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April 11, 2024Podium is one among fairly a number of on-line popularity administration corporations in the marketplace at this time. However as a messaging platform providing a simple method to accumulate Google evaluations, is Podium all that it’s cracked as much as be? Whereas managing your small business’s on-line popularity may be troublesome, particularly if you find yourself coping with an inflow of unfavourable evaluations, on-line popularity administration corporations may help, however some are higher than others. By wanting on the good and the dangerous, let’s discover out if Podium is the best platform for you.
Podium In comparison with the Greatest On-line Fame Administration Firms
Podium is one among our favourite methods to handle and acquire Google evaluations for your small business. However they’re hardly the one alternative for popularity administration. Try these 4 different strong decisions, pulled from our full publish on high on-line popularity administration corporations.
WebiMax customizes the popularity administration technique to suit the precise wants of every of their purchasers. Attain out at this time for a free quote.
Nextiva is a simple instrument designed that will help you monitor model mentions, schedule social posts, and reply to all of your messages from a single dashboard. Take management of your on-line popularity and speak to Nextiva at this time.
Fame Protection Community is a good choice for eradicating unfavourable search, social, and evaluations to enhance your small business’s popularity. Schedule a free session to study extra.
Birdeye is just like Nextiva, however with much more performance (making it tougher to study) and a stronger concentrate on forming genuine connections along with your viewers to holistically enhance your popularity over time. Snag your free demo at this time.
Podium: The Good and the Dangerous
Identical to for all on-line popularity administration corporations, there will probably be good and dangerous options to think about. Podium gives some wonderful options for popularity administration and buyer interplay, nevertheless it additionally has a number of drawbacks that would make or break the product. Let’s take a deep dive into either side of the spectrum, and you’ll resolve what works finest for you.
The Good
Wonderful For Getting Google Evaluations: Getting prospects to depart a Google evaluation could be a troublesome process, however Podium may help alleviate this issue with its built-in omnichannel performance that makes use of MMS and SMS prompts. As an alternative of e-mail chains and chatbot requests, after your preliminary buyer interplay, the Podium software program will ship out a evaluation request by way of textual content message. The textual content message will supply a one-click hyperlink, so your prospects can click on the hyperlink, select which platform to evaluation on, and depart their evaluation.
Podium is the best means we’ve discovered to obtain Google-specific evaluations. Google is among the hottest search engines like google and yahoo for evaluations, and with Podium, your prospects are led proper there with a click on of a button. Podium additionally means that you can embrace Fb and different business evaluation websites as choices on your prospects.
Simple Crew Collaboration: Whether or not you could have two crew members or 20, Podium makes it straightforward to collaborate along with your crew whereas giving context to each buyer dialog. With Podium, there aren’t any unopened emails or advanced cellphone transfers, particularly not when you could have entry to 1 easy and manageable inbox. You may as well collaborate along with your crew members by sharing buyer conversations and connecting with them from anyplace.
With Podium’s unified inbox, you possibly can ship direct and group messages with footage, movies, GIFs, and attachments for optimum impact. You may as well regulate your notification preferences and filter out the updates you don’t want, making it simpler to remain up-to-date and prioritize sure buyer interactions. Podium’s crew inbox gives customizable templates, autoresponder, automations, permissions, and the power to assign conversations for relevance.
Sensible Buyer Suggestions: Buyer suggestions is important for the advance of your small business, and similar to for evaluations, Podium makes it straightforward so that you can get fast responses out of your prospects—all you must do is ask a query. Not like different on-line popularity corporations, there aren’t any hyperlinks or prolonged surveys. Podium depends on SMS messaging for buyer suggestions, so you possibly can count on extra responses inside minutes and never months.
As soon as a buyer has despatched by means of their suggestions, you possibly can instantly view their rating and bounce right into a dialog in actual time, making it simpler so that you can resolve any points in the event that they come up. Podium gives you suggestions templates, or you possibly can write extra related customized questions. Another nifty options embrace real-time notifications, schedule suggestions requests, automated responses, analytics, NPS, and a switchboard.
Omnichannel Buyer Interactions: With Podium’s wonderful omnichannel capabilities, you possibly can work together with prospects in additional methods than one. Not solely does the platform make the most of MMS and SMS messaging, nevertheless it additionally enables you to reply buyer questions immediately by means of video chat and webchat. With Podium’s video chat characteristic, you possibly can personalize your buyer’s expertise and reply extra meaningfully to detailed buyer questions and shorten the gross sales cycle—all with out the necessity for in-person interplay.
You don’t should obtain any third-party apps both, as you possibly can ship a video name invitation hyperlink to your prospects by means of your Podium inbox. You additionally get entry to digital appointments, display sharing, and a flip digital camera.
Alternatively, Podium’s webchat characteristic enables you to seize leads straight out of your web site. Reply questions, schedule appointments, and shut offers with out sounding like a robotic and aesthetically match your model with customization choices for buttons, avatars, greetings, and after-hours reminders. The webchat characteristic additionally gives multi-location transfers, each day digest emails, autoresponder, sensible responses, and leaderboard functionalities to check every worker’s response occasions.
The Dangerous
Very Poor Buyer Help: Sadly, Podium has a number of drawbacks, with the primary space being buyer assist. There’s a excessive quantity of unfavourable evaluations on many evaluation websites relating to Podium’s subpar buyer assist, with many customers complaining about comparable points. The commonest situation surrounding Podium’s buyer assist was that it might take weeks for purchasers to listen to from a consultant, and after they did, it was lackluster or totally unhelpful.
Many customers discovered that Podium’s buyer representatives would usually switch calls to different reps who didn’t know what the difficulty was, so prospects needed to re-explain their scenario. Others discovered that Podium’s assist crew would by no means observe up on points, and getting anybody to reply a cellphone name appeared not possible.
Nonexistent Onboarding: We have now discovered many evaluations claiming that Podium gives little to no onboarding help, with some prospects ready months for assist, even after paying for the product. Onboarding help appears to go hand in hand with buyer assist, as many shoppers have spent weeks to months making an attempt to get into contact with a consultant to assist with quite a lot of set up inquiries.
Software program onboarding must be a seamless course of, however sadly this doesn’t appear to be the case for Podium, as many discovered that its buyer representatives have been unresponsive.
Points with Cancellation: Most software program corporations will assist you to cancel your account or subscription on-line instantly. Nonetheless, with Podium, the cancelation coverage insists that you need to contact assist 30 days earlier than. Many customers have complained that they’ve tried to cancel their subscriptions for weeks however are repeatedly ignored or transferred to different reps who can’t assist.
In keeping with many customers, Podium has made it extremely troublesome to cancel your subscription, and there have been a number of instances the place Podium would constantly cost prospects afterward. Whereas the difficulty of repeat prices is barely rumour, we discovered too many unfavourable buyer experiences to not point out on this evaluation.
Podium Pricing and Choices
Podium doesn’t presently disclose its pricing packages on its web site. Nonetheless, we discovered many evaluations that declare its pricing choices to be steep.
In keeping with one evaluation website, Podium begins at $249 per 30 days, however different evaluation websites and customers have stated they paid between $300 and $400 per 30 days. Right here’s a fast overview of what we discovered:
- Podium Normal — $399 per 30 days
- Podium Webchat Add-On — $100 per 30 days
There aren’t any free trials out there, however you possibly can request a free demo and create a customized pricing package deal with Podium’s gross sales assist crew.
Podium Campaigns
Podium has a number of different product choices that make it easier to create significant buyer interactions and construct a constructive model presence on-line. One among these choices is called Podium Campaigns, which is a brand new characteristic that allows you to benefit from the 98% open price of textual content messaging and implement SMS advertising and marketing into your campaigns.
Podium’s marketing campaign characteristic enables you to develop your advertising and marketing database naturally and obtain fast insights, all whereas advertising and marketing like a human. With opt-in decisions constructed into Podium’s interactive instruments, you possibly can go about enterprise as typical with out the necessity to attain out to a number of prospects.
You possibly can ship advertising and marketing messages to the identical prospects you might be already constructing a relationship with through the use of the identical SMS thread. There’s no have to create a number of new message threads or ship out bulk emails when you could have Podium to do all of the be just right for you.
Whether or not you need to measure, view, or maximize your outcomes, Podium provides you fast insights into your advertising and marketing efforts. You possibly can perceive how your SMS advertising and marketing campaigns are working with digestible outcomes by means of tables and graphs from the Podium Dashboard.
Tailor your campaigns to your particular enterprise wants with customizable templates and particular teams. You may make your content material extra customized and preview it earlier than sending it off to your prospects.
Podium Campaigns is a separate product, and you’ll watch a free demo to get began.
Podium Funds
Enhance your buyer satisfaction, cut back charges, and save time with Podium’s funds characteristic. Whether or not you’ll want to ship invoices or accumulate funds, Podium has acquired you lined.
The Podium funds characteristic enables you to promote whilst you textual content by sending a easy hyperlink to shut offers earlier than a buyer loses curiosity. And in the event you run a bodily retailer, you possibly can re-engage prospects who’ve already walked out.
This characteristic enables you to save helpful assets and reduce on postage, paper, and cellphone tags. You don’t have to do an incredible deal to ship and obtain funds when Podium does all of the be just right for you. Not solely are you able to lower your expenses, however you will get paid sooner by requesting fee in an present Podium textual content dialog.
Alongside many areas of the Podium software program, you possibly can create customizable invoices as effectively by branding them along with your firm identify and brand. You may as well set up completely different fee strategies for sure forms of prospects and purchases, comparable to solely permitting e-checks or eradicating bank card purchases.
You possibly can export the funds characteristic to your favourite accounting software program, as Podium gives integration-friendly information codecs. These codecs may help you see who has accomplished fee and who wants a follow-up message.
Podium funds additionally allow you to shortly course of refunds straight from the dashboard, join a number of financial institution accounts, simply itemize your invoices, and provides flexibility to your prospects with a number of methods to pay, comparable to credit score, debit, Google Pay, or Apple Pay. The characteristic additionally gives superior fraud safety and safe funds with Podium’s PCI-compliant software program.
Podium Funds is a separate product, and you’ll watch a free demo to get began.
How Podium Ranks
Podium is increased within the ranks when in comparison with different on-line popularity administration corporations in the marketplace at this time. With its omnichannel capabilities and concentrate on SMS messaging, it’s no shock that Podium is straightforward to work with relating to grabbing Google evaluations.
Total, Podium is a good on-line popularity administration firm, particularly for receiving Google evaluations. Its SMS messaging software program makes it straightforward so that you can create significant buyer conversations and construct model loyalty.
With extra product choices like marketing campaign and fee options, there’s a likelihood for Podium that will help you enhance your buyer interactions and advertising and marketing efforts.
Nonetheless, you must undoubtedly think about the place Podium falls brief. Stable buyer assist is a important space for a lot of customers, and never having correct entry to it may well make or break a product, particularly when different popularity administration corporations might supply higher assist.