Ubisend Review

Ubisend is a chatbot builder for enterprises that primarily focuses on creating HR chatbots. That being said, it is still possible to create any kind of chatbot with Ubisend. But the question is: Should you use this chatbot builder to create your chatbots?

Let’s find out!

What is Ubisend?

Ubisend is a chatbot builder for enterprises. They describe themselves as “The platform to build, launch and monitor chatbots and automation across your entire business.”

Ubisend is mostly focused on HR chatbots and enterprises. This means that their price is a bit higher than chatbot builders that focus on smaller companies and their focus is less on marketing and more on customer service (or in the case of HR – employee service).

 

User Interface

When you are going to build your chatbot flows, Ubisend makes use of a Visual Flow Builder. And where most chatbot builders use a left-to-right flow builder, Ubisend uses a top-down approach:

Each chatbot flow in Ubisend consists of a trigger and several steps. The trigger is something that starts the chatbot flow, such as a user saying “Hello”. Ubisend provides over 45 trigger options, so you can get really specific when a certain flow is triggered. Also, you can combine several triggers:

When you’ve set up the trigger, you can determine the steps of a conversation. Each step consists of a message that you send the user. Based on the answer to that message, you can forward the user to a specific part of the conversation, using Transitions:

So, with their visual flow builder, you can create your own chatbot pretty fast.

Also, when you’ve made your chatbot, you can test it right in the interface:

Overall, the interface of Ubisend is really easy to use and it is also easy to set up your chatbot. It could take you some time to get used to their interface because Ubisend has a lot of different options you can use, but I really liked it.

• 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

Ubisend provides enough chatbot elements to create your flows.

They do lack some elements, such as Audio, Attachments and Location Sharing, but these are certainly not deal-breakers.

Although they don’t provide location sharing, it is still possible to automatically capture the IP-address of the user, which could be useful.

Furthermore, what I really like about Ubisend is the number of validation options they provide, which is far more than most other chatbot builders:

• 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 Ubisend you can just ask a question to the user and save the answer to that question in a custom field.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to assign a tag to a user. But this isn’t a big deal, because you can use custom fields as tags, by setting the value of the custom field to “Yes” or “No”.

Also, it is not possible to see an overview of all the users that interacted with your chatbot or to create user segments. This is a bit of a drawback, because it would be really useful to see all your users and segment them accordingly.

• 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 Ubisend, you can send broadcasts to all the users of your chatbot. But, it is not possible to send a broadcast to a part of your audience using their custom fields, which is a drawback.

Also, it is not possible to send sequences with Ubisend, which is logical, because they mainly focus on HR, and then sequences are less used (or not at all used).

What is pretty awesome, is that you can use advanced conditions in your chatbot flows. Just like with their triggers, Ubisend provides a lot of conditions you can use to create more personalized conversations with your users.

Also, your chatbot can handle multiple languages at the same time by using one of the NLP integrations Ubisend provides, which we will cover in the next section.

• 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

Ubisend has a really good AI & NLP feature.

You can understand the intent of the user by using their FAQ feature (which is just the same as Intents) and setting up training phrases:

Unfortunately, they don’t provide Entities in their own platform. But this is not a problem, because Ubisend provides NLP integrations with:

• DialogFlow
• Wit.ai
• IBM Watson Assistant

• 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 Ubisend you can put your chatbot a lot of channels:

• Your website
• Facebook Messenger
• Twitter
• WhatsApp
• Slack
• Skype
• SMS

Also, when a user reaches a certain step in your chatbot, it can automatically send a particular email.

So with Ubisend, you can easily create an omnichannel chatbot experience for 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

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

And if you don’t want to use their own live chat, you can also integrate with other live chat software, such as Drift and Intercom.

Although they do not provide a Google Sheets integration, they have their own custom Sheets integration where you can upload your Excel files to.

Moreover, you can create your own webhooks by using the Ubisend API.

• 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 a webhook inside your chatbot flow to send data to other applications?

Marketing

As said before, because Ubisend mainly focuses on HR chatbots and enterprises, they are less focused on the marketing side of chatbots.

And because most HR chatbots are published on websites, Ubisend focuses on that channel. They provide three kinds of website widgets: Full page, Embedded (in a website page) and as a website widget.

You can also fully customize the widget to your website’s branding, with colors, a custom avatar, persistent menu and even showing a different greeting message per page.

Also, what I think is really useful, is that they have an embedded option. Most chatbot builders only have a landing page and a website widget, but they don’t allow you to put your chatbot embedded on your website, just like a contact form:

• 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 Ubisend is really straightforward.

They have a paid plan which is £300 per month, which includes everything. The visual flow builder, unlimited messages, unlimited channels, unlimited integrations, analytics and live chat. Everything you need for your chatbot:

And maybe this sounds a bit weird, but I think this pricing is relatively cheap.

Of course, Ubisend is way too expensive for small businesses that are just starting out with chatbots, I get that.

But let’s imagine that you are an enterprise company that sends thousands of messages per month. Then only £300 per month for all those messages (over multiple channels), is pretty cheap. It would have been more expensive with other chatbot builders, where you often pay based on the number of messages you sent.

• 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?
  300
• 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

Ubisend has the best analytics dashboard I’ve ever seen in a chatbot builder.

First of all, you can create your own metrics inside Ubisend. For example, here I created the “Signed up for ebook” metric:

Then, if you go back to your chatbot flows, at a specific step, you can increase the number for that metric with 1:

And based on those custom metrics and other metrics (already available in the platform) you can create your own custom dashboard:

Also, Ubisend provides lots of built-in metrics that you can use right away:

This is just awesome. Almost every business uses a different set of measures for their chatbot and with Ubisend, you can create your own metrics and tailor the dashboard completely to your needs.

• 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

Ubisend provides a Worldpay integration that allows users to pay within the chatbot.

Unfortunately, that is the only eCommerce integration they provide.

• 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

Ubisend doesn’t provide any templates that you can use to get started with your chatbot.

Also, you cannot create any templates yourself and share these with others.

Moreover, it is not possible to duplicate your chatbot flows and chatbots 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

Ubisend doesn’t provide any optimization, such as A/B Testing.

• A/B Testing

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

Support

Ubisend provides documentation on how you can use their platform, video tutorials on Youtube and also support through 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 use Ubisend to create chatbots?

Yes, I definitely would.

If you are an enterprise, Ubisend is especially useful. Ubisend allows you to easily create a chatbot using their flow builder, validate input in multiple ways, use AI in your chatbot and integrate with existing AI Systems (Dialogflow, Wit.ai, IBM), put the chatbot on multiple channels, has a built-in live chat and really advanced analytics.

There is one thing left, which I haven’t mentioned before.

If you want to create an integration (for example, with DialogFlow) or extend your chatbot to another channel, most often you need to contact an account manager of Ubisend. This can be seen as a pro and as a con. On the one hand, if you’re like me and want to set it up yourself, you will see it as a con. On the other hand, if you are not that familiar with chatbots, the account manager can help you to do it for you and tailor the chatbot platform to your needs.

It’s up to you how you see it 😉