Which HubSpot Chatflow is Right For You?

When prospects have a question or customers need assistance, they look for a fast and effective response from your business. They also expect the ability to communicate on the channels they choose… and live chat is becoming increasingly popular.

HubSpot created chatflows to automate this communication method and meet customers where they are without putting extra strain on your team. They’re an exciting way to provide a better experience to any website visitor that needs help. 

HubSpot prompts you to select a specific type when creating a chatflow. If you don’t choose strategically, you’ll run into problems down the road when you can’t access specific functionality or realize you chose the wrong type for your goal. 

So which type of chatflow is right for your business? Let’s get chatting and find out!

What are HubSpot chatflows? 

Is there anything more satisfying than seeing that little icon pop up in the corner of your screen that lets you know that someone is available to answer your questions? It’s like your own personal assistant. 

These present a powerful opportunity to grab prospects’ attention and encourage them to connect with you. But what if your team doesn’t have the flexibility or bandwidth to be available 24/7? Enter HubSpot’s chatflows with the solution: a chatbot that can handle those basic inquiries for you. 

With a chatflow, you can send messages and ask questions to qualify leads, book meetings, create support tickets, and more. You determine the content of each message, what the flow looks like, and when it’s appropriate for the bot to transfer a user to a live chat with a real employee. 

HubSpot offers 7 different types of chatflows, each designed to streamline and inspire a particular type of conversation. 

Let’s break them down: 

Which HubSpot chatflow is right for your business? 

1. Concierge bot 

The concierge bot is exactly what it sounds like: it helps website visitors get where they need to be. 

This chatflow asks questions to determine why the user is visiting your website and uses that information to direct them to the right place. This could mean bringing them to a live chat with a member of a particular team, searching a knowledge base for help articles, or helping them book a meeting. 

When to use the concierge bot: 

• If your website appeals to a wide range of people 
• If your website offers multiple products or services 
• If you’re not sure what your users need

The concierge bot will make it easy to segment your users and ensure they get the assistance they need quickly and easily. 

2. Qualify leads bot 

The lead qualifying bot basically acts as a first-touch salesperson: it gathers information about the lead, their business, and why they’re visiting your site. 

You can ask any number of questions in your chatflow. Choose from pre-determined questions such as company size, industry, or any other HubSpot property value, or write your own questions from scratch. 

When to use the qualify leads bot: 

• If you have a sales team that is struggling to keep up with new leads 
• If you receive a high number of unqualified leads 

By automatically qualifying and segmenting leads, employees will be able to focus on converting the most valuable leads rather than asking basic questions to a high volume of unqualified prospects. 

Need more help qualifying your leads? Download our free lead scoring template. 

3. Meetings bot 

You may not realize it, but booking meetings can be a huge time sink. It starts with a simple message, but soon you’re going back and forth with multiple dates and times, consulting your calendar, and rearranging your priorities list. 

The meetings bot takes out every bit of hassle from this process! Link the chatflow to your calendar and let the bot take care of the rest: users will receive a link that they can use to book an available time that’s most convenient for them. 

When to use the meetings bot: 

• If you work with complex businesses that can’t share their information through written chat 
• If your customers are “old-school” and want to go straight to a face-to-face interaction

4. Tickets bot 

The tickets bot is another simple but effective chatflow that saves time and vastly increases efficiency. This bot will connect with users who are having trouble, collect information on their problem, and then create a support ticket that your team can use to follow up and track the issue. 

When to use the tickets bot: 

• If you regularly use support tickets, particularly for SaaS companies 

When automation takes care of the initial information gathering, your team will have more freedom to quickly tackle any issue that arises and create an exceptional customer experience. 

5. Knowledge base and support bot 

Companies can build entire knowledge bases within HubSpot that teach internal and external users how to complete a certain task or provide insight on a given topic. 

If you’ve built such a knowledge base and are on a Service Professional or Enterprise plan, you can use the knowledge base and support bot to guide users to the correct resource. The chatflow will collect information about their issue and then share articles that are most likely to help. Users will also have the option to switch to a live chat or submit a support ticket if they need more assistance. 

When to use the knowledge base and support bot: 

• If you have a complex offer that needs to be explained 
• If your customer service team spends most of their time answering the same questions 

Implement this chatflow to take basic inquiries off their plate so they can focus on complex issues that need a human touch. 

6. Offline bot

Your sales and support reps can’t be available 24/7. But new leads or loyal customers needing assistance could be visiting your website at any time, day or night. The offline bot ensures that you never miss out on a potential conversation, even when nobody is online. 

Assuming a team member is online and available, this chatflow will help users start a live chat right away. If no one is free to take the conversation, the bot will collect the user’s email so a team member can follow up as soon as they’re back online. 

When to use the offline bot: 

• If your team is always busy 
• If your offering is complex and best handled by a human 
• If you have highly demanding customers 

The offline bot will make every customer experience a positive one without overworking your team! 

7. Custom bot 

Practically everything you do inside HubSpot can be tweaked and customized to meet your unique business needs. Chatflows are no exception! 

With the custom bot, you can design your own chatflow that makes sense for your customers. Start from scratch and add in your own questions, messages, and actions that will bring the conversation in any direction you need.

When to use the custom bot: 

• If you have a chatflow need that isn’t met by any of the other types 

Quick tips for chatflow success 

Ready to start building your chatflow? Use these strategies to make them even more powerful: 

1. Map out your strategy. You may wish to use multiple bots depending on your business needs. Before building anything in HubSpot, map out your chatflow strategy from end to end. How do you want users to enter the flow and what should happen when it’s completed?

2. Take action. Use the information the bot collects to create a new contact, assign a property value such as company, or add an individual to a static list. 

3. Personalize the flow. If you have a Professional or Enterprise account, you can use if/then branches to ask different questions or send people to a different resource depending on previous responses.

4. Determine timing and placement. A chatflow isn’t always the right answer for your users. You have the option to remove the bot from certain areas of your site or customize the message for a particular page. You can also choose if it’s always visible or only available in certain situations, such as after a certain amount of time or when the user shows exit intent. 

5. Customize your bot. You can determine the appearance of any chatflow, including how it appears on your site and its branding. You can also set its availability: should users be able to chat in 24/7, or only during business hours? It’s up to you! 

6. Consider data privacy regulations. Before you reach out to a bot-qualified lead or add them to a list, make sure that you’re following the regulations for your area. There may be restrictions on what you can do with their information. 

7. Test, test, test! You get to choose the bot’s welcome message, questions, and overall flow. Consider making small changes to each of these over time to see what resonates most with your customers and generates the best results. 

8. Visit the knowledge base. Looking for a quick answer to a technical chatflow question? Dive into HubSpot’s knowledge base on the topic. 

Start your conversation today!

Whether you want to qualify more leads, provide better customer service, or simply save time and effort on straightforward conversations, HubSpot chatflows are the answer. They’re an incredible way to have more conversations without requiring more resources! 

Have a question about chatflows or need help with set-up or troubleshooting? Get in touch! Our team of HubSpot experts can walk you through the process and get you started on the path to chatflow success.