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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Podium

    Score7 out of 10
    N/APodium, formerly Repdrive, is a ratings and review management platform from the company of the same name in Provo, Utah.N/A

    Smith.ai

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ASmith.ai is a call answering platform for businesses of all sizes. The AI Receptionist from Smith.ai handles call scenarios, such as qualifying leads, answering questions, and scheduling appointments 24/7. Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists aim to maximize meaningful interactions, with the goal of moving a business forward with a professional human touch. With its integration ecosystem of over 7,000 platforms — like HouseCall Pro, ServiceTitan, MyCase, and HubSpot— call data flows directly into a…

    $95

    per month

    Pricing
    PodiumSmith.ai
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Starter
    $95
    per month
    Basic
    $270
    per month
    Pro
    $800
    per month
    Enterprise
    Custom
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    PodiumSmith.ai
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—All plans include: - Lead screening - Lead qualification - Appointment booking - Intake - Call transfers & routing - Live agents on standby 24/7 - Instant call summaries - Bilingual English/Spanish call handling - Comprehensive dashboard with rich business insights - Dedicated phone number - Phone and e-mail support Additional features available: - Integration with CRM software - including ServiceTitan, HubSpot, and Clio), Zapier, Slack and others
    More Pricing Information
    Best Alternatives
    PodiumSmith.ai
    Small Businesses
    Affinity CRM
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Hunter
    Score7.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    PodiumSmith.ai
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.9
    (43 ratings)
    9.1
    (15 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    8.6
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    9.0
    (14 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    PodiumSmith.ai
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Podium
    Podium is well suited for several types of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, Podium would be a great way for you to ask that customers leave you a review online sharing their awesome experience. For medium to large businesses, Podium review invites can be automated through the company's customer management system, allowing the use of Podium to be simple and not timely, even with a large customer base. It may not be appropriate for a large company to manually send out individual review invites
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    Smith.ai Website Chat is an excellent solution for law firm owners that want a cost-effective strategy to capture lead information from website visitors. Our website generates hundreds of visitors each day and over 7,000 visitors per month. I strategically have placed the online chat feature on the contact page on our website to engage with only those potential clients that are serious about retaining our services and making a purchasing decision. I have priced this type of online chat service with several other providers (Ngage, Apex Chat). Some of these providers charge as much as $35 or hire per qualified lead. Smith.ai comes in at approximately $8-$15 per chat session with a potential lead and even offers some flat rate options. There can be further cost savings if only the chatbot feature is used without live agent support. In this option, a website visitor can engage with a chatbot using Automated questions and answers without the need for live agent support. My firm beta tested this product in of it itself and it generated several thousands of dollars in revenue. The customer support has also been exceptional. All the representatives at Smith.ai have been responsive to customer service questions and implementation of the product. Capturing leads with the chatbot feature and the live agent support has even been more profitable. Based on our CRM data, website chat leads generated over $127,500 of revenue for our firm and engaged with 230 potential clients in just the past 12 months.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Podium
    • 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!
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    • They set up and monitor your chat on your site, giving your prospects instant service.
    • I have spent so much time with their support team. I never felt more welcome to an SaaS.
    • Their phone monitoring system saves you time and will increase your profits by converting more leads into paying clients.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Podium
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    • Although you can close the chat message, the chat bubble can not be closed and it can cause issues being able to read website content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Podium
    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!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    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.
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    Smith.ai Live Website Chat allows you to provide a script for when they answer prospective clients. The script is customizable as your needs change. However, the script only goes so far, as they do not know your business personally. Once they do go through that script, they send you an email with the caller's contact information so you can reach out personally if they seem interested. They do so with efficiency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Podium
    We haven't had any outages or issues whenever we need it over the last few years of use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Podium
    It moves quickly and has no issues with delays. Performance is good as it is a web-based tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Podium
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    Smith.ai pays for itself if we can help one site visitor move down our lead funnel to being a client. We have averaged over 50+ new leads each month since implementing the chat and with a close rate for becoming new clients that is double what our advertising PPC new client closing rate has been.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Podium
    We only had a hard time getting our technicians to remember to send the review invites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Podium
    We use Digital Air Strike at our two GM dealerships because it is one of a small list of reputation management companies authorized by GM as part of their SFE program. Digital Air Strike surveys our customers and invites them to write a review about our dealership. It is not as effective or flexible as Podium so we have been using Podium at those dealerships alongside Digital Air Strike. We also recently started a trial use of ReplyPro which is a service that monitors review sites and writes customized responses to positive reviews and suggested responses to negative reviews. I'd like to see Podium add this as part of their service so we can consolidate 3rd party vendors and manage every aspect of online reputation management from one place.
    Incentivized
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    Smith.ai
    Came down to pricing. Smith.ai Live Website Chat did not have the same level of customization and support as other alternatives but there are enough customization and tools that it was clear it would solve the problems and at a good price.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Podium
    • I am glad there are card readers now, sales team members too often try to just send a request instead of taking payment onsite.
    • It's made capturing messaging leads much easier.
    • It's worth the cost but if it did a few more things it would be worth a lot more to us. Document signatures, surveying after jobs, even geotagging of photos/reviews for SEO
    Read full review
    Smith.ai
    • Positive - Smith.ai has easily saved me $25k+ in receptionist costs. They probably helped me land another $50k in new business I would otherwise not have brought in the door because they immediately grabbed the client on our website so they didn't get away or have to wait 2 days for a call back. Great ROI (100 to 1 ROI is probably not an exaggeration for my law firm).
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Smith.ai Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Smith.ai dashboard, which provides real-time insights that illustrate the bigger picture of a firm's inbound calls.Screenshot of where each Smith.ai call generates an instant call summary, displaying caller contact information, call duration, actions taken during the call, and call recording & transcription.