Drift
About Drift
Drift is a cloud-based live chat, in-app messaging, and email management solution designed for sales and marketing teams. Drift offers customizable live chat widgets, email follow-ups for abandoned chats, conversation histories, email campaign automation, and an AI-powered chatbot.
When a visitor starts a conversation, Drift displays which page the visitor is on, and if the visitor enters their email address, then their name, location, social profile links, company and job information are made available to users through the side profile drawer. Conversations can be transferred between agents, with users automatically notified when a chat is assigned to them, and typing indicators display when an agent or visitor is responding to the conversation. Users can add custom tags to chats, and filter conversations based on their status. Saved replies can be created for responding to common queries, and users can set away messages to be displayed outside of working hours.
Drift’s in-app messaging allows users to target their customers with full-page takeovers and slider messages. Groups can be targeted by URL, scroll percentage, or using defined segments. Unread in-app messages can also be sent by email after a user-defined time period. Net Promoter Score (NPS) can be measured through surveys sent by email or in-app message. Users can create automated email campaigns with a range of triggers, for customer onboarding, churn prevention, and more.
Key benefits of Drift
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Reviews
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- Industry: Religious Institutions
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
My leads increased
Reviewed on 28/07/2019
Overall, drift has ben able to get way for leads and conversions. This does create a huge impact in...
Overall, drift has ben able to get way for leads and conversions. This does create a huge impact in growing our organization alot more.
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.
- Industry: Religious Institutions
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10
Drift is a high quality chat platform with a significant load time
Reviewed on 02/03/2021
Drift has a lot of great features, and although it can be confusing at first, it is well worth the...
Drift has a lot of great features, and although it can be confusing at first, it is well worth the effort. My only complaint (and the only reason I wouldn't use it at this time) would be the significant increase in load time on my websites, which caused me to look elsewhere for a better solution.
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.
Response from Drift
Darien,
Thanks very much for taking the time to share your experience with us. This feedback is really important to ensuring we can improve for our customers. I'd love the opportunity to introduce you to our produce team if you'd be open to chatting more. Feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].
All the best,
Julie Hogan, VP - Customer Experience
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 0.0 /10
Not a good way to do business
Reviewed on 18/11/2019
Just an awful approach to customer service and the worse experience with a vendor after 15 years in...
Just an awful approach to customer service and the worse experience with a vendor after 15 years in IT. We have lost a couple of months because of them, and we are now going with another solution, which is 7x cheaper plus delivers most of the features, if not the fanciest ones.
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.
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
Great way to add essential chat functionality to your website
Reviewed on 11/12/2017
Great way to provide value to visitors and be able to clearly communicate.
Great way to provide value to visitors and be able to clearly communicate.
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.
- Industry: Sporting Goods
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
A modern way to connect with your customers
Reviewed on 30/09/2018
I still use Drift and will do further.
I still use Drift and will do further.
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.
Drift FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Drift.Q. What type of pricing plans does Drift offer?
Drift offers the following pricing plans:
- Pricing model: Free Version, Subscription
- Free Trial: Available
Visit drift.com/pricing for more detail and to chat with us.
Q. Who are the typical users of Drift?
Drift has the following typical customers:
51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000
Q. What languages does Drift support?
Drift supports the following languages:
Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Q. Does Drift support mobile devices?
Drift supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Drift integrate with?
Drift integrates with the following applications:
Demandbase One, Drip, Front, Google Analytics 360, Google Calendar, Help Scout, Helpjuice, HipChat, HubSpot CRM, Mailchimp, Marketo Engage, Mautic, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Outlook, Poptin, Privy, Productboard, SMS Reviews, SalesLoft, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Segment, SendGrid, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, WordPress, Zapier, Zendesk Suite
Q. What level of support does Drift offer?
Drift offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, 24/7 (Live rep), Chat
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