Verified purchaser
A Unique Bot Among One Trick Ponies
I am one of the serial buyers on AppSumo and have bought about 105 deals so far. I have also been in the web design field for about 15 years, so I have seen a thing or two.
As far as chatbots are concerned, I have bought and used ChatBase, WebWhiz, Cloozo, Orimon, Socialnova, Botstar, etc.
Botsheets stands out from all of them, and I will tell you why:
1) Most bot products are basic ChatGPT rebranding, and a lot of their source code can be found online for purchase on places like CodeCanyon.
2)Most of them are also one-trick ponies. They try to give you an answer based on what files they have access to.
3)Almost all of them hallucinate like it's nobody else's business. One AI chatbot actually thought I am my competitor even after crawling my website and recommended them.
4)None of them work with Google Sheets and openly say that Google Sheets are not their ideal source.
5)None of them proactively ask questions and get you leads, the lifeblood of any business.
What I find unique about Botsheets and this deal:
1) This is the only tool that will properly reference a Google spreadsheet, and now the team has rolled out the ability to add multiple Google Sheets as a source.
2) This is the only tool that I know of that will qualify leads and get that lead into a Google spreadsheet.
3) This is the only enterprise-grade AI-driven lead generation tool that is user-friendly and affordable for small businesses and small agency folks like us. If you want to develop it in-house, it will easily cost 20+ grants.
4) This is the only tool where a client can update data regularly on a Google sheet, and Botsheets will crawl it regularly.
5) It is very laser-focused on what it does, asks questions proactively, and gets you the user information.
What you need to understand and appreciate is this lead generating capability that can be applied to a multitude of scenarios. Some people complain that they need to use their own key and ask what's the value. This is like buying a Rolls Royce and asking the dealer why they don't offer fuel for the vehicle in that price.
6) On top of this, you also get all the regular capabilities of a chatbot.
7) This deal is one of the few chatbot deals where tier 3 is the highest where you get everything. No tier 4 or 5 as of this writing.
What is missing in Botsheets:
1) The capability to change fonts that will exactly match the website font, especially Google Fonts and hex color codes for window and text.
2) CNAMEs. Josh has promised that this is coming, and I am looking forward to it.
3) Direct connection for individual chatbots to external sources. For example: Connect a chatbot to a Twilio number or WhatsApp number so people text to a number and have the full conversation through SMS or WhatsApp. If what I read from Josh's response to another user, this is coming.
3) More granular control in source crawling frequency like 10 minutes, 30 minutes, and so on.
4) Please, please, please enable crawling frequency for web pages as well. At least manual or better like once every 24 hours as they too get updated.
What I like about the founders:
I love to talk with founders privately through email, and I have found Mr. Josh to be a solid guy. He is not someone who says yes to everything like a lot of founders who come on AppSumo, overpromise, and then close shop later because they realize they cannot deliver everything. He is anchored on what he can do and is rolling out features. I also think that he and the other members in the team have a strong understanding of the bot landscape and where all this is going.
What I don't like about the team:
They, for some reason, are not very responsive to the aesthetic part of the user-facing part of the software. For example, no option to change the font to an exact font. From my experience, 90% of small-business users or agencies will be placing this on a website, and they will always be asked to change the font and colors to match the branding. For lack of a better word and with all due respect, it will be an eyesore when everything else is another font, and the bot window wants to play spoilsport!. They also for some reason thinks that webpages need not be crawled automatically once in a while and they are like fix and forget stuff. I pesronally think that since they are online unlike static files, they are as important if not more important than a Google sheet.
I hope the team is more responsive and will think from the standpoint of an end-user or an agency who is pitching this to a client or someone like me who wants to use it on my site. I am a stickler for seamless branding, and I hope this will not fall on deaf ears.
For me, this deal comes in the top 5 of LTD deals that I have bought!. I also wrote this review myself which is rare in my case these days as usually leave it to ChatGPT but I thought the product is worth a "piece of my mind".
If you are on the fence, get tier 3 before they change their mind and another tier above.
Josh_Roundups
May 9, 2024Wow this guy knows how to get our attention! Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this and not using AI to help you get it done faster :)
1. RE: CNAME/Your own domain for chat - We get the value. We're onboard with it. No timeline when we enable that, only that we will enable it. Reviews like this obviously help us prioritize things and determine positioning for it.
2. RE: Font/Widget Customization - We see these as nice to have, vs. must have in the short term, Obviously, the more creative control you have over the user experience the better. I think we'll prioritize making the widget more active (Not passive) with a call to action like floating bubbles that draw people in first. Style sheet customizations would come after, but we get the value. We're focusing on function over form first.
3. RE: Direct Connections - Yes, these take time. I'd expect to see an API first before this, then you can connect to Botsheets from any chat platform with those direct integrations already in place, or from agency platforms like GoHighLevel.
4. RE: Crawling Frequencies - Yes, agreed. Although, if anyone is on the fence, I'd buy Tier 3, because we'd limit frequency by plan with higher frequencies tied to higher plans.
I think in general, you'll find that we're actively listening here in AS, in our Facebook group, direct by email, and on our feature request board: https://botsheets.featurebase.app/dashboard/roadmap
We'll let the data tell us the story (comments, upvotes, etc.). Also just to clarify, while widget customizations are limited at the moment, what we launched for that is backed by data as well. By design, it looks like every other widget out there (generic, white, same font), but it's proven to work/convert and likely because it's a familiar looking conversional experience for website visitors, regardless of what they are using to chat with a business. However, keep an eye on our roadmap item for widget customizations. It will come for sure. I like products that do one thing really well. In this case, it's all about a delightful and engaging chat session and wIthout that, all of the other bells and whistled won't add value. I don't know if you've heard the expression before, but product people will say "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig".