MSGHero Review

Important: MSGHero announced that they will close down the MSGHero platform. The official day of last operation will be Monday, July 13th, 2020. The main reason for this closing is because of the dependency on Facebook Messenger. In their own words, they said “it can be difficult dealing with a 3rd party, when it comes to constant changes, updates, new rules, and more.”

MSGHero is chatbot software for building a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and on your website. But is this software worth investing in? Let’s find out!

For writing this review about MSGHero, I used the criteria of my post “How to choose the best chatbot software“.

User Interface

If you log in to MSGHero, the first thing you see is a dashboard with the number of users of your chatbot:

When you are going to make your chatbot flows (called “Messaging Funnels” in MSGHero), you can simply click on Create –> Messaging Funnel  –> Add New Funnel:

The interface to create the actual flow is extremely easy to use. On the left-hand side you can determine the keywords that trigger the flow, in the middle you can set the content of the flow and on the right-hand side, there is a preview of the flow:

If you click on “Flow Preview”, you can also see the entire flow in a Visual Flow:

Thus, the interface of MSGHero is really easy to use and you can set up your chatbot in a matter of minutes. Besides, you can test your flow both in the interface and Facebook Messenger. So they perform great on this one.

• 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

MSGHero provides enough chatbot elements you can use to make your chatbot flows.

What I really like is that they have a built-in date picker. For example, you can ask the birthday of the user and then a webview opens with a date picker:

As with the interface, they also perform really well with chatbot elements.

• 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 MSGHero it is possible to create attributes, which are called “Custom Fields” in MSGHero:

Then you can ask the user a question and set that custom field to a certain value:

This works the same for tags. Based on custom fields and tags, you can make certain user segments and send tailored messages to them.

It is, however, not possible that the user shares their location with the chatbot.

• 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 MSGHero it is really easy to send a broadcast to all of your users or part of your users (based on tags and custom fields):

And likewise, it is really easy to set up campaigns, which are called “Time Series” in MSGHero:

Unfortunately, it is not possible to unsubscribe from such Time Series.

Moreover, it is possible to condition your messages based on logic and you can make a chatbot in any language. But it is not easy to translate your chatbot to a different language.

• 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

As said before, when making a Messaging Funnel in MSGHero, you can determine the keywords that trigger that specific funnel.

So, with MSGHero it is possible to recognize certain keywords and send an appropriate response.

However, it is not possible to do any kind of AI & NLP, such as grabbing the intent of the user or using 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 MSGHero you can create a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and for your website (using the Facebook Messenger widget).

So, it is not possible to provide an omnichannel chatbot experience to your users, which could be a potential drawback.

• 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

I always say that a live chat integration is the most integration any chatbot software needs. But MSGHero doesn’t provide this, which is a huge drawback.

They do have an integration with Zapier, which allows you to connect with almost every software on earth.

It would be nice to have other integrations, such as Integromat, DialogFlow and Google Sheets, but MSGHero doesn’t provide this.

• 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 MSGHero it is possible to put a Facebook widget on your website, connect your chatbot to Facebook Ads, automatically reply to Facebook comments, create buttons and make custom URLs to certain parts of your chatbot.

But there is a huge drawback. MSGHero mainly focuses on Facebook Messenger as a channel to put your chatbot on, but they do not comply with the new Facebook Messenger policy, which seems odd to me. With MSGHero it is not possible to send Sponsored Messages or use the One-Time Notification.

• 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 wasn’t really happy when I started with MSGHero for the first time. This is because when you start a free trial, you immediately must give your billing information:

I know it is still a 7-day free trial, but I don’t like providing my billing information beforehand.

The pricing of MSGHero is a little bit complicated. They do provide a 7 days free trial, but only for the Premium plan which is $47 per month.

There is also one pricing plan that is cheaper, the Starter plan, which is $9 a month, but this doesn’t come with a free trial.

The Starter plan comes with 500 subscribers, 3 Facebook pages and basic support, while the Premium plan comes with 10.000 subscribers, unlimited Facebook pages and Premium support:

MSGHero also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee, in which they give you a full refund, no questions asked.

• 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?
• 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

MSGHero has a lot of tracking possibilities for your website that you can use to track the conversion from users who come to your website through your chatbot.

In MSGHero you can add your products (which could be physical products, but also a paid course, for example):

Then, set up multiple tracking codes of MSGHero to put on your website:

And finally, analyze the sales of your chatbot:

So, this is actually pretty good. With these analytics, it is really easy to track the conversions on your website from users who came via your chatbot.

But then, if we look at the General Analytics for your chatbot, these aren’t special at all:

These analytics only show the number of users, how many messages are sent and the open rate. Thus this is pretty minimal.

Important analytics, such as which user input the chatbot didn’t understand, are not shown, 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

MSGHero has a really extensive Shopify integration, which isn’t in the regular pricing package.

If you want the Shopify integration, you must pay extra. If you make up to $100 on additional sales, it is free. But if you make up to $500 on additional sales, you need to pay $10 a month extra. And this monthly price increases with the number of extra sales:

What seems really odd to me, is that this Shopify integration is completely hidden in the interface. As if MSGHero doesn’t want their users to see and use it. Also, when I agree to pay for the Shopify integration, I keep being redirected to their Billing page.

This has led to the situation that I couldn’t use the actual Shopify integration. And that’s too bad, because it looked really promising.

• 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

MSGHero only provides templates for the Shopify integration. But I couldn’t use this integration, so I have no idea how many templates there are and if you can actually use them.

Moreover, it is not possible to make and share your own templates.

Also, it is not possible to duplicate chatbot flows or chatbot elements.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  0
• 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

It is not possible to do any kind of optimization with MSGHero, such as A/B Testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

MSGHero provides video tutorials and has extensive documentation that you can use to learn more about their platform.

They provide support via live chat and email. Also, they have their own Facebook community (with about 2100 members).

• 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

MSGHero has an interface that is easy to use, a lot of chatbot elements, add attributes and tags to users, send broadcast and campaigns, has a Zapier integration, decent analytics and a Shopify integration.

But should I buy MSGHero to build my chatbots?

No, I shouldn’t.

This is mainly because MSGHero doesn’t have a live chat integration, which is the most important integration of any chatbot software. What if your chatbot doesn’t understand the user? Then a human must take over, but that’s not possible with MSGHero.

Secondly, MSGHero is chatbot software that mainly focuses on Facebook Messenger, but they don’t comply with the new Facebook Messenger policy. This could result in your Facebook page getting banned, because of violating their rules.

If MSGHero would solve those two things, I would definitely recommend them.