What is Manychat?

Manychat is one of the world’s most popular chatbot platforms! Simple to use and with no need to code (no code), it makes it easy to design conversational chatbots for Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS, email and website. Creating chatbots to automate customer relations and boost the effectiveness of marketing campaigns has almost never been so accessible!

But what exactly is Manychat? How does the platform work, what are its prices and what do users have to say about it (Manychat avis)? Can we really enjoy Manychat in French when the interface isn’t translated? And above all, what alternatives exist on the French-speaking market?

In this article, you’ll learn all about this chatbot platform: how it’s defined and how it works; how it’s used, its rates and its limitations; user reviews, but also the alternatives available to Manychat in French!

What’s Manychat?

Manychat is a chatbot creation and marketing automation platform that can be used on Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram and websites. Manychat lets you create a chatbot that will automatically converse with your website’s users, i.e. customers.

Manychat is not an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, however, and works mainly with predefined scenarios.

For example: if the user clicks on a “Schedules” button, the chatbot displays the saved schedules. It’s simple, but limited.

It can, however, be enhanced with AI, notably with ChatGPT (detailed below).

What’s the point of Manychat?

With Manychat, you can deploy a chatbot on different channels, which will :

• Automate responses to frequently asked questions (schedules, rates, availability) by private message and comment;
• Program message sequences to welcome, follow-up or build loyalty;
• Connect the chatbot to marketing tools (CRM, e-mailling, e-commerce);
• Manage multiple channels from a single interface: social networks, online messaging (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, for example), SMS, email ;
• Manage the transfer of the chatbot to a human agent.

The open rate of messages sent via a chatbot from Manychat averages around 80%, while email marketing hovers around 20%, according to industry studies.

In fact, this is where the appeal of such an automation tool lies: the chatbot is deployed on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, which attracts the user’s attention much more than an e-mail, with a generally quick read in the first few minutes after receipt. In SMS marketing, Manychat’s open rates are close to 90%.

How do I use Manychat?

Manychat is a no-code tool: users don’t need any programming skills to create conversational chatbots!

It’s all done via an intuitive interface, making it quick and efficient to get started. Simply drag and drop elements from predefined templates.

Each step in the chatbot ‘s interaction therefore needs no code. Manychat does not (yet) offer a true AI assistant that can automatically generate conversational scenarios. There are also ready-to-use templates, predefined models for different purposes: marketing, customer service, lead generation, FAQs.

Automating the chatbot is simple: just set up intelligent rules (called triggers) that will automatically send scheduled messages, reminders or personalized sequences.

Contacts are managed via tags and personalized fields, so that messages can be targeted without the need to manipulate complex databases. This type of chatbot platform can be integrated with CRM, e-commerce or emailing tools, always using no-code connectors.

Does Manychat use AI?

Manychat uses AI in a targeted and integrated way, but as a complement to its automation functions. Its advanced AI tools are accessible via a paid pro add-on, not included in the basic version, such as :

• AI Flow Builder Assistant: to automatically generate optimized conversational scenarios in seconds, according to the user’s goal;
• AI Text Improver: to improve the writing of messages sent by the chatbot, without human intervention;
• AI Step for integrates AI directly into the automation steps to offer context-sensitive responses, with advanced personalization;
• AI Intention Recognition to understand user intentions beyond simple keywords, thanks to natural language processing (NLP). As a reminder, NLP enables smoother, more natural interactions.

AI in Manychat therefore remains a complementary add-on, non-compulsory and less comprehensive than solutions based entirely on conversational AI.

It’s possible to combine Manychat and ChatGPT

However, it is perfectly possible to connect Manychat to ChatGPT. The integration allows you to use the power of ChatGPT‘s conversational artificial intelligence. However, you’ll need both a subscription to Manychat, with AI as an option, and a subscription to ChatGPT, which will enable you to use the OpenAI API.

Other chatbot creation platforms use more advanced AI to create and deploy their chatbots. Botnation, for example, integrates GPT conversational AI and language processing (NLP). It can handle more complex conversations, with a focus on customer experience and multi-channel relationships.

To know whether you need advanced AI on your chatbot, you need to gauge the context. Manychat excels for simple-to-medium multichannel marketing automation, while Botnation is preferred for automated customer service with more sophisticated conversational intelligence and a native French-speaking experience.

How much does Manychat cost?

The free version of Manychat automates up to 1,000 contacts on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. Growth tools are limited, with up to 10 tags to segment customers. However, the creation of chatbot scenarios is unlimited! You don’t need a credit card to sign up for Manychat.

The paid version of Manychat starts at $15 per month for unlimited automation, multi-channel distribution, advanced campaigns, statistics and premium support (i.e. around 13 euros per month). The paid version is scalable according to the number of contacts:

• 15 for up to 500 contacts;
• 45 for 5000 contacts ;
• 95 for 15,000 contacts ;
• etc.

Manychat’s advanced AI features are not included in the basic subscription. They are offered as a paid option, generally billed at around €29 per month, in addition to the Pro plan.

Manychat: reviews

Manychat reviews present the chatbot platform as a high-performance, reliable solution for automating customer relations and marketing campaigns. It integrates naturally with Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS and email, with powerful automation capabilities, targeted distribution, contact segmentation and marketing sequence management. Templates and templates are a plus, making it easy to create chatbots quickly, although you’ll need to tweak them a bit to make sure they don’t look like any other.

However, negative reviews of Manychat point to the price, which can quickly escalate as the number of contacts increases, as advanced features are often reserved for paid packages. The lack of directly-integrated advanced AI may limit its effectiveness in chatbot conversations. Manychat’s customer service has been described as limited: unavailable and ineffective for complex technical questions. Moreover, customer support is not French-speaking!

How to use Manychat?

Manychat is not yet available in French! The platform is only available in English, Portuguese and Spanish. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it for French speakers. You can use Manychat in French with these tips:

• The Google Translate extension, for example, can translate the interface when you use it, although the menus remain in English;
• Conversations, scenarios and messages from the Manychat chatbot can be created and broadcast in French: the user experience is therefore in French;

Manychat can therefore be used for a French-speaking audience, but the settings and administration are mainly in English.

What are the alternatives to Manychat in French?

Manychat is very popular, but it’s not yet in French and doesn’t have a local, French-speaking team! There are several chatbot platform alternatives to Manychat:

• Botnation, a French reference for “no code” simplicity, available and responsive local support, chatbot compatibility with WordPress, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, while integrating AI and numerous connectors ;
• Chatfuel is flexible and is particularly well suited to small and medium-sized businesses that wish to keep their administration simple and efficient. It is therefore less recommended for customer relations, which require advanced AI or a detailed understanding of user requests;
• SendPulse is ideal for social networking, as it features solid automation, a French-language interface and connectors to the main marketing tools.

How does a chatbot work?

A chatbot’s operation is based on several key components, which we’ll briefly describe here.

At the core is the natural language processing (NLP) engine, which understands the meaning of messages, identifies the intention (e.g. to ask about the weather) and extracts the relevant entities (date, place, etc.).

Then there’s the intention management system, which associates each detected intention with a predefined action or scenario. To respond, the chatbot relies on its knowledge base: a FAQ, an internal database or external APIs to provide real-time data.

The response generator then formulates a static (pre-written) or dynamic (produced by an AI model) response, while context management helps maintain a coherent conversation by remembering previous exchanges. Finally, thanks to automatic learning mechanisms, the chatbot gradually improves its performance and becomes more relevant as interactions progress.