As part of the Hubspot Conversations suite, the Hubspot chatbot has become one of the most widely used AI powered tools in the small business community. Competitors such as Drift, Intercom and others fight for market share, and they compete with Hubspot’s natural integration into the rest of its marketing suite as well as the specific feature set of the Hubspot chatbot.
That being said, just how good is the chatbot that Hubspot offers? It is important to understand that the company allows users to customize the chatting experience, a process they call the “chatflow.” The chatflow is the back end workflow that businesses create to allow end users a personalized chatbot experience.
Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of the Hubspot chatbot so that you can make an informed decision about including it in your operations.
Natural Integration
Hubspot is already an industry standard at the SMB level. Many of you reading this are already familiar with the “Hubspot feel.” If you aren’t, you should be — the reason Hubspot is so well-liked is because of its ease of use.
Using the Hubspot chatbot means that you already have a great looking and high functioning user interface. You also get automatic integration with all other Hubspot tools, so if you are already under the umbrella, you hit the ground running. The chatbot is automatically connected to your contact list, saving you the time of integrating the lists, personalizing your flows and onboarding accounts.
Building Your Chatflows
If you are looking for a chatbot that performs a specific and fairly common purpose, Hubspot has you covered. The first step in the Conversations suite is to choose between a live chat or a bot. Bots with common processes like lead qualification or meeting administration are built from templates.
If you have a less common process that you want to build, however, you may be in for a bit of a learning curve. Creating custom replies and messages is simple, but going back to a previous response set is difficult with no “back” option present. If you plan on your chatflow becoming complex, you should map out the if/then logic beforehand. Hubspot could definitely work on this aspect of programming the bot.
Convenience
The Hubspot chatbot lets you deliver content without moving to a separate page, which is always a plus for a small business that is trying to minimize click-to-sale numerics. You can quickly capture emails and other valuable information and integrate it into your CRM.
Calender booking is one of the best features of the chatbot. All that you need to do is link a meetings URL to a flow step, and the bot will handle the back end for you. Hubspot is also set up to adhere to GDPR standards, so you can be sure of compliance in your international business efforts.
Improvements
Some of the obvious improvements that the Hubspot chatbot may want to improve include the following —
- Frustrating interface for visitors – In some cases, visitors to your site can get stuck without a way to continue the conversation.
- Page targeting – Right now, you can’t have different bots on different pages of your site. You also do not have the ability to block IP addresses or country IDs.
- Widget customization – Although mobile optimization has been recently implemented, certain features such as scroll depth and live chat integration are just not available.
- Offline settings – If you assign a person to a conversation, your bot settings do not apply. This means you may not be notified of bot conversations if a switch is made before the end of the interaction.
And there you have it — the chatbot included in the Hubspot Conversations suite. Is it right for your business? Only you can make that decision. Assessing your needs against the pros and cons of this text should help in your decision. Be sure to bookmark this page for updates and this blog for other important insights into martech and your digital marketing operations.