POP Review

POP is chatbot software for building chatbots on Facebook Messenger and your website. It is primarily focused on running campaigns inside Facebook Messenger. But is this chatbot software worth it to buy? Let’s find that out!

For this review about POP, I used the criteria of how you can choose the best chatbot software.

Introduction to POP

Before conducting this review of POP, I had some contact with them.

POP is chatbot software that is mainly focusing on running campaigns inside Facebook Messenger. And with campaigns they practically mean chatbot flows.

This means that they are not really focused on the question-answering side of chatbots. But this doesn’t mean that it is impossible to provide answers to questions of your users 😉

Well, let’s dive in!

User Interface

When you log in to POP, the first thing you see is the Inbox containing all the messages that were sent to the live chat:

On the left side, you have a menu with:

• Send – For setting up your broadcasts
• Campaigns – Here you can create your chatbot flows
• Audience – Your audience and the statistics of your chatbot
• Automations – Containing all the marketing tools, such as automatically reply to comments
• Help – Troubleshooting if you have a problem

When you are actually going to create a chatbot, the interface is like a blank canvas in which you just can start typing:

To be honest, it took me some time to get used to this interface. This is because it’s hard to see the complete overview of your chatbot flow. Here is an example, this is a flow containing a button:

But what happens after you click on the button? The interface doesn’t let you see this, until you are actually clicking on the button yourself:

On the one hand, this doesn’t give you a great overview of your complete flow. But on the other hand, it shows you how your users would flow through your chatbot flow, which is actually pretty nice.

What is a great feature of their interface, is that it is really easy to have a flow within a flow.

If you see the example above, the “Multiple choice question (artists)” is a separate flow that is used within my current flow. When the user has gone through that flow, it automatically returns to my current flow. This is really nice and a feature I have not seen yet in many different other chatbot software.

So it may take you some time to get comfortable with the interface, but once you have it is really easy to use and really flexible. Also, POP provides 40 templates that you can install right away to build your chatbot. And you can test all of your chatbot flows inside Messenger before they actually go live.

• 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

POP has all the chatbot elements you need to build your chatbot. They only don’t provide Delays, Vertical Lists and Date Validation, but those are no deal-breakers.

So they perform really well on this one!

• 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 POP it is really easy to analyze your audience, by clicking on the “Audience” tab:

This gives you an overview of all your subscribers with their additional information.

In POP, you can easily add custom fields and add tags to your subscribers. Also, it is possible to make user segments and assign your subscribers to one of your 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

With POP, you can send broadcasts to all your subscribers or a part of your subscribers (by selecting a segment). Also, it possible to schedule those broadcasts for a specific date and time.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to send sequences with POP. And this is a drawback, especially for a chatbot software that is focused on using campaigns inside Facebook Messenger.

Moreover, it is not possible to use any conditions in your chatbot flows.

On the other side, it is possible to make a chatbot in any language, but it is not easy to translate your chatbot to different languages.

• 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 POP it is possible to recognize keywords and give a good response to your users:

Because POP is primarily focusing on running campaigns, they provide less attention to the AI part of chatbots. Therefore, it is not possible to use any AI or NLP, such as grabbing the intent of the user or using entities. Moreover, they don’t provide a DialogFlow integration.

• 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

POP makes it easy to put your chatbot on Facebook Messenger and on your website (using a Facebook Messenger widget).

But those are only the channels that POP serves. So, if you want to provide an omnichannel chatbot experience to your users, you cannot use POP, which is 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

POP has a built-in live chat integration, which is the most important integration any chatbot software needs.

Moreover, they have a Zapier integration, which allows you to connect your chatbot with almost any software on earth.

Unfortunately, they don’t provide integrations with Make (formerly Integromat), Google Sheets or the possibility to create your own webhooks.

• 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

POP does really great on marketing.

You can:

• Put a Facebook Messenger widget on your website
• Connect your chatbot with Facebook ads
• Send One-Time Notifications 
• Automatically reply to Facebook comments
• Create “Send to Messenger” buttons and put them on your website
• Have custom URLs to specific chatbot flows

So, they have all the tools you need to make sure your audience is coming 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

POP comes with a free plan that comes with all the features of the platform up to 100 subscribers.

When you exceed those 100 subscribers, you need to pay. But the pricing of their plans is actually really cheap:

Up to	Price
5.000 subscribers	$29
10.000 subscribers	$49
15.000 subscribers	$69
20.000 subscribers	$89
30.000 subscribers	$109

And all these plans have all the features of the platform. These prices are even less than ManyChat and Chatfuel, which I consider as one of the cheapest chatbot software for Facebook Messenger.

So a lot of value for a really small price.

• 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?
  29
• 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

As I said before, POP is really focusing on running campaigns inside Facebook Messenger. Therefore, their analytics are really focused on campaigns and so on the number of subscribers your chatbot has, which is shown in a dashboard:

Moreover, you have a separate dashboard containing the statistics of your broadcasts:

These show the number of messages you sent, the total views of your messages and the average open rate.

So these statistics are mostly focused on the number of subscribers and a bit minimal, but enough to analyze how good your chatbot is doing.

A drawback is that you cannot analyze the user input that the chatbot did not understand. This could allow you to improve the answers of your chatbot, but as said before, this is not something that POP is focusing on.

• 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

POP doesn’t provide any integrations with 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

POP has 40 templates that you can install immediately to create your own chatbot.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to create your own templates and share them with others.

What is possible, is that you can duplicate your own chatbot flows, so you don’t have to duplicate everything manually.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  40
• 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 POP, it is not possible to do any optimization, like A/B Testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

POP provides tutorials on how to use their platform, and extensive documentation.

Moreover, they provide support via email and live chat.

• 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 I buy POP to create my chatbots?

Yes, I should.

POP has a great interface, many chatbot elements, you can assign custom fields and tags, make user segments, send broadcasts, have a built-in live chat integration, a Zapier integration and various marketing possibilities for a really small price.

There are only three situations in which I should not use POP:

1. If you want to create an omnichannel chatbot experience and not only want to use Facebook Messenger
2. If you want to improve the answers of your chatbot by making use of AI & NLP
3. And if you want to create sequences, because this is currently not possible with POP

But for the rest, POP is great chatbot software for building your chatbots.