Flow.ai Review

Flow.ai is chatbot software for multiple channels and multiple languages. Large brands, such as Samsung, create their chatbots with Flow.ai. But is this chatbot software worth it to buy?

Let’s find out!

User Interface

The first time you start with Flow.ai, you go through a step-by-step setup, which is really useful (especially if you are just beginning with chatbots). With this setup, Flow.ai explains the most important features when building your chatbot flows:

And as you can see from the image above, Flow.ai makes use of a Visual Flow Builder:

With the flow builder, you can just drag elements from the right panel and drop them into your chatbot flow.

Moreover, you can also test your chatbot flow in the interface before it actually goes live:

The Visual Flow Builder is really easy to use. Also, it is extremely easy to set up your chatbot and you can even use one of the 16 free templates that Flow.ai provides.

• 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

Flow.ai provides ALL the chatbot elements you need:

Literally, they check every element on my list, so they cannot do any better than this.

What I also like about Flow.ai that it shows which elements you can use per channel. For example, it is not possible to use Vertical Lists on Facebook Messenger, but you can use them with your website widget:

• 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 Flow.ai it is possible to see a complete overview of your chatbot users.

I must say that this overview is a little bit limited, because you cannot see all the user information of the user (like their email, custom fields and tags):

Moreover, it is possible to add custom fields and tags to a user. It is as simple as asking a question and storing the answer in a custom field.

Also, you can create user 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 Flow.ai it is possible to create (scheduled) broadcasts and sequences. You can also send a broadcast to only a segment of your audience.

Furthermore, you can add conditions to your chatbot flows to create a more personalized experience for your users.

Flow.ai also provides multiple languages, so your chatbot can handle multiple languages at the same time.

And the best part is that it is really easy to translate your chatbot to different languages. Flow.ai even offers automatic translation inside their software:

• 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

Flow.ai provides a built-in AI engine, that allows you to understand the intent of the user and even use Entities.

Their intents and entity builder looks pretty similar to DialogFlow’s one and is really easy to use:

You can just type in training phrases and annotate specific parts of the phrase that function as an entity.

• 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 Flow.ai, you can put your chatbot on 10 different channels:

• Facebook Messenger
• Your website
• Telegram
• SMS (with their direct integration of Twilio)
• Twitter
• Slack (beta)
• WhatsApp
• Apple Business Chat
• Alexa (beta)
• Google Assistant (beta)

Also, your chatbot can send out emails to 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

Flow.ai has a built-in live chat, which is the most important integration of any chatbot software.

I must say that this live chat is a bit limited, because you cannot see the user information inside the live chat (such as custom fields and tags):

Moreover, Flow.ai provides some direct integrations with other software:

• Front
• Khoros
• Coosto
• Zendesk
• Freshchat
• Sparkcentral
• Mavenir RCS
• Google RBM
• Telekom RBM
• MessageMedia

Furthermore, they also have a Zapier integration, that allows you to integrate with almost any software on earth.

But if this is not enough for you, you can also create your own webhooks using their Actions code builder:

• 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

With Flow.ai, you can put a Facebook widget and a native widget on your website.

When using the native widget, you can also determine your own colors and avatars:

Moreover, you can connect your chatbot to Facebook Ads, use the One-Time Notification and create custom URLs to your chatbot.

• 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

Flow.ai provides a free plan that includes 50 sessions per month and gives you limited features.

Their Pro plan costs $19 per month for 100 sessions and 2 team members. It also gives you access to all the features of Flow.ai:

Then, the price becomes more with the number of sessions and number of team members you have:

And this could become pretty costly very fast. For example, if you want 1000 sessions per month and 5 team members, you pay $181 per month:

Also, if you want to use WhatsApp or Twitter as a channel, you need to pay additional costs ($150 for WhatsApp and $100 for Twitter, per month):

So in general, the costs of Flow.ai could become a bit much. Especially for smaller companies.

But is it worth it? Yes, I think so. With Flow.ai you can automatically handle chats from over 10 channels and handle conversations in multiple languages, which is extremely useful for larger companies operating on multiple channels and in multiple countries.

• 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?
  19
• 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 Flow.ai are a bit minimal.

It is possible to see a dashboard with the number of interactions, messages, sessions, users and sentiment analysis:

What is a big plus, is that you can automatically analyze user input that the chatbot didn’t understand. This allows you to improve the answers of your chatbot:

Moreover, it is possible to connect Flow.ai to other analytic services to improve the analytics capability, such as Chatbase, Dashbot and Google Analytics (only applicable for websites).

• 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, Flow.ai provides no direct integrations with any eCommerce software.

• 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

Flow.ai provides 16 templates that you can use right away to set up your chatbot.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create these templates yourself and share them with others.

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?
  16
• 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 Flow.ai you can optimize your chatbot by using A/B Testing:

• A/B Testing

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

Support

Flow.ai provides tutorials and extensive documentation on how you can use their chatbot software.

Moreover, they also have a Slack community and provide support via Slack and their ticket center.

• 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, would I use Flow.ai to build my chatbots?

Yes, I would.

Flow.ai has an easy-to-use visual flow builder, uses a lot of chatbot elements, you can add custom fields/tags and create user segments, send broadcasts & sequences, use conditions in your chatbot flows, easily translate your chatbot to multiple languages, has a built-in AI engine to understand the user better, you can put your chatbot on 10 different channels, has built-in live chat and even a Zapier integration.

Go to Flow.ai