Drift

Pros

Easy to use, beautiful chat automation platform.

Cons

I didn't have any problems with Drift when I used it.

Pros

I really like that is it easy to navigate. There are not a lot of places you need to go looking around to figure out what you need to do in order to change or update the flow of something.

Cons

Their customer support is not great. They do not really offer any assistance when it comes to setup, or help with any of the technical processes or procedures. When we first started using this application we were unfamiliar with the targeting, and it would have been beneficial to have someone assist us with that.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Drift initially provided our team a great way to generate leads via our website chat. The volume was high and we saw that offering to book a demo via chat captured some leads that otherwise might not have asked for a demo. This worked very well for our team and provided great results.

Cons

After a while, our visitors stopped interacting with the Drift chat. We weren't able to prioritize the hottest prospects or really have enough data to know what our visitors were doing or who to chat with. We started to book fewer demos via Drift. Drift didn't offer the deep data analytics or ABM data that other vendors offered. So there wasn't enough functionality to keep us on board.

Pros

Through Drift, I am able to contact with leads at the precise moment of their highest interest and engagement with the website, and to respond to their pressing queries immediately. Many of the talks I've had with potential clients have resulted in a sale.

Cons

Forcing customers to provide email addresses before speaking with a representative. There is room for simplification in the reports and metrics. There are not further improvements needed.

Pros

-Playbooks- Setting up of chat bot and customizing it based on the page and target market becomes very easy with drift's playbook feature. You can very easily set up chat bot and start receiving genuine leads.
-Analytics and Integrations- The deep analysis of the tool always keeps you on your toes and helps in pointing out various scope for improvement. You can also measure the efficiency of your chat agents as well. Also, it provides integration with your marketing CRM as well for lead handling purpose.
-Customer Service- You are facing any issue with drift? Do not worry. Customer service is just a chat ping away. They are always attentive and help you proactively

Cons

-Price- This was the main concern while evaluating various chat tools. Drift is follows a premium pricing which might not make it suitable for Small businesses.
-No Forms- Drift takes pride on omitting the forms from the chat and enabling their conversational way of marketing. I think, they should make that optional. They should forms as well.
-They should also have a feature in which chat transcripts can be emailed as well.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Drift

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

With Drift, you can create customized chat experiences for users based on all sorts of criteria - the page they're on, the number of times they've visited, the channel they used to get to your site - and to target specific businesses with targeted messaging. Building the chat flows (Drift calls them "Playbooks") is generally quite easy, allowing you to quickly build out new bots once you get a hang of the platform. Drift also includes support chat built right into the product, meaning every time I get stuck, I'm able to reach out and get a hand from one of their product experts right away.

Cons

We haven't been using Drift for that long, and there have already been a number of instances where I or one of the other users in the company have attempted to do something that seems obvious, only to find out the tool doesn't allow us to do so. We're always told that a feature request has been submitted, but there's no way to know how long it will take before we get whatever little tweak we're looking for in order to provide a smoother, more pleasant chat experience on our site.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Really simple setup, haven't had to touch a thing since implementing it.

Cons

Having to switch between the app and the browser for different functionality - either have it all in app or dont.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

I like the effectiveness of the features of Drift.
Drift has been reliable and easy to use.

Cons

I see no challenges when using Drift.
Drift is sensational.

Pros

The reliability of Drift has been making it a top and reliable solution.
I like the efficiency of this marketing automation software.

Cons

This marketing automation tool works so well for us.
No cons for Drift.

Pros

With Drift, we are able to enjoy efficiency.
The capabilities of Drift are excellent.

Cons

Drift has been so reliable since day one.
No dislikes with Drift.

Pros

I liked that it integrated with top CRM systems in the Market. Their support is great.

Cons

It was costly. Playbooks were a bit buggy at times.

Pros

Conversation routing by Company HQ and State rather than just the site visitors geographic location. This is important since our sales team segments by Company HQ and Annual Revenue

Cons

No ability to route countries other than US and Canada by state and/or territory. The entire continent of Australia can only be tagged as such in conversation routing. You have to build a playbook that asks the customer what territory they live in which creates a longer automated process for the site visitor. Also there is no option to segment by city which would be helpful for large city territories like Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco etc

Pros

There's a lot one could write here but having some experience with similar products, I can confidently say my favorite Drift feature is its data export capability. Drift's internal dashboard reporting is useful for day to day high-level metrics, but being able to export the data and dig through it to find meaningful metrics that drive decisions on messaging strategy has made Drift stand out among its competitors. The bot builder is unparalleled and their enterprise integrations are very robust.

Cons

I use the product just about every day, but I would my least favorite thing is their pricing structure. The pricing page on their site can be pretty confusing to someone comparison shopping.

Pros

I really like that we can have private conversations between staff members in order to confirm we are giving up-to-date information. It is also very helpful for us to see the location of the customer in order to better / properly assist them.

Cons

We use the free version of the software and I cannot think of a single issue we have not been able to easily resolve ourselves.

Pros

The advanced features are interesting but they lack some of the basics

Cons

The main issue is not the software, but the way drift does business. I am taking the time to write this review because there should be consequences to a firm reputation when they are misleading people.

1. Drift refused any free trial and only accepted to provide a tech demo where we were told everything would be fine

2. After sign up, we got ZERO access to the implementation team, which service was included in the price, and support did not answer emails, refused to do anything but chat, could not provide any clear tech guidance. Really poor.

3. We were overcharged and had to send emails all over the organization to get that point resolved after weeks. I got other things to do.

4. During the implementation, it turned out that the critical feature we had been told was included (routing).... was only available if we agreed to pay 3x more than the cost we had been quoted. And Drift is expensive in the first place when compared to pretty much any other chat solution.

5. So after losing a month+ in the process, Drift accepted to cancel the subscription BUT still charged us and refused to refund the initial month

6. We are talking about small money here (1k or something), and Drift can keep the change if their team feels they need to.

Pros

I love the ability to set up multiple chat bots/playbooks based on use cases. The ability to engage with a target account real time is invaluable. So we're trying to keep it simple, yet also set up playbooks specific to our campaign objectives and quarterly themes but the up keep has proven to be challenging. The option to also use converstional pages is awesome and integrating those into ABM programs has been exciting.

Cons

A lot of up keep required in the tool to keep it up to date and effective. Also need to train and remind sales teams often to close conversations and manage their bots. Drafting the right copy that will capture attention and encourage engagement has been hard so constantly testing and updating copy to improve bot performance

Pros

I implemented Drift in my website. The reason is not just I want to connect with my customers. but to show them that behind that e-commerce store there is a real person.
Nowadays, people loves connecting by others by typing what they need or what questions they have.
I use Drift app on my smartphone so I can answer fast to my customers.

Cons

My suggestion is to offer an option to choice louder or another sound notification when there is a user on the other side. Very often I can't hear that someone has just sent me a question. And then I miss the opportunity to answer.

Pros

I love the conversational nature of our Drift bots. It allows us to incorporate our brand tone of voice into interactions with web visitors, and the ability to book meetings directly within the chat really speeds up the followup process.

Cons

It can be clunky at times to set up the playbooks, but once they're in place they're great. I've also seen a ton of incremental improvements happen throughout the time I've used it so I can see Drift is listening to customer feedback and continually evolving.

Pros

Writing about Drift video in specific - this has the ability to be a fantastic tool for generating leads, pitching more complex sales, and showcasing to your customers that you appreciate that they are busy people, and can watch your video at any point that they have some time.

Cons

The login process to Drift video if you've already got Drift Chat set up is so clunky, and it kicks me out nearly every single time. It's a shame as I would use this tool so much more, but sometimes it just doesnt want to let me in, and even with the correct login, it just glitches and sends you back to the login screen

Pros

The pros over at Drift get IT! They have provided a great chat tool that is super clean, easy to use, and it just works. I run an e-commerce website and there's no doubt that having Drift in place has boosted my sales. It is a great way to capture new email addresses as well, which I have used in follow up marketing sequences, thus resulting in additional sales. Can't say enough about this software, I really enjoy it.

Cons

Everything isn't free! But, I get it. The additional features are worth paying for, and I will be at that point on my site soon. Looking forward to it!

Pros

It's ability to post internal notes that only your team members can see. It really helps during troubleshooting.

Cons

The mobile app is a little confusing at times and it takes time in refreshing, it doesn't auto refresh and doesn't display the recent chats on it's own.

Pros

This useful tool has third party integrations that allow me to access data in a more useful way in order to get beneficial outcomes from it with less time spent. Another feature that is of my interest is the unique playbook feature of this amazing product that helps me to lessen the workload from my shoulders and enables me to have a concentration on all the important tasks.

Cons

By getting all the unique features and functionalities I can not think of anything offensive in it that could worsen my experience on it. I failed to find anything to complain about it.

Pros

Ease of setup makes Drift work well. I love the Slack integration and team member management on the back end. One of the best things about Drift is that it eliminates the need for forms and forces a quick turnaround on meeting prospects.

Cons

It's expensive for the more advanced service. It would be a great addition to our current workflow but can't justify the cost.

Pros

Drift is an intelligent way to get the most out of every visitor on your website. This leads to more sales and insights passed to our Sales and Customer Success team.

Cons

Sometimes it thinks you are someone you are not. Most of the time everything works seamlessly though.

Pros

Drift seems to have endless options and possibilities to enhance this bot and the underlying (marketing) actions. Their pro-active approach is helpful and really appreciated.

Cons

Because of the many options and features, please make sure you to schedule enough time and focus for your dedicated Drift colleagues who implement, maintain and follow up on the additional tasks.

Pros

Very intuitive and easy to use, you don't need to be an expert to implement your communication strategy with this tool.

Cons

However, the free version is rather limited in terms of features.

Pros

Drift has anything you could ask for in a conversational marketing tool in the market currently. Its AI capabilities are probably what set it apart from its peers for us and our clients.

Cons

Pricing is not exactly friendly for "small businesses" as mentioned on their pricing page. It's more geared towards medium businesses who have set aside a sizeable marketing budget that allows for investing in conversational marketing.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Best auto marketing platform for meI use Drift's AI-powered Conversation Cloud to simplify customer experience personalisation. With it, I can increase lead conversion by sending dialogues to the right client at the right time and with the right message using AI. I also get access to solid analytics capabilities to measure and track customer service initiatives.

Cons

The primary downside of using Drift is its cost. While the platform does offer a free trial and a few different pricing plans, the cost of using the full-featured version of Drift can be prohibitive for some businesses. Also, companies may find that some of the features offered by Drift are not necessary for their customer service needs.

Pros

Easy to deploy, affordable pricing, good customer support & easy chat playbook creation.

Cons

Nothing specific; everything seems top-notch!

Pros

Incredibly easy to setup, implement and actually start having conversations on your website. Very user friendly UI and bot building + super easy to train users on the platform.

Cons

Some of the ABM functionality and audience building is a bit unintuitive and hidden in parts of the platform that you wouldn't think to look.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Drift as a bunch of great features, we use it to filter out of office responses and also the web chat. It's a great tool and everyone should test it

Cons

It can be a bit complicated and overwhelming since it as a lot of features

Pros

- The design of the chat widget is gorgeous. It works on any browser and every mobile phone, I've tried, like a charm. With other chat widgets, I had lots of issues that it hasn't been displayed always correctly.
- Advanced bot and automation capabilities based on tags and other attributes
- Live view of prospects on your website with direct contact via web chat functionality
- Outbound marketing (sending sequences and tracking of emails) with their drift Gmail extension.

Cons

- Drift is quite expensive for what they offer. I'm one of the happy customers, which has gotten a startup license of the pro plan for a fraction of the normal price. Even with the pro plan, you have unnecessary restrictions like customization of the chat widget with CSS and using the smaller version. Most of the enterprise features as account-based marketing are great for any startup. Why isn't just the support by Drift and the quantity of usage restricted? Why do I have to see the restrictions within your account always and cannot just hide them if I cannot afford? Are they in need of that kind of marketing?
- The calendar cannot be completely translated into the language of your choice and you can't use a custom domain.
- Help center is branded with drift, even if your plan support branding free chat widget.
- I've received lots of emails from Drift about their Hypergrowth Conference (at least 10 in the last few months), which is quite annoying, no matter how personal and funny they have been written.
- I receive quite some emails regarding extensions of the core product like Drift Signature and Drift Help Center, but I've never gotten an update what has changed in the core product. After a while looking into the bot creation section, I've been flabbergasted that the whole design of the visual builder has changed, without me receiving any message about the advantages the new design and process brings with it.

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).

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.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Drift

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

We use Drift as an in-app messaging platform and it's decent at that. We considered using it for marketing automation, customer engagement and on-boarding, but it doesn't cut it.

Cons

Even as an in-app messaging platform for support, there's room for improvement. A few months ago, they removed the option to "close a conversation" (which is essentially used to close a "support ticket"). For whatever reason, they think that it should be more like Whatsapp with an endless list of conversations that you can "archive". Only conversations sometimes come back (not because of new messages), they are sorted wrong so you may miss conversations with new messages, and you don't always get real time notifications in the mobile app.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Drift is extremely easy to configure and there is a launchpoint integration available via Marketo Engage that makes it easy to integrate and push lead gen data into Marketo

Cons

I think Drift gets the job done and is the best live chat out there in market. I cant think of any con

Pros

I inherited drift from my predecessor, and immediately found it to be a very powerful and useful platform. It offered simple chat solutions, sent follow-up emails to people who didn't see your chat automatically, and provided numerous other useful features. It had a simple chat window that caught people's attention and generated chats, all of which we found very useful for our needs

Cons

Drift has a couple key problems - one being the overly simplistic and confusing backend UI. For users, there were just so many options on the admin side of things, and using it, I immediately felt lost and confused. This likely would have been different if I'd been part of the team that set it up, but starting to use the platform required quite a learning curve to customize it to our needs.

Perhaps more significantly, I used Drift for a period of time while updating my companies website - and upon switching to Wordpress and using Drift, I started to notice a significant increase in load time - with lighthouse & gtmetrix revealing a significant load time (I believe it was over 1.3 seconds of load time) caused by Drift's code. Needless to say, load time is key in website conversions, so I switched away from the platform pretty quick after that.

Pros

Drift is a robust, clean platform that is relatively simple to work. The caveat to that is that you have to get the hang of it first! The previous chat builder was tough to work with - not very intuitive and lots of scrolling up and down, back and forth (think vertical, with everything jumbled together). They've just introduced a new version that is easier to work with, but still complex.

When implemented on the website, it looks clean. You can also modify your icon, which is a fun and creative aspect. The "playbook" you build can also be as simple or complex as you want - due to the complex nature of our products, we use ours as more of a "reach out to us, we can help" chatbot. But you can go much, much further.

Cons

The main thing I dislike about Drift isn't actually the platform - it's the onboarding process.

The onboarding process at Drift is a bit aggressive. The onboarding teams have a very set mindset in what will make Drift work for you - no matter what your business is, or how many times you let them know your business' unique needs. They are almost 100% focused on getting live chat involved, which at the start isn't always the best option. I'd recommend that they start listening more closely to their clients, rather than bopping them over the head with their "this will be best for you" mindset.

Pros

I really loved how super easy Drift is to both implement and use as chatbot tool (that does way more than that)
we've rolled it out for our SDRs to be able to capture leads and respond to any presales questions quickly. and the integration with Hubspot and salesforce makes it really easy to not only capture but also to personalise our response as a part of our overall marketing automation strategy.

Cons

- it's not cheap
- the stage that you'd be importing the lead into Sales Cloud (SFDC CRM) can be tricky as the definition of stages aren't really aligned.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Overall the concept of this platform is great and I had high hopes because of all the good reviews. The bot got more engagement than a just a basic chat box I had before that. Having the ability to use other popups etc was good too but pretty limited flexibility around the design of those.

Cons

I think some things may have changed since all the positive reviews regarding the software. I think this happens sometimes when companies go into growth mode. The support wasn't good, they tried but seemed too busy, often didn't take the time to read the detailed steps to reproduce I included in all my support tickets. Before anything was actioned we had to bounce a bunch of emails back and forth answering questions with info I already included in my original tickets which meant days past before we even started to get some actual help. Then often the problems were just bugs with their platform. There seemed to be quite a few things that just didn't work as described.

Seems quite expensive compared to something like Intercom that has a much broader feature set. I'm a Solo founder though with a niche platform, so pricing won't be an issue if you are a bigger business I suppose.

Also just a tip, they have a 30 day notice period and no trial so if you don't like it within the first month you'll still need to pay for a full two months of the software so make sure you budget for that. I didn't. My fault for not reading the terms.

Even when they break the news to you that you'll be charged another amount for something you don't want to use. At least they still end their emails by saying "have a fantastic day" even when breaking bad news. I'll try!

Pros

The driftbots and playbooks (how their AI, automation is done). We have used this to automate sales workflows and schedule meetings and save time.

Cons

I have no complaints that wouldn't be something out of my control - some of the rules I've set up in boys seem to be a bit too picky when leads respond with anything besides a picklist item.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Live chat and Playbook work well, and widgets are easy to install.

Cons

There are no problems with functionality, but in my opinion, the customization options are still not enough. I would like more widget customization options, such as the ability to add a background image to the Live Chat widget.

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.

Pros

Past 1 year usage of drift was made simple by making the navigation between creating playbooks & viewing analytics/reports easy. We have integrated it with freshsales CRM for storing leads captured in chat. Creating playbooks for chatbot on our website is structural. Just by selecting dates, it is easy to view the data captured through chatbot for that duration.

Cons

Similarly playbooks creation could be made more user friendly by bringing in different format for editing them as it is currently bit difficult to navigate between one node to another in the tree like representation of the playbook.

Pros

I like that i can access new conversations not only form my desktop but smartphones so i can communicate a much a possible with website visitors. And also the option for someone to put in the email and name without asking

Cons

I do not like that the free version is limited as it pertains to automated messages. I guess thats similar for other chat apps.

Pros

Drift is an amazing tool that helps you communicate directly and seamlessly with your website visitors. It tracks a lot of information about any given person on your site so you can understand who they are before you even have a conversation with them. It also makes it easy to schedule meetings which automatically flow to your calendar.

Cons

Sometimes Drift can be too automated and frustrate people on your website who are trying to obtain quick answers to questions and wish to speak to a human.

Pros

The team and the development of the tool. The people are incredible. They are helpful, involved, and genuinely enthusiastic.

Cons

Being an early adopter, the best practices weren’t written well into our first few years and the software itself has gone through impressive, but drastic change.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Drift

Pros

Drift is an easy way to bring chat to your site - especially when people are less and less willing to browse your site for answers and don't trust you'll ever respond to your "contact us" form. We've enjoyed using Drift and really like how seamlessly it integrates in with HubSpot.

Cons

The only complaint I have about drift is some of the functionality that's behind a paywall. I understand they need to make money, but some functionality that seems like a basic requirement to me is behind a paywall and eliminates itself from the conversation of some smaller businesses that don't always have someone able to answer immediately at all times. That being said, even Drift's paywall is easily justifiable for the benefit it provides.

Pros

Lots of features that are likely to appear to enterprise B2B companies like lead routing, instant meetings booker, help centre article look up.

Cons

Had issues with bugs in various areas several times and had to contact support and wait till they were resolved. Not very straightforward how to configure the tool in the best way and debug playbooks. Documentation could be better.

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...