TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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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

    Zendesk Chat

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AZendesk Chat (formerly Zopim) is a live chat tool developed by the Singaporean company also called Zopim, acquired by Zendesk in April 2014.

    $11.20

    per month

    Pricing
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Lite
    $0
    per user
    Basic
    $14
    per user
    Advanced
    $25
    per user
    Premium
    $55
    per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—The pricing above is price per user per month. You will get a discount when you opt for annual payment.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Podium and Zendesk Chat
    Feature
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Chat
    8.4
    5 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Chat history and transcripts00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Chat reporting00 Ratings8.65 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics00 Ratings8.54 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    Small Businesses
    Affinity CRM
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Hunter
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.9
    (43 ratings)
    8.6
    (23 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    8.4
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    PodiumZendesk Chat
    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
    Zendesk
    Zendesk Chat is suited for all the support teams that provide real-time assistance. Like if someone wants to block the debit/credit card, it is a high-priority case that needs real-time assistance. Whereas issues like close my account, and invoice request doesn't need real-time assistance, where Zendesk tickets support will be perfect.
    Read full review
    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
    Zendesk
    • Extremely fluid chat interface allows for easy communication.
    • It can be used directly on a website page or as a widget.
    • Allows the end user to translate the chat into their own native language.
    • Notifies you with pending chats via on-screen notifications and sound effects.
    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
    Zendesk
    • Linking with a telephone, so the agent is only working on 1 channel at a time
    • More simplified way to create and use templates
    • Link users who may have provided us a new/different email from what we have on file for them
    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
    Zendesk
    Due to staffing issues, we have temporarily stopped offering chat as an available channel. We're also interested in the best ways to integrate chat with our FAQs and AI to provide quick responses, either during off-hours or prior to speaking with a live agent. I've also found that reporting is rather limited where some of the interesting and useful data made available and visible during the chat cannot be pulled post-chat; it would be great to pull a high-level report so we can analyze this data.
    Read full review
    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
    Zendesk
    As mentioned previously, it's a clunky product that lacks user-friendliness. It feels old and behind the times compared to other products we have used. The inability to have a wrap-up time before a new chat comes in is also a big issue for our team.
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    Getting assistance and/or troubleshooting anything with Zendesk can be quite frustrating. In my years of experience with Zednesk, I have almost never found the answer to my question without going through multiple articles, ultimately getting frustrated and reaching out to our contact for more assistance. So for a consumer, the support is not as relieving as Zendesk Chat is to our customers in getting the questions answered by us.
    Incentivized
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk Chat is far more user friendly than some of the other competitors on the market. It has a very all the features that you require to ensure your customers are contacted in 'real time'. Its main tools include a live chat interface for quick communication, customisable chat widgets to fit your brand, mobile responsiveness for all devices, and canned responses for common questions. The platform can also start chats based on visitor actions, like time on a page or exit intent. A real must for any leading company
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    • Positive impact - Compared to our old system, this newly updated system provides features and functionality that has increased our agent productivity and provided customer insight like we've never had before. This has resulted in fewer hold times and higher customer satisfaction.
    • Negative impact - Our reporting team still struggles with obtaining the right information from time to time with the chats. This leads to loss of productivity and more resources dedicated to reporting.
    • Positive impact - Due to Zopim's embed, we are able to more successfully place them on the appropriate self-service portals and pages, reaching a larger audience, and being more readily available to answer our client's questions. This has resulted in an increase in our self-service portal usage, driving down the phone and email support channels, which in turn reduces support costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Zendesk Chat Screenshots

    Screenshot of How Zopim Chat Widget looks on the website.Screenshot of This is how the chat window looks like to your visitorsScreenshot of This is a screenshot of the visitor list.Product screenshot