Dialogflow Expert Reviews, Pricing, Alternatives - SSR 2023

Used by some of the biggest global brands, Dialogflow is an end-to-end Google development suite grounded in NLP (natural language processing). It can be used to create conversational flows across various messaging platforms, mobile applications, websites, and IoT devices.

Dialogflow is a conversational AI platform powered by Google's AI and NLP capabilities. It is available in two editions: Dialogflow ES (Essentials) and Dialogflow CX. While the Essentials edition is best suited for small to medium and simple use cases, the CX version is ideal for advanced agents with innovative capabilities that can be used for complex use. One major benefit of using the CX edition is the visual flow builder that provides interactive flow visualizations so developers can better see and understand what they're building. However, if you're a beginner to chatbots, building one with the CX edition requires considerable time and effort and can be tricky.

One of the major benefits of using Dialogflow is its advanced AI. The platform uses the latest BERT-based Natural Language Understanding (NLU) model, which allows it to recognize keywords, intent, content, and context accurately, even in complex use cases. Another noteworthy feature of Dialogflow is that you can build and manage a chatbot across a range of platforms, web applications, mobile applications, and websites. This means providing an omnichannel experience to the user. 

Dialogflow provides end-to-end management, including CI/CD, flow-based models, and analytics, so you have all the tools you need in one place. However, while some other chatbot solutions allow you to see a complete overview of the users that talked with your chatbot, it isn't possible to do that with Dialogflow unless you create a custom integration to build a database. 

Dialogflow has 45 pre-built virtual agents you can customize and import into your account while setting up a chatbot. You can also set up a webhook to get the agent to respond to queries and understand the kinds of training phrases that can be used.

Dialogflow also provides a reporting dashboard that you can use to view analytics like the number of interactions and number of sessions. While the ES edition provides basic analytics, the CX version provides advanced analytics like engagement, different conversation paths used, and a training feature that shows which messages your chatbot failed to understand.

Dialogflow is not for businesses that want a simple, no-code chatbot platform that they can integrate with their website and other platforms. This is because building a fully-functional chatbot with Dialogflow involves quite a bit of cloud and app development. So, unless you have a development team that can help you out, you're likely to struggle with setting it up.

Deutsche Bank, Twitter, Malaysian Airlines, Etsy, PayPal, P&G, Equifax, and Gojek

• Conversational IVR(interactive voice response): Apart from NLP, Dialogflow also provides voice-driven customer service using NLU (natural language understanding) that understands the content and context of spoken requests. 
• Virtual agent services: Dialogflow has two virtual agent services with their own user interface, client libraries, and API. CX agent is ideal for businesses that need complex agents, while ES is excellent for those with a demand for simple agents.
• Pre-built agents: Dialogflow has a menu of pre-built agents that can be imported into your account and customized. You can then set up a webhook to get the agent responding.
• Agent assist: This feature guides human agents by providing suggestions in real-time. This way, the transition between virtual and human conversations is flawless. 
• Google AI: Dialogflow piggybacks on Google's artificial intelligence development. The chatbot has more advanced capabilities to learn from past conversations.

Dialogflow also offers:

• End-to-end management
• Omnichannel integration
• Analytics
• Multilingual support
• Testing 
• Speaker ID for biometrics

Dialogflow offers built-in integrations with a range of chat platforms like Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Twilio, Cortana, Cisco Spark, Line, Slack, Telegram, Skype, and Amazon Alexa. Once you build your bot on Dialogflow, it can be integrated with other platforms using the Dialogflow API.

Dialogflow's pricing depends on the edition and the number of requests made during the month. The tool offers two editions. They are: 

1. Dialogflow ES (Essentials): This edition is ideal for standard agents small to medium and simple to moderately complex use. It is priced at $0.002 per text request, $0.0065 per 15 seconds of audio input, and $4 per 1 million characters of audio output. The essentials edition also has a free trial option that offers 180 text requests per minute. 
2. Dialogflow CX: This edition is for advanced agents with functionalities for large or complex use. This plan is priced at $20 per 100 chat sessions and $45 per 100 voice sessions. 

All new customers receive a $600 credit for a $0 trial of Dialogflow CX, activated upon using Dialogflow CX for the first time.

While Dialogflow can be used by small, mid-sized, and large enterprises, it is best suited for companies that want to explore NLP and set up complex chatbot flows. Since it is primarily a coding platform, it is ideal for businesses with a development team that can help them build a sophisticated chatbot, create conversational flows, and program a solution to store user information.

Customers must first sign up for a Google Cloud account. Within the platform, create a project (which can only use one Dialogflow agent) to begin building your chatbot. The process requires some technical knowledge, so make sure you have your dev team to help.

Dialogflow offers troubleshooting resources, FAQs, how-to guides, and training resources for self-service. Users can open support cases via the Google Cloud support console or reach out to the customer support team via email. Based on your subscription, you are either eligible for phone support, 24/7 support, or access to a technical support manager. In addition, community support is available through Google Groups, Stack Overflow, and Slack. Users can also send feedback for documentation issues through their respective documentation pages.

Dialogflow provides users new ways to interact with businesses by building a conversational interface powered by AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

In 2016, Google bought API.AI — a company that provided tools to developers who were building apps for the Google Assistant. Shortly thereafter, the organization discontinued the Assistant app and renamed it Dialogflow. In 2017, Dialogflow became a part of the Google Cloud Platform.