BotXO

Implementation was much easier than anticipated. While not completely painless & without challenges, we were able to integrate with our Zendesk instance without any programmer resources - no dependencies here!

(Some handholding by the BotXO service team was needed though! Which brings us to the next point...)

Absolutely fantastic customer service. Whenever I hit a snag, their team is super fast to respond & they go above and beyond in explaining best practices & often proposing clever solutions to what I'm trying to achieve.

Their detailed responses & level of service exceeded my expectations - high praise coming from a CS professional. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] in particular has been a joy to work with.

And look, their customer newsletters have a "request a feature" button. How awesome is that? Don't see many vendors actively seeking feature requests so openly.

The conversation flow testing feature is fantastic. It shows the bot conversation on one side and the bots current state and decisionmaking next to it. Great for troubleshooting issues!

The UI inside the platform is a little clunky. I like the general idea of setting up a flowchart - it's a great way to visualize the conversation flows. But setting up and modifying modules is clunky and it can feel like it takes twice as many clicks as it should to set up and connect modules.

Some functionality feels like a "hack" rather than a fully polished feature. I.e. while it is possible to start a conversation at a specific point in the tree based on the URL of the page the customer is on, it requires multiple rather un-intuitive steps.

There is a tagging/labeling feature which let you designate colors & tags for modules, but I'd love to see this taken further. It would be easier to read the flow of your bot though if it was possible to say, draw boxes to designate certain "areas" / boxes (i.e. Technical support)

Some of the webhooks are confusing to set up, at least as a non-programmer. BotXO has the right idea already by making pre-made templates. Some templates were confusing to set up though which caused some frustration. I'd imagine this would not be a problem for teams implementing the bot with programmer resources available.

Not really a point regarding the software... but their help center could be more comprehensive. This has been mostly mitigated by their excellent support team, but I try to self-service whenever possible. There have been times where better documentation would've been preferred over filing a ticket.

The integration options. Secondary the drag n drop interface, where you build your magic.

Like any other skill you try to learn, it takes time before you master the skill.

Easy to get started
NLU
Webhook
Great support and people that are dedicated and listen to inputs. Worth the money

The lack of Analytics data
The confusing setup when the bot is large