Get it and rethink any department you think could use it

We absolutely love the podium product. We receive great reviews, and are able to get in touch with clients that simply stop communicating any other way - especially our past due clients.

Pros

It makes collections, review solicitations, and even internal communications much easier than any alternative I've found.

Cons

Some members of the sales team are more intense than they need to be and follow up beyond the intrusive level.

Podium: The Best Out There

Podium is a fantastic product and theyre doing it right. They make everything easy and make sure you understand all you can do with their software.

Pros

Podium is the best review software Ive come across. They make it so easy to request, monitor and respond to reviews. We have it set up for review requests for texts and for Facebook reviews to come through. It helps keep reviews in one place and track. They also have the greatest customer service and are incredibly helpful.

Cons

Something I would like the least is the amount of time it has taken for us to set up a new branch. Its been a week or two yet were having minor issues. It would be a major issue if our reps werent nice but they make it easy and we know theyre doing everything they can.

Good product, poor execution

I liked the concept of the product, and it did gain us a good number of reviews. But it was not worth keeping long-term without product enhancements and better customer support.

Pros

I like the automated features in this software, though it was slightly oversold. But it does automatically contact customers via text after their service/purchase to ask them to leave us a review. We could choose which site(s) to direct them to.

Cons

Customer service was not as good as it could've been. High turnover of employees, lack of communication, and then the refusal to upgrade or help out with different tasks such as splitting up customer feeds so we could direct service customers to a different review platform than the one we had set up.

Excellent chat software with review integration

Podium allows us to connect with shoppers as they are browsing the site to answer questions immediately and secure more deals.

Pros

The review integration with facebook and google is excellent. We are able to send review invitations via text and respond to them within the app. We can also assign them to the various salespeople who actually worked the deal so they can respond accordingly. We also have podium on our homepage to engage with browsing customers and answer any questions they may have.

Cons

It doesn't integrate with some of our third party advertising sources like other options do. Sometimes there are glitches with the software and messages do not send properly.

Great until you want to cancel it!

The experience was good but so far overshadowed by their lack of letting us cancel with proper notice that the entire experience is lost. Like an amazing meal with a crap server. All you remember was the final service and it is horrible.

Pros

Mostly worked well and had pretty good interface with website for chat as well

Cons

Tried to cancel this and was not allowed. Went through all kinds of hoops including a mandatory "screen share" by our account rep trying to keep us which made it worse. You CANNOT call or write in and cancel ever! They have their methods and basically won't let you out of a contract. We canceled ours finally after the screen share, the hard close from two different people to keep paying and then still got billed since they had our credit card. I would never recommend such a company. I have NEVER heard of someone NOT taking written notice well in advance to close a monthly contract. We did finally get it resolved to only pay an additional 9 days past when we asked for it to be closed, but its 9 days of our money. One of the poorest experiences i have had in 32 years of the retail business trying to cancel something. Mandatory screen share and hard sell to stay - Simply unbelievable