Podium Reviews

Love it but don't always love paying for it!

Comments: Overall, it's really good. I'm a big fan of feeling valued as a customer, and I don't feel valued, I feel like a number. I rarely get check-ins from the company. On top of that, I think the ability to get reviews could be a little better. Our customers just don't really react when we ask them for the review. They are always willing, but then seem to have some difficulty completing the process.

Pros:

The ease of use is great, I love taking the conversation from the website to texting, and it's great for that. It also makes it pretty easy to request reviews, and so that is great.

Cons:

It feels really expensive to me. At this point I might be able to get similar functionality for significantly less money, but nonetheless, because we've made the investment in it and trained our team on it, I selfishly don't want to have to deplore another program and do another batch of training.

Podium Review

Comments: In less than 1 month, Podium has helped grow communications with customers and provided positive feedback for the business. It is the only program that has helped grow the positive reviews in my workplace.

Pros:

Podium is a great and effective program that allows you to effectively communicate with customers, receive feedback from them, and get reports on your communication. I would highly recommend it to anyone in customer service.

Cons:

I have not used the program long enough to have anything I really dislike. From what I have seen, I already like it more than the program I switched from!

I wouldn't use Podium if it was FREE

Pros:

I was lied to during onboarding and never told about the 1 yr contract until I read it for myself during the signing. They are not transparent and their customer service is the worst I've EVER experienced.

Cons:

They have a huge lack of transparancy. They are willing to lie to you to onboard and try to keep your business. They will make HUGE mistakes like porting away your personal number with NO accountability or concerns for your business. Wasted countless hours during set up and after trying use their platform all while being charged for services not used.

Steer clear - you cannot get your information out!

Comments: Podium integrates with other systems, but only to bring contacts into Podium, it won't syncronise. After trying several ways, I spoke to support who were very hedgy and finally admitted that they account holders can request an export of their data and Podium review the requests "on a case-by-case basis". So you may or may not be able to get your data out, but only if you request it. I'm appalled.

Pros:

It's very easy to use although the way that contacts are entered and default to being unsubscribed is weird and not very intuitive.

Cons:

You can NOT get your contacts out. The only email marketing/CRM system that I've ever come across that does not allow users to export their own contacts.

Great Way to Motivate team to get Reviews

Comments: I love that fact that you can motivate the salesman to get reviews done. Keeps track of who sent out the most and places them in 1-3 winnings.

Pros:

Great way to get Reviews with easy text and email links to send.

Cons:

That it is not free, would be the only thing that I didn't like.

Inadequate software support to what was proposed

Comments: The multiple challenges with getting this service on line, and the expectation to pay for the full year payment without the service being full filled in our contract. They did provide one less month payment , but that was not even close to many months with no proper service. We would have stayed through this trouble if they would have off set the many months of no full support, but they seem concerned with getting one more payment for us> I will keep reviewing and posting until I see podium doing a deep dive and understand from our point of view

Pros:

The data analysis is easy to use and operate

Cons:

Continuous IT tickets that had months with inadequate service. The lack of communication when the system was not working properly but yet still taking our payments. I have multiple documents and IT tickets to support our challenges. This year cost with not the ability to get Google reviews made the experience a failure

Great Platfrom for Text Messaging, but for a VOIP, not reommended

Pros:

I like the platform for messaging to our clients. The text templates are customizable and easy to select. The interface is user friendly and very easy to navigate.

Cons:

Podium phones is the worst. I think it is fairly new system for Podium therefore there are kinks form them to fix. We had several outages, and it was the worst because our clients could not get ahold of us. Their support was not available 24/7 to address time sensitive issues. There explanations always had to do with changes in management so it took even longer for issues to be addressed and resolved. We are happy we switched to Kenect for messaging and Nextiva for VOIP.

podium, one mans trash is another's treasure

Comments: it wasn't bad honestly! It's a super great program and they have some amazing features. However, for our company, it just didn't fit as well. For companies larger and using more payment methods, this is the program for you and it's very easy to use daily.

Pros:

Easy to navigate and gets the job done fairly quickly

Cons:

Not as efficient at getting our messages to patients

You cannot export your own date. Missing features.

Pros:

I do not like much about Podium. The processing rates were pretty good.

Cons:

You cannot export your data. There are features missing from the software that are sold on the site and discussed in their support videos/tutorials. These are important for teams. This has been an awful experience. The product does not do what it says it will do. When I decided to cancel, they gave me the run-around. It took over three months for them to release my phone number ($1800), and now they are saying that I "automatically" signed up for an additional year. I would recommend that you find a better, more user-friendly solution. They are out there. Shame on you Podium.

Enhances Customer Engagement

Comments: overall positive eperience, it's obvious their team genuinely wants to help businesses thrive.

Pros:

User friendly platform, easy to navigate, easy to connect with dcustomers and manage communications. The messaging function allows for real-time conversations that are personal and direct

Cons:

The anayltics dashboard is not very deep and there are times where i didnt receive alerts.

If you aren't using Podium, what are you waiting for?

Comments: The podium has been instrumental in the overall growth of our company. From google reviews to sales, to collections, Podium has been part of the experience every step of the way. Also as we were growing Podium was also growing and their innovations consistently kept the fire in us to push ourselves beyond our own limits and become the paperless, and digital company that we are today :)

Pros:

What I like most about Podium is its ease of not only use but training anybody new. We are a growing company hiring annually now more and more and Podium is by far the easiest trained software that we use. It's not only self-efficient but training is clean, straight-forward, and it's beyond user-friendly.

Cons:

There are at this stage in the game a lot of add on's that you can certainly do with Podium. It goes from a very low cost to mid-range cost quickly as you realize you really do need and want all the bells and whistles that Podium can offer. It's not so much that it is a negative, but it does become a challenge sometimes when having to pitch a wonderful new feature of Podium to your decision-makers when the words "and it cost ---- extra" comes into play.

All In One Place!

Comments: I have really enjoyed using Podium and feel that it has been well worth the investment. We have looked at other forms of software that are similar but we continue to feel confident in Podium because of the variety of services that they offer. It has been awesome that our young tech savvy employees are comfortable with this software but that it is easy enough for our older employees to use as well. I am sure that we will continue to use podium for years to come!

Pros:

I love that all of our messaging either from different social media sites or from our own website comes to one location! It is really nice that all of our employees have access to this site and because of that, we are able to reply very quickly to messages that come in. I also like that our reviews show up here and we are able to respond to them through the Podium platform rather than needing to go to Google, Facebook, Yelp etc. to find the reviews.

Cons:

I wish that somehow we were able to consolidate the review notifications so that if we invite someone to review us on google and they write a review, we don't get two separate messages/notifications about it.

Overall Contentment of Podium

Pros:

+   Customers appreciate the payment features since they are simple to use.+ The Facebook integration makes it simple to turn messages into leads.+ It is simple to utilize for the entire crew here.

Cons:

- From an admin perspective, the mobile app is less enlightening than the browser version.- Monitoring conversations is frequently difficult because inboxes and where things end up are frequently confused.- Podium would be a one-stop shop if it offered document signature alternatives and surveying features.

Great if you want Google Reviews

Comments: Google reviews

Pros:

Increased Google reviews exponentially and messaging transparency made it more effective.

Cons:

Quickbooks lack of integration and sane for PestRoutes

Great features But At A High Price

Comments: Positive, but left for lower price

Pros:

Podium offers a great service and lots of wonderful features.

Cons:

They are priced significantly higher than their competitors. Further, be ready for the constant barrage of upselling.

Ensuring only the best reviews of your business are published online

Pros:

From the Podium dashboard, you are able to connect with your past customers via email or text to prequalify their experience with your business was good prior to sending them a link to leave a review.

Cons:

Pricing. It is much more expensive than other similar services. You may only want to use podium for one specific feature and have to pay for an annual plan that includes features you don't need.

Loved in the beginning

Comments: In the beginning it was awesome then the support became lacking

Pros:

Loved their software and initially their support was amazing, we saw this as worthy of the price tag.

Cons:

Eventually support dropped off and no longer saw the value in the pricing

Excellent software but very expensive!

Pros:

I like the integration with my website adding real-time chat and being able to receive texts for my landline. Being able to seamlessly continue a conversation on my cell phone is great.

Cons:

Cost was the main problem I had with the software.

Trapped by Auto-renew contract

Comments: The product is expensive. Works as expected. Customer Service is not great.

Pros:

We use it for communicating with our patients and our office.

Cons:

It is very expensive. I have had it for three years and found out that every year the contract auto renews. I am not stuck paying for NO customer service and constant sales calls for another 11 months. I wish I went with a company that still has a heart. The only way to talk to them is through reviews!

Podium is an absolute small business must have!!

Comments: Our company's customer service has far exceeded expectations since implementing Podium. It has helped give our customers a way to reach us literally 24/7. It has helped get our company reviews up 1000%. It has also helped communications between our employees.

Pros:

Podium is AWESOME!! We use it daily to text with our customers who love to communicate via text messages. With every employee having it up throughout the day any one of us can quickly respond to our customers texts and if it's after hours you can set an automatic reply text message that says we are not open at this time so they know someone will get back with them ASAP. It makes it so much easier texting on the PC than on your phone and it uses your company's phone number so you can just tell your customers to call OR text our number. For those who do prefer using their phone to text, Podium has an app that is absolutely awesome too! You will get push notifications on your phone whenever a customer texts or notifications for anything else in the app. You can send customer links and photos easily with Podium. Another great tool is you can direct message or have group chats with your coworkers in Podium. Podium has helped us tremendously with our company reviews too!! Allowing us to set up templates that text our customers once their project is completed asking them to rate us on a scale of 1-10 and texting them links to where they can leave a review online if they wish too. I know Podium also has a function where you can send an invoice amount text to your customers and have them pay via that link but we have not used this feature yet. Podium is awesome and has definitely made operations A LOT easier for our company.

Cons:

There isn't really anything we don't like about Podium!

Great until you want to cancel it!

Comments: 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

Excellent chat software with review integration

Comments: 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.

Podium - Does Not Live Up To The Hype of the Salespeople

Comments: It was extremely time-consuming to setup. It took me over 2 full weeks. There were problems every step of the way. I've worked for software companies in the past and I feel like I was BETA testing Podium. That's how many problems there were. Support reps were either foreign with little real knowledge of the platform, or young individuals in the USA who were quick to blow off problems without taking any real ownership in assisting me. Two days ago, two customers sent us payments via bank transfers. Two days later, we still don't have the funds in our bank account. Earlier today, a rep said he was escalating our problem but 12 hours later, still no word from anyone. Where is the money? It's thousands of dollars. Our customers are waiting for their services. They paid but we haven't received the funds. This is about as bad as things could be. Our company is screwed out of $7000 right now. Learn from me. Why take the risk with your business?

Pros:

The promises that the salesrep made. That's what I liked best. Unfortunately, it didn't deliver.

Cons:

Horrendous customer support. Never heard from our assigned Account Executive. Most other tech support is done through webchat which involves employees in foreign countries who know little about the actual product. When I finally was able to schedule one-on-one tech support, the rep didn't seem to take my needs seriously.

Customer Service Non Existent

Pros:

Podium makes managing high volumes of texts easy

Cons:

The lack of customer service is truly boggling. It is literally impossible to get someone on the phone. The poor integration should have been my first clue. We lost three days of business and nobody cared. Podium Customer service makes your local DMV look like Chick-fil-a or some other excellent customer service organization. I will be leaving the second my contract is up. The amount of money they charge is absurd compared to other similar products.

Where are your reviews live - Podium

Comments: Keep track of reviews left by patients and reply to them in a timely manner. The responses would show up on our Google page within a day.

Pros:

Podium is a great product to use if customer engagement and feedback response is a top priority for your business. You are able to see all the reviews that people leave, whether on Google or Facebook. I received a weekly email report which would detail how many reviews were received for the week. There is an option to send out a text campaign to all number in your system, this is a great option to promote an event. Also, if your business has different locations, Podium allows you to manage them separately.

Cons:

Nothing negative to say about podium, but a mobile app would be a great addition.