Flow.ai Review

By Joren Wouters Updated on

Flow.ai

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:

flow-ai-setup

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

flow-ai-interface

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:

flow-ai-test-chatbot

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:

flow-ai-chatbot-elements

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:

flow-ai-elements-website

  • 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):

flow-ai-user-overview

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:

flow-ai-automatic-translation

  • 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:

flow-ai-intents-entities

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):

flow-ai-livechat

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:

flow-ai-actions-code

  • 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:

flow-ai-widget-settings

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:

flow-ai-pricing

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:

flow-ai-price-calculator

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):

flow-ai-pricing-whatsapp-twitter

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:

flow-ai-analytics-users
flow-ai-analytics-sentiment

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:

flow-ai-unmatched-keywords

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:

flow-ai-ab-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

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