Podium is used in a different capacity at Byrider, but Yext is a platform that we've looked into. It has similar features but the ease of use for multi-unit sets it apart.
It is my absolute recommendation for anyone at a multi-location, brick-and-mortar business that is consumer-focused. I haven't demoed any other tools that could come close to meeting the needs that I would have either at my previous agency role for clients or currently at my client-side job. However, not all companies that have a footprint/distribution in multiple areas are suited; I had a brewery client with a presence in multiple states (their products were in stores and salespeople were staffed in the area), but given MomentFeed's basis in listing data around physical locations, there wasn't a real way that the product could have accommodated. Cases like that are a square peg/round hole situation.
Podium is well suited if your business needs are mindless Google Business reviews, and not much else. It's NOT appropriate for clients in the real estate industry. It's NOT appropriate for anyone needing a reliable VoIP solution. It should NOT be marketed as a VoIP product, b/c I found it fails MISERABLY in this regard.
Maintains conversations indefinitely, so we are able to go back to confirm details from conversations.
Provides the ability for our company to have a 'team' messaging platform where we can communicate with one another via single person to a single person, groups where we can add/subtract members of the group... this is invaluable to our organization.
Until today(!), we could 'share' or forward a message to one another; oddly, that feature disappeared just today, so I'm hoping it's a glitch!
More reporting options. There is a wealth of data able to be reported around just one Facebook page; now imagine the type of data you have available to analyze across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of local pages. They already do a good job of showing some valuable insights (and providing every other metric they can via spreadsheet exports) but I think there's pretty much an endless array of possibilities beyond what they have. I suppose that's a slippery slope though.
Some minor UI/UX issues. Some fields operate weirdly, some buttons may act funky, or the platform may not remember your location group selection when you move from one part of the product to another. Easily overlooked, however.
Social media publishing is sometimes delayed and may go out a handful of minutes after you intended. Not a problem in most cases, but I'd schedule natively or with another tool if you're depending on a post to go out at an exact moment.
Account manager communications: I had been asking my Podium account manager for integration with our CRM tool for over 8 months before my account manager fell silent. After another 6 months, I proactively reached out only to find out that the integration had been in Beta for months and 8 other companies had already integrated. It was frustrating that my account manager did not remember a key request and make the Beta available to me the minute that it was open.
Again, Podium has been so wonderful in the year and a half we have been using it, we are able to integrate it with our CRM and use alot of the available features. The most helpful has been getting TONS of reviews on MULTIPLE sites through Podium!
While giving our clients the ability to leave a review was there, we had much worse results and got fewer reviews through the Podium portal than we did by sending our clients simple email requests, or simply having our service staff ask for a review while still on the clients' job sites.
I have to send an email to get information. They have a chat system but I end up having to go through my rep for account questions. It was a little frustrating to not have a direct phone number to call with questions. I would like to see a helpline added.
I have not personally used Yext, but after a couple demos I didn't find that it fit the needs of my past clients or current company as much as MomentFeed could; I had also heard horror stories about how Yext effectively holds listing data hostage or simply removes it once you are no longer a customer.
To be completely candid, I have not used another review software other than Podium. I've worked here for just over 2 years, and our company had just started using Podium. Podium has been useful and successful for our team; therefore, there has not been any reason for me to search for a new company. We are happy with Podium
Its easy to scale to different departments as needed. We initially began using it to solve one problem and as new features became available it was easy to scale this and include other departments who could benefit from its tools
Use of Podium has increased the star rating on various review sites for all of our dealerships using the product.
Use of Podium has increased the volume of new monthly positive reviews on various review sites for all of our dealerships.
While we can't measure the impact that positive reviews have on car shoppers, we know that it influences them and we believe that it is a factor for some people in making the decision to visit the dealership. Some customers have come in and said they read our reviews and wanted to give us a shot. Others have even asked for a specific salesperson who's name has come up in positive reviews, without having ever met or spoken with that salesperson.
