Flow XO is a chatbot platform you can use to build chatbots for websites, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and Slack. But is its software good enough to actually buy it? Let’s find out!
Sneak peek: Yes, it is 😉
Table of Contents
User Interface
When you log in at Flow XO, you first see an overview of your chatbot with some stats, the chatbot flows and the last interactions:
On the left side of the interface, you have all the menu items and on the right side, you have the content of each section.
When creating your chatbot flows you can choose out of 11 templates of choose to start with a Blank flow:
Then, you can also determine if you want to show the chatbot flow on all channels or only for certain channels:
When you have done this, you can create the actual chatbot flow.Flow XO uses a block builder, where all the triggers and actions of the flow are shown under each other. Here is an example of a simple chatbot flow created with Flow XO:
The interface of Flow XO is clear and easy to use. It is also really simple to set up a chatbot, you can just use one of the 11 pre-built templates. What is also really useful, is that you can test the chatbot in the interface itself, so you immediately see the impact of the changes you just made.
The only possible drawback of the interface is that it does not have a visual flow builder, for the more visually oriented chatbot developers 😉
- 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 XO has all the chatbot elements you need in order to create your chatbot.
They do lack some elements on my list, but those are certainly no deal-breakers.
What I especially like is that you can ask for User Input, use that input to personalize the conversation (using Filters) and that you can trigger other flows in your chatbot (perfect when you want to create a scalable chatbot).
- 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
Flow XO provides an overview of all the users that talked to your chatbot:
Then if you click on one of the users, you can see all the details and attributes of that user:
So with Flow XO, it is possible to add custom field (called Attributes) to specific users of your chatbot. You can just ask a question and store the answer to that question in a custom field.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to add tags to users and to make user segments.
- 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 Flow XO you can broadcast a message to all of your contacts or a part of them.
Likewise, you can also send contacts through a sequence of messages with a certain time interval in between.
Furthermore, you can make a chatbot in multiple languages, but you cannot easily translate your chatbot to another language. This would include a lot of copy and paste work, unfortunately.
- 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 Flow XO you can recognize keywords that are sent by the user and then give an appropriate response.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to any kind of real NLP, by the use of Intents or Entities.
Flow XO does have a Dialogflow integration, so by using that you can understand the intent of the user and use Entities.
- 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 XO you can create a chatbot on 6 channels:
- Websites
- Facebook Messenger
- SMS
- Telegram
- Slack
This allows you to provide an omnichannel experience to your customers.
What I also like about Flow XO is that you can determine per flow if you want to show it on all channels, or only on some specific channels.
- 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
Flow XO has a built-in live chat, that you can use to hand over the chat to a human (when your chatbot doesn’t know the answer to a question).
Furthermore, FlowXO provides over 100 direct integrations with other applications, such as MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, Buffer, Campaign Monitor, Wit.AI and much more:
If that’s not enough, you can also use its Make integration to connect with other third-party applications or create API calls in your chatbot flows to send or receive data from other systems.
- 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 XO you can add a Facebook Messenger widget and a native widget to your website. By using the native widget you can customize the widget to the branding and colours of your website.
Besides that, Flow XO provides some marketing features on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
On Facebook, you can:
- Use Ref URLs
- Automatically reply to Facebook comments
- Connect your Messenger chatbot to Facebook Ads
- Use the One-Time Notification
And on WhatsApp, you can send Message Templates to reach users outside the 24-hour window.
- 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 XO provides a free plan that comes with 500 interactions per month and allows you to test out their platform.
Their first paid plan starts at $19 per month and comes with all features of the platform, 5000 interactions, 15 bots or active flows, 5 team members and no branding:
If you want more than this plan, you can add 5 bots/flows for 10$ per month or add 25.000 interactions for $25 per month.
- 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
Flow XO gives you a dashboard in which the most important stats of your chatbot are given:
The analytics section mostly gives you data about the total users, active users, new users, the number of triggers, the number of messages sent/received, the top-performing messages and the top-performing flows.
The analytics of Flow XO is really standard, so do not expect too much from it.
A drawback is that you cannot see the user input on which the chatbot could not give an answer. This is a feature in which you can easily improve the answers of your chatbot, but Flow XO doesn’t have it.
What is noticeable to say is that FlowXO does provide a Google Analytics integration, in which some data can be gathered about the 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
Flow XO has an integration with Stripe, which allows users to pay directly within your chatbot.
They also have an integration with WooCommerce, so it is really easy to connect your WooCommerce shop with a Flow XO 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
Flow XO delivers 11 pre-built templates that you can use to get started immediately.
Unfortunately, you cannot make these templates yourself and share them with others.
On the other hand, it is possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them.
- Templates
How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
11 - 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
In Flow XO is it not possible to do any kind of optimization (such as A/B Testing).
- A/B Testing
Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?
Support
Flow XO provides tutorials and decent documentation to get you started with the chatbot software. Furthermore, they have a community in which you can ask questions and also customer support via e-mail.
- 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 Flow XO?
Yes, you should.
With Flow XO it is really easy to create your own chatbots, it provide lots of chatbot elements, you can publish your chatbot on multiple channels, have lots of direct integrations with other applications, built-in live chat, marketing features for your website, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, decent analytics and even an eCommerce integrations.
And this only for $19 per month!
Like!! Thank you for publishing this awesome article.
Thank you!
Thanks for the review
I’m glad I could help 🙂
I like very much presentation of content . One thing important measure for me is to understand if integration is on trigger side or on action side of the bot . I would be grateful if it could be explicitly added in future reviews
Thanks again for generous effort
Thank for your suggestion! What is for you the difference between “on trigger side” and “on action side of the bot”?