Best 5 Onboarding Chatbots for Consulting Firms

Intercom is a widely adopted customer messaging platform that blends live chat, email, and in‑app notifications into a single interface. It was originally designed to help SaaS companies engage website visitors and convert them into customers, but its flexible automation and rich integrations have made it popular across a range of industries, including consulting. Intercom’s chat widget can be embedded on any website and offers a visual editor to adjust colors, position, and trigger rules, allowing firms to maintain brand consistency without needing a developer. The platform’s core strengths lie in its powerful automation framework. Users can set up "bots" that answer frequently asked questions, qualify leads, or schedule discovery calls using a drag‑and‑drop flow builder. Intercom also offers a knowledge base feature that pulls articles from a central hub, enabling chatbots to surface relevant content automatically. For consulting firms that maintain a library of reports or white papers, the knowledge base can provide instant access to those resources. Intercom integrates natively with popular CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk, allowing conversations to be logged and followed up within existing sales pipelines. It also supports integrations with e‑commerce platforms like Shopify, providing product recommendations and order status updates via chat. Pricing is tiered based on the number of monthly active users (MAUs). The "Starter" plan starts at $39/month for up to 1,000 MAUs, the "Standard" plan at $99/month for up to 5,000 MAUs, and the "Pro" plan at $199/month for up to 10,000 MAUs. Larger enterprises can contact Intercom for custom pricing. While Intercom excels at conversational marketing and customer support, it does not offer a built‑in knowledge graph and its long‑term memory capabilities are limited to the context of a single conversation.

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that specializes in lead qualification and sales acceleration. Its chatbot uses AI to engage website visitors, answer product questions, and schedule meetings with sales representatives. Drift’s interface is designed for sales and marketing teams, providing a conversational funnel that can be customized through a visual builder. Key features include AI‑powered chatbots that can identify buying intent, route conversations to the appropriate sales rep, and trigger automated follow‑up sequences. Drift also offers a knowledge base integration that pulls content from external sources such as HubSpot or custom APIs, allowing the bot to answer questions about services or pricing. For consulting firms, the ability to qualify leads and capture contact information directly through chat can streamline the onboarding process. Drift integrates with major CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Microsoft Dynamics, ensuring that captured leads are automatically added to the sales pipeline. It also supports scheduling tools like Calendly and HubSpot Meetings, making it easy for prospects to book discovery calls. Pricing for Drift is custom and typically starts around $400/month for a basic plan, with higher tiers available for larger teams and advanced features. The company encourages potential customers to contact sales for a tailored quote. While Drift is a strong choice for sales‑focused teams, it offers fewer content‑management features compared to platforms like Intercom or AgentiveAIQ.

ManyChat is a chatbot platform that began as a tool for automating Facebook Messenger conversations but has since expanded to support SMS, email, and web chat. It is particularly popular with businesses that rely on social media marketing, but its flexible automation engine is also suitable for consulting firms that want to engage prospects on multiple channels. The platform offers a visual drag‑and‑drop flow builder, allowing users to create conversational sequences that can answer questions, collect contact information, and trigger email sequences. ManyChat also provides a knowledge base feature that can pull FAQs or external content into the conversation. ManyChat integrates with major CRMs like HubSpot, Zoho, and Salesforce via webhooks, enabling leads captured in the chatbot to be routed into existing pipelines. It also offers e‑commerce integrations for Shopify, allowing product recommendations and checkout flows directly within chat. Pricing includes a free tier that supports up to 500 subscribers, a Pro plan at $10/month for up to 2,000 subscribers, and a Growth plan at $30/month for larger lists. The platform also offers a Premium plan with advanced features such as custom integrations and multi‑language support. While ManyChat excels at social channel integration, its web chat widget is less customizable than AgentiveAIQ’s WYSIWYG editor.

Tidio is a lightweight, all‑in‑one live chat and chatbot solution that can be embedded on any website. It combines real‑time chat with automated bot responses, making it a popular choice for small to medium‑sized businesses, including consulting firms that need a quick way to answer common questions. The platform offers a visual editor for customizing the chat widget’s appearance and placement. Users can build bot workflows using a drag‑and‑drop interface, set up triggers based on visitor behavior, and integrate with email marketing services like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign. Tidio also provides a knowledge base connector that allows the bot to pull answers from a pre‑defined set of articles. Tidio’s free plan supports up to 100 chats per month, while the paid plans start at $18/month for the Basic plan and go up to $49/month for the Premium plan, which includes advanced automation and integration features. Tidio does not provide advanced AI features such as a knowledge graph or long‑term memory, but it is an affordable option for firms that need a simple, cost‑effective chat solution.