Also, Crisp provides a 14 days free trial on each plan.

NOTE: If you want to use Crisp for WhatsApp or SMS, you have additional costs for sending the messages to your users.

• 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?
  95
• 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

Crisp provides analytics on several levels: Messaging, Contacts, Rating, Campaigns, Helpdesk and Status. In this section, I will only focus on Messaging analytics.

In Crisp, you have a dashboard that shows the number of conversations, the mean response time and the number of website visitors. It also shows the conversation activity and responsiveness of support over time:

Unfortunately, Crisp doesn’t provide a user input dashboard that shows the questions the chatbot didn’t understand, which makes it hard to 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, Crisp doesn’t provide any direct eCommerce integrations and you cannot accept payments within your chatbot.

• 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

Crisp provides 3 templates that you can use to get started right away.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create these templates yourself. Also, it is not possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbot elements.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  3
• 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

With Crisp, you cannot perform any optimization, such as A/B testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

Crisp provides extensive documentation with many (video) tutorials on how you can use their platform.

Moreover, they provide support via live chat 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 buy Crisp to create your chatbots?

Yes, you should do that.

Crisp provides an easy-to-use visual flow builder, you can save user data in custom fields, has built-in AI,  can easily translate your chatbot to multiple languages, put your chatbot on 6 channels, provides built-in live chat + mobile apps, Zapier integration and an advanced native website widget.

I think Crisp is especially a good chatbot builder in two cases:

1. If you want an advanced native website widget
2. If you want to handle customer service with a chatbot over multiple channels