Drift

A solid suite of digital tools all on one platform

Pros:

The thing about Drift that I like the most is, without a doubt, its chatbot creation feature. There are plenty of chatbot platforms and apps out there, but what makes Drift stand out its the ability it gives you to provide website visitors with a tailored experience, answers to their questions and solutions to their needs...all on autopilot! You put in the work once – to create the chatbot – and then, you can let the platform work its magic and help you increase website visitor engagement and other KPIs in your business.

Cons:

If you're planning to put together a quite robust and sophisticated chatbot, you'll need to carve out some time. While this is to be expect, I sometimes feel that one can feel a bit overwhelmed in the chatbot creation process...

Drift is the best 'customer chat' system on the market

Comments: Once again Drift have helped to define what companies should be using chat software for. Yes, it is for 'live chat', that much is obvious. But DRIFT define their tool as helping to deliver 'conversation marketing', and that for me really helps to define how companies should be using Chat software - to start and nurture a conversation that could lead to an ongoing relationship.

Pros:

Love Drift. It is very easy to use but more importantly, it is very easy to love using. This is important in software adoption and Drift is one of the best examples I have seen of this in recent years. They've built an awesome product, which does everything you need it to - but the fact that it is fun to use DRIFT makes it an even more compelling product.

Cons:

Hard to say. Probably the fact that although the core product is free (and you get lots of awesome features), you have to upgrade to the 'fullest licence' in order to get the 'uber cool' tools such as allowing the 'chat users' to book an appointment directly into the Calendar of the chosen agent.

A time consuming disappointment.

Comments: We asked very specific questions during the sales process (no trial available - this should have been a red flag) where the salesperson misrepresented the capabilities around integration, usability etc. There was plenty of 'sure it works just like that'. We would have identified this had a trial been available. Drift is expensive, has slick marketing, so I assumed it was good. I should have quit at this point, but had our developers work around the many issues and the 'ohh you need to pay 10x for that'. Support was very lackluster. Focused on upselling features already promised on the current plan. Our developers hated it (I should have listened)... Our salespeople did not like it, the bugs it Drift manifested in a form that made our salespeople look stupid to customers. They were actively creating workarounds to avoid using it. And here I am. Drift keep charging, and the support people 'can't find my cancellation request conversation' ironically, in Drift. So, let this be a warning for managers. Drift is really great at marketing, the halo effect is strong! But walk away and save time.

Pros:

Drift is a chat tool with some rudimentary marketing automation. Drift's bot workflows are conceptually good. Email 'playbooks' are similar to a basic marketing automation platform.

Cons:

I purchased Drift against the recommendation of our developers on the promise of its segment.io integration. Drift was buggy, did not work as described with segment.io and had numerous usability problems for end-users (customers).

Simple setup, solid results

Comments: Very satisfied with the manner in which we use it. I haven't spent much time exploring additional capabilities and advanced features, but I am eager to do so in the near future.

Pros:

It was easy to setup, and easy to understand with limited knowledge of this type of product. The product will scale with you, meaning, if you are knowledgable about all features, then they are there for you. If you're just looking for a site lead service, it does that really well also, without being overwhelming.

Cons:

The other features aren't explained well, and not sure where to look if I wanted them explained. The image that can be placed with the pop-up message is very limited in customization. For example, it cuts the top of the picture off and there's very limited functionality associated with editing it further.

Best Realtime communication chat tool

Comments: We really had good opinion on drift and we're happy to serve our customers realtime with the help of drift chat widget and qualify the leads instantly.

Pros:

We love the way how Drift chat helps our customers to get in touch instantly within our product. When customers get into issue or questions to be answered, they don't have to wait for email support, all the questions can be answered instantly within the chat. Additionally, it's easy for our teams to use mobile app to instantly attend customer chat from anywhere. We usually get lot of questions and leads from landing page and drift helped us to automate leads and push into our CRM systems. Integrating the chat widget within the application is also easy and simple.

Cons:

The web app ( dashboard ) is too slow to load initially but the chat is super fast and reliable. I wish they had android sdk to initiate conversation within the application.