5 Must-Have Onboarding Chatbots for Breweries

Intercom is a widely adopted customer messaging platform that offers a conversational AI chatbot as part of its suite. The platform is designed for businesses that need a single tool to handle marketing, sales, and support conversations across web, mobile, and email. Intercom’s chatbot can be set up in minutes, using its drag‑and‑drop flow builder to create guided conversations, qualify leads, and collect contact information. For breweries, Intercom can help capture inquiries about tour bookings, event tickets, or new beer launches, and route qualified leads to the sales or reservations team. Key strengths include integration with major e‑commerce platforms such as Shopify, the ability to send targeted messages based on user behavior, and powerful automation features like product recommendation widgets. Intercom also offers a robust set of reporting tools, allowing managers to track conversation volume, response times, and conversion metrics. However, the platform is primarily focused on inbound messaging; it does not natively support outbound email marketing or advanced AI-driven knowledge retrieval. Pricing starts at $39/month for the Basic plan, which includes chat and basic automation. The Pro plan, suitable for growing breweries, costs $99/month and adds advanced automation, custom bots, and more detailed analytics. The Advanced plan at $199/month unlocks additional integrations and higher usage limits.

Drift positions itself as a conversational marketing platform that focuses on turning website visitors into qualified leads through real‑time chat. The platform’s AI bot can be set up to answer frequently asked questions, book demo calls, or collect contact details. Drift’s strength lies in its ability to route conversations to the appropriate sales team member and trigger follow‑up emails based on user intent. For breweries, Drift can automate the booking process for brewery tours, answer questions about beer styles, and provide instant access to e‑commerce catalogs. Drift offers advanced features such as intent recognition, proactive chat invitations triggered by user behavior, and integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, and Shopify. The platform also provides a library of pre‑built chatbot templates that can be customized. However, Drift’s focus is heavily on sales and marketing; it lacks a dedicated knowledge‑base module for fact‑based queries and does not provide a no‑code visual editor for the chat widget’s appearance. Drift’s pricing starts at $499/month for the Starter plan, which includes basic chatbot functionality and integrations. The Growth plan at $999/month adds advanced intent recognition and analytics, while the Enterprise plan can be customized for larger breweries with higher usage.

ManyChat is a popular chatbot builder that emphasizes simplicity and social media integration, particularly with Facebook Messenger and Instagram. The platform provides a visual drag‑and‑drop editor, pre‑built templates, and automation flows that can be used to engage visitors, promote new beer releases, and run promotional campaigns. ManyChat’s strengths include its ease of use for non‑technical users, robust broadcast messaging, and integration with email marketing services like Mailchimp. For breweries, ManyChat can automate the collection of email addresses for mailing lists, schedule tour bookings via custom forms, and send out promotional messages about limited‑edition brews. The platform also supports e‑commerce integration with Shopify, allowing the bot to display product catalogs and process orders directly within the chat. Pricing is tiered: a free plan is available with limited features, while the Pro plan costs $10/month (billed annually) and the Growth plan is $25/month (billed annually). The Pro plan includes unlimited broadcasts, e‑commerce, and integrations, whereas the Growth plan adds advanced automation and analytics.

Tidio combines live chat and chatbot automation in a single platform, offering a lightweight solution for small to medium businesses. The chatbot builder uses a visual interface and pre‑built templates, enabling breweries to quickly set up conversational flows for booking tours, answering FAQ about beer styles, and promoting special events. Tidio also offers live chat support that can be staffed by human agents when needed, making it a hybrid solution. Key features include integration with Shopify for real‑time product data, email marketing tools, and the ability to embed the chat widget on any website with a simple JavaScript snippet. Tidio’s pricing includes a free tier with basic chatbot functionality, a Pro plan at $18/month, and a Premium plan at $29/month, which unlocks advanced automation and priority support. While Tidio provides a clean interface and decent integration options, it lacks a sophisticated knowledge‑base system and does not offer long‑term memory for users. The chat widget’s design customization is limited compared to dedicated no‑code editors.