Podium Software

Decent

Pros

Customers can leave reviews to multiple sites through one portal

Cons

Dashboard is not user friendly. Hard to read reviews of individual users. No filter

Loving Podium for the reviews!

We love Podium and find a ton of value in using it to drive positive reviews.

Pros

How it has helped us drive tons of positive reviews to our online profiles while also capturing negative feedback so we can act on it quickly and make things right. It integrates with Service Titan which is also wonderful.

Cons

Reporting is spread across their site in a confusing manner until you get used to it.

Limited Analytics

Pros

It has great preset templates for you to go off of that are both aesthetic and simple. They have a high response rate on the text messages they send and ultimately do show results in higher reviews on social media.

Cons

The analytics side is very primitive. The sentiment analysis that they herald is nowhere near as definitive as they sold me on. I'm not sure their NLP algorithm is that good because as I went through many of our reviews, I did not see it aligned with the sentiment analysis they gave us.

Podium was the first, but you pay for the name!

Good

Pros

Podium changed the way I manage my reputation online before I was really even thinking about it

Cons

It is expensive. Newer, comparable competitors have entered the space for lower price points

It works great!

I am at a new company and I suggest they use it too.

Pros

People don't always have a gmail account. It made them jump through hoops to do a review elsewhere. People became cautious and leave the site.

Cons

Nothing. I really did like using it. It was a great reminder to customers to do a review. It required almost immediate follow though.

Instant Messaging made easy

Overall it has been great. The set-up was fairly fast and painless. The rep that explained to us what the program was did a great job.

Pros

We signed up for Podium and it made messaging our patients super fast and easy. Any patients that have information that needs to be updated they can simply text us the information or a picture. Once we hit send, the patient receives it on the phone.

Cons

At first the web log-in from a computer was limited to not sending images. Now you can send and receive images.

Hook in Mouth Sales Force

Do not trust Podium, as a review company they have horrible reviews....isn't that ironic? The good reviews are employees. The real customers are speaking out, they hold you by force. It is ridiculous!

Pros

The idea of it... Other than that there is nothing good about this company. They want you to sign, they fill you with false statistics, they show no demo, then they dump you like a bad habit

Cons

Everything. They thrive on one goal! To get the hook in your mouth and get that one year contract. Once that happens good luck. No demo, no service, no concern. This company is dismal. Be warned

Lied about deal

Pros

Did not use the service because I was lied to by the sales rep. Very disappointing to see a rep professing religious connections treat us this way.

Cons

During the sales process I explained to the executive I would feel more comfortable with a 6-month contract instead of the 12-month contract he was asking for; I would've liked no contract but was trying to be fair. After getting permission from his boss, I was assured by him; he had "never seen his manager do this," so I thanked him and signed up.

Two days ago I met with a company that uses us and Podium for business; our mutual customer explained he had signed up for a 3-month deal with the same executive a just prior to me signing up. He had been disenchanted with the actual use of the service compared to what he was pitched. The service does not match the pitch. He plans to cancel as soon as his contract is over.

I then emailed the account support rep I was assigned - who took over a week to contact me, after signing the contract and billing my credit card, and instructed her to cancel my contract. I was then asked why I was canceling my contract without using it. When I explained she said she'd talk to the executive and his superiors. A day later there's no rush to get to me or confirm cancellation, but there sure was rush for me to sign up and pay! Caveat emptor.

Oh and the customer I spoke with is still waiting on his promised golf balls from the executive...

Very Useful

Been using Podium for almost a year now at my company. Makes it easy to hit review quotas.

Pros

Very simple to sent review requests to customers

Cons

Notifications can be slightly confusing.

Podium helped me to increase the review rate of my product and improve web chat

Ease of use web chat and more product and business reviews

Pros

The additional reviews that my business received have helped us to reach a greater audience and had a great effect on our sales. The web chat functionality is excellent and allows us to stay connected.

Cons

I have had occasional issues reaching customer service but nothing that would prevent me from using the software.

Great Tool for Local Businesses

Pros

Tried out Podium for our restaurant and really enjoyed the experience. Lots of features for the money, allowed us to stay very organized with media.

Cons

It's a great platform but we found it to be a little too expensive for our venue but still think its a very useful platform.

Don't fall for fake reviews

Pros

The idea is all there is. They are already looking for the next one to sign a one year contract once your is signed

Cons

Everything particularly the customer service. They could care less about any concerns. All the reviews are fake. As a user I warn you stay away from these guys. Do your own leg work to seek reviews the platform is bogus.

Gives options to customers for places to write a review

Pros

We used Podium through another company that we signed up with. We were able to easily text with customers and as for a review through this system. Our company is strong with customer reviews so it was an easier way to ask for one and the customer could access whichever review site they felt most comfortable with right from their phone.

Cons

Some customers complain about leaving a Google review because they don't remember their Google login. This company helps with those customers because it gives them links to other review sites if they don't want to leave a Google review. Nothing in particular that I do not like about this product.

Seriously such a cool and on-spot way to handle chat

Pros

I love the fact that they are bringing something that is done at almost all points of our day into this industry. I am constantly on my phone, so this is the simplest, least effort way for me to respond to someone.

Cons

I don't really have any complaints. I would just recommend always focusing on keeping it as simple and intuitive as possible!

Quick and easy to use software that gets results.

We were looking to improve online ratings from Google for Business and Facebook. Results were immediate.

Pros

Simple interface and app. Very user friendly for the end user. Very cost effective. Has improved the ratings we were looking to improve.

Cons

Haven't found anything I don't like yet. The only area of support we've needed was to have a user's email removed from another organisation that he worked at previously to ours.

PODIUM

nothing

Pros

Very user friendly. Gives user the ability to write reviews and customer has option to viewing the review.

Cons

I'd like to see Podium add a service where they respond to positive reviews on behalf of the dealership and provide suggested responses to bad reviews which the dealer could accept, reject, or edit and post.

Podium is a company that can help drive positive change in your business, and the way your business works with its customer base.

Pros

They were instrumental in helping us improve our brand trust, and increase our visibility on top review websites. There are a lot of simple ways to improve company and product image, most of which Podium will help you to take advantage of.

Cons

Maybe an easier way to implement some of the strategies, they get the work done, but it can still take a lot of hours. Also better integration with social media would be an extra plus.

Amazing product, but is pricy

Pros

Does a great job getting reviews and obtaining great information to build online reviews and reputation.

Cons

The cost is very high. You get what you pay for, and podium does a LOT! Love the program just is costly.

A user-to-customer messaging platform for reviews that's hooked in with Google

None

Pros

Direct Google integration is definitely the biggest pro here. They also are focused on having staff message customers directly for reviews one-on-one. It won't work for everyone, just depends on the business model.

Cons

Very limited functionality and visibility into your account. Right now, it's basically just a review solicitation platform via messaging and email. It's efficient at getting star ratings and reviews, but that's about it. If you're looking for surveys, look elsewhere. Also, when I was a customer, they didn't even have NPS Score. That's pretty basic. Reporting is very limited and it's hard to get an overview of your total account, only individual locations. Customization is little to none for both the dashboard and the actual campaigns. Oh, and it's crazy expensive. You're basically paying for the direct Google integration. Which is super nice and important, but still. I also had a very negative experience that was unique to me. I had very specific contract conditions that were not met and it was a very difficult and painful process to get rectified. I felt very misled by the company and lost any trust I had in them. It was very disappointing.

Tracking Reviews Can Be Easy

Being able to easily track and report the teams stats on sending/collecting reviews. Easy platform for our team and our customers.

Pros

What I like most about Podium is the ability to add each representative so that they can send out invites to the customers they speak to. I like this feature because as a Marketing Specialist, I'm not on the phone with customers - they are. They can easily plug in their phone number or email address and the customer will receive the invite! They simply click the link and leave us a review. It makes it easy for not just the team, but the customers as well. That is very important to us.

Cons

The inability to get access ALL analytical results on the dashboard. You get some of the info, but in order to look at everything, I have to generate different reports from the platform and look at it in a spreadsheet. This is probably the most annoying and inconvenient part of using this platform. It has the ability to filter and look at stats for some things and other things, its not there.