SilFer Bots Review

SilFer Bots is a chatbot builder for chatbots on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. And they are growing extremely fast. The pace at which they build new features into their platform is one of the fastest I have ever seen. Moreover, their software is extremely good for eCommerce stores, because you can directly integrate your Shopify and WooCommerce store with SilFer Bots.

But, is this software really good enough to buy it? Let’s dive in to find out!

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

User Interface

If you log in, you will see a dashboard with the stats of your chatbot:

When you are going to build your chatbot, SilFer Bots uses a Visual Flow Builder. This gives you a good overview of the flow of your conversation:

And if you click on one of the message blocks, you can edit it easily:

A big plus of the SilFer Bots interface is that they provide a search bar. Instead of looking into multiple flows to find the thing you are looking for, you can just search for it. Moreover, you can test your chatbot in Facebook Messenger, before the flow actually goes live.

There is only one disadvantage of the SilFer Bots interface. Some features (like Sequences) are a bit hidden in the interface. In the beginning, you really need to dig in the interface to notice these features (they are not presented in the menu). But in general, the interface is easy to use and you can create a chatbot in a matter of minutes!

• 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

With SilFer Bots it is possible to use a lot of chatbot elements, there are only three elements that I could not check on the list, which are Audio, Vertical Lists and Location Sharing, but these are certainly no deal-breakers. They do absolutely great 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

With SilFer Bots it is really easy to add custom fields and tags to specific users. Based on those tags and custom fields, you can create user segments and send specific messages to them. Within SilFer Bots, you have a good overview of your complete audience:

Also, you can see the information per lead:

Within this overview, you can send particular flows to the user, engage with them in a live chat or add custom 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

Within SilFer Bots you can send broadcasts and sequences (campaigns) to your audience. Moreover, users can subscribe and unsubscribe from these sequences.

Also, you can use a function called “Conditions”, which allow you to send messages based on logic and calculation. This is a really useful function when you want to send personalized messages to your audience.

And here comes the BIG plus for SilFer Bots. SilFer Bots is multi-language. And not only that a chatbot can handle multiple languages at the same time, but you can also easily translate the chatbot to multiple languages! I have not done this myself, but if you want this you can contact SilFer Bots customer support through their chatbot and they will assist you with changing the language.

What I did notice is that you can easily translate the Persistent Menu to any 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

With SilFer Bots it is possible to recognize keywords and have some basic AI & NLP.

SilFer Bots has a built-in AI engine, which allows the chatbot to train itself on specific phrases (so the chatbot makes itself smarter).

But if that is not enough AI for you, they also provide a direct DialogFlow integration, which will give additional AI powers. Moreover, they also provide a Wit.ai integration, which is really useful for languages not supported by DialogFlow.

• 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

SilFer Bots provides multiple channels to put your chatbot on: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Website, SMS and Email.

For the WhatsApp channel, they also provide a direct integration with Twilio.

For the SMS channel, you need a Twilio or Clicksend account and it allows you to send text messages all over the world. The great thing is that SilFer Bots has a direct integration with Twilio and Clicksend.

Furthermore, you can only send emails to users who are Facebook subscribers, so this is a small drawback. But, it is possible to connect with every email providers using their SMTP feature.

So they don’t provide WhatsApp, SMS and Email out of the box, but it is possible to easily integrate with other software packages to leverage this.

• 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

SilFer Bots has a built-in live chat integration, which is the most important integration that you can have (so a plus for that). Also, they have an integration with Zapier, which allows you to connect to every other software on the earth. Next to Zapier, they also provide Integromat, Google Sheets and webhooks.

Moreover, they provide many direct integrations with other software packages:

• SendGrid
• Walletly
• MailChimp
• ActiveCampaign
• Drip
• Moosend
• Platformly
• PipeDrive
• Klaviyo
• GetResponse
• MailerLite
• Leadsquared
• Truemail

And it seems like they are only extending their direct integrations, so these are really useful!

• 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

On the topic of marketing, SilFer Bots performs quite well.

With SilFer Bots it easy to put a Facebook widget on your website, connect your chatbot to Facebook ads, automatically reply to Facebook comments, send One-Time Notifications and create custom URLs to your chatbot.

They only don’t provide a native website widget (a widget in your website’s branding).

Advanced Auto-Reply to Facebook Comments

I must name this feature because SilFer Bots does this way better than other chatbot software.

Usually, with auto-reply to Facebook Comments, you make a Facebook post, people comment on it and then you send them an automatic message in Facebook Messenger.

But SilFer Bots is going two steps further. Next to sending a message in Facebook Messenger, they also reply on the comment of the user:

But there is more. You can even check the number of friends a Facebook user has tagged. This is great for giveaways:

• 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

The pricing of SilFer Bots is extremely attractive. It comes with a free plan, which stays free forever. With this plan, you have unlimited users, unlimited broadcasts, unlimited custom fields/tags, but it also comes with limited features and SilFer Bots branding.

The paid plan is the Pro plan, which costs 9$ per month and then you have 500 users and all the features of the platform:

The price of the Pro plan increases with the number of users. For example, with 2.500 users you pay 19$, which is still really cheap.

They do not offer a free trial, but they do provide a 30-day money-back guarantee.

• 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?
  9
• 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

SilFer Bots give basic analytics. It could be better, but it could also be much worse.

They provide a dashboard with the amount of users, new users, active users and user messages.

They also show the messages the chatbot could not give an answer to (“User input”), so it is possible to improve the answers of your chatbot.

With the focus on e-commerce, they do provide quite extensive e-commerce analytics, such as the sales, number of orders, number of products in the orders, top products and top vendors:

• 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

This is the best part of SilFer Bots: eCommerce!

SilFer Bots has a direct integration with Shopify and WooCommerce. With the click on one button, you can import all products of your webshop directly in SilFer Bots.

With SilFer Bots you can decide whether you want the user to pay directly in the chatbot or through your webshop. When you connected your chatbot to WooCommerce or Shopify, the user gets redirected to the checkout of your store.

When you don’t have a Shopify/WooCommerce webshop, you can connect SilFer Bots to Stripe, PayPal or Razorpay and let the user pay directly in the chatbot.

Also, you can add your own products inside SilFer Bots and add a lot of information:

• Product description
• Pricing (with taxes and discounts)
• Product image
• Inventory (you can track the inventory with SilFer Bots)
• Tags
• Variants
• Add-ons

With this feature, you can provide a complete webshop experience within your chatbot.

These are features that are really useful when you have your own webshop. Also, they provide one of the most important features for an eCommerce store: Abandoned Cart Reminders. You can even set the timing of that message to your exact needs.

• 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

SilFer Bots supports 28 templates (also in different languages), so it is really easy to set up your chatbot.

Furthermore, you can also create templates yourself and share those with others.

Also, you can duplicate your own chatbot flows and chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them.

• Templates

  How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
  28
• 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 SilFer Bots it is possible to optimize your chatbot through A/B testing.

• A/B Testing

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

 

Support

SilFer Bots provides documentation, tutorials and customer support. I must say that the documentation is a little bit minimal, but I think this will grow with their platform.

Also, they have a Facebook community, with 1791 members, which is growing at a really fast pace.

And with a fast pace, I mean that one year ago their Facebook community was non-existent.

• 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

SilFer Bots is really great software for building your chatbot. They provide a visual flow builder, many chatbot elements, can assign custom fields & tags to users, make user segments, put your chatbot on 5 channels, provide built-in AI, have many integrations, various marketing opportunities and really good eCommerce integrations (you can have a complete webshop in Facebook Messenger). And the best of all: for a really cheap price.

On the other hand, there is a big advantage of SilFer Bots: they are building new features in their platform extremely fast. Like, the fastest I have ever seen at any chatbot software company, it’s incredible. So, that a huge advantage of SilFer Bots.

Update February 2021: Currently, I would not recommend using SilFer Bots to build your chatbots. Because of a recent lawsuit of ManyChat, SilFer Bots has chosen to shut down the company. Moreover, the platform is pretty unstable lately and also not all the features are working.