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About Podium

Podium simplifies reputation management by making it easy to collect reviews, rise in the ranks of local search, and drive more leads.

Learn more about Podium

Pros:

I was very pleased with the results after the first couple months. It easily integrated with our point of sale system and ALL of our staff used the link to request feedback from our customers.

Cons:

Inability to interface with Facebook for payments.

Podium ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.3
Customer Service
4.1
Features
4.2
Value for Money
3.9

Likelihood to recommend

7.4/ 10

Podium has an overall rating of 4.3 out 5 stars based on 511 user reviews on Capterra.

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Filter reviews (511)

Kevin
Kevin
VP of Marketing in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Real Estate, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

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

5.0 4 years ago

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.

Jeffrey
General Manager in US
Automotive, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Podium helped moved us from 4.1 stars to 4.5 (Google)

5.0 12 months ago

Pros:

Easy to use and responsive - Podium made it easy for me to be personally responsive in our customer experience management.

Cons:

I found a competing product that uses single initial qualifying query to help screen potential problems and allowing me to respond and mitigate prior to the push to review - this is a more effective and compliant approach. Podium made the invite and it the negative review posted even before I had the opportunity to mitigate.

brandon
brandon
Owner in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Insurance, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

I wouldn't use Podium if it was FREE

1.0 11 months ago

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.

Holly
Business Development Manager in US
Automotive, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Great Way to Motivate team to get Reviews

5.0 5 months ago

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.

Cheyenne
MA in US
Hospital & Health Care, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

podium, one mans trash is another's treasure

4.0 6 months ago

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

Sean
Vice President in Canada
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Inadequate software support to what was proposed

1.0 6 months ago

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

Podium Response

6 months ago

Hi Sean, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. My name is Whitney and I'm digging into your account. Would you be able to send an email to [email protected] so I can assist you more quickly? I will watch for your email.

Whitney
Paralegal in US
Law Practice, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

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

3.0 7 months ago

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.

Michael
Michael
President and Physician in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Medical Practice, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Functional platform when it works, but customer service is very poor.

3.0 last year

Comments: It was good until I stumbled upon problems on their end, and they do not respond to these problems in a timely fashion. I hope they iron out their problems so I don't ever have to speak to anyone at Podium Customer Service. They very rarely respond in a timely fashion.

Pros:

I like the ability to integrate my business landline number with SMS capability. It's easy to send text review links to customers.

Cons:

Customer service is horrific. Let me repeat--horrific! I rarely leave reviews but the inconveniences afford to me deserve a stern warning to others considering this platform. I am fairly tech savvy and a good problem solver. However, problems, server disconnects, software glitches occur from time-to-time, and customer service contacts cannot be reached, are unreliable, and human customer service is lacking!

Andy
President in US
Construction, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

You cannot export your own date. Missing features.

1.0 10 months ago

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.

Casey
Office Manager in US
Media Production, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Enhances Customer Engagement

5.0 5 months ago

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.

Erik
Owner in US
Consumer Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

"We wish we could do more to help, but this really is as far as we can go."

1.0 4 years ago

Comments: Podium will use that 1-yr agreement you sign against you no matter how many issues you have with their services. They will ignore you, say they've cancelled services with the same template email over and over again, and yet your credit card will still be charged each month. We hope that everyone takes pause when signing that 1-year contract with Podium. We wish we had taken pause before signing up.

Pros:

When the software works, it really is a nice system. Our issue is that the software never worked. My employees had consistent issues with messages not showing up in the inbox or not receiving notifications when new messages came in. I myself did not receive a single notification for a new message for over a month, and it was still not fixed by the time we finally decided we had enough and switched to another system. I also had to reach out to them weekly to see if my issues have been figured out because they will never reach back out to you about the issues you're having.

Cons:

Trying to cancel with Podium is the worst experience we've ever had with a company. My partner had to pretend to be a new client prospect to get Podium to help us because they will dodge and outright ignore correspondences about cancelling service. They've admitted their issues, told us they are letting us out of the 1-yr contract, yet they are still charging our credit card each month. We have finally had to take the issue up with our credit card company.

Peter
Innovation + Communication Officer in US
Government Administration, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Just send us a text! - Podium brings texting to business

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: The overall experience has been great! The software is easy to use and easy to set up. They assign you a customer success agent and take you through about 12 weeks of training and check-ins to make sure you're good to go. We have loved it and recommend it all the time.

Pros:

I love how Podium allows teams of employees from different departments to work together to answer customer questions and requests. One beautiful thing is they were able to port our regular phone number and turn it into a text-able number. So our landline number that all of our customers are familiar with has now become a texting number as well. We're able to tell our customers those beautiful words: "Just send us a text."

Cons:

The only downside I see in Podium is the search feature. It is actually astounding how bad it is. You would think in this day and age a basic keyword search feature would be pretty standard. Not so in Podium. The only way to look up old conversations is remembering the name of the person you were chatting with. I'm honestly dismayed by it.

Shannon
Office Manager in US
Construction, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Great product but expensive

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: We used Podium for two years but found a less expensive alternative.

Pros:

Customers were able to leave a detailed review. Potential customers always do their research so real people's opinions matter.

Cons:

Very expensive. We loved the product but not the price.

Troy
Marketing Manager in Australia
Telecommunications, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Very good at what it does

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: Overall I'm very pleased with Podium. Despite the few shortcomings it alowed us to acheive our goals in a relatively short time frame and within budget.

Pros:

The ability to send Google review requests directly to customers via SMS was amazing. It was exactly what we needed to get our review score up to, and past, our target score within the space of only a few months. The interface is incredibly user friendly and managing teams is about as simple as it gets.

Cons:

I found that a lot of the time it wouldn't correctly tag who within our team was resposible for receiving reviews. There's also no ability to customise reports. It owuld be great if there could also be more integrations with additional review platforms, as we were stuck with only being able to provide the option for Google reviews as we don't accept Facebook Reviews. This caused us to miss a few reviews as customers didn't have Google accounts.

Kate
Marketing Manager in US
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Podium SMS Manager

2.0 9 months ago

Pros:

Easy to use, easy to set up. Integrates with my POS System, lacks design options and customization.

Cons:

Customer service took a while to fix issues, and most of the time by the time they reached out, I had fixed it.

Lisa
Owner in US
Real Estate, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Great if you want Google Reviews

3.0 2 years ago

Comments: Google reviews

Pros:

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

Cons:

Quickbooks lack of integration and sane for PestRoutes

Aaron
President/CEO in US
Retail, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great features But At A High Price

5.0 2 years ago

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.

Brittany
Sales Consultant in US
Furniture, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Sales Booster

5.0 last year

Pros:

Is great for keeping track of all of our customers

Cons:

Too expensive for what it offers to my company

Vikas
Vikas
office manager in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Health, Wellness & Fitness, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

good product and service

4.0 2 years ago

Pros:

One of the notable features of Podium is its ability to help businesses improve their online reputation by automating the process of requesting and collecting customer reviews across different review sites

Cons:

one potential downside of Podium is its pricing

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Retail, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Quality platform, but with a cost

4.0 2 years ago

Comments: Quality of platform was good, level of customer service / support was good, although somewhat scattered . There were few issues with the functionality of the platform, but it did take a bit to get answers at times and it also felt like once we started to question the cost of the platform that there was a certain assumption were going to be gone, rather than presenting a collaborative environment to look at creating a package that would keep us on board.

Pros:

The platform works well and there are some specific features that others do not have employed, such as the ability for the platform to identify landlines in advance when attempting to initiate SMS messaging, whereas others simply allow the message to go out and you wait for the failure..

Cons:

The least desirable component of this platform is cost, especially if you happen to be looking at it as a platform to deploy for use with multiple locations. We were a 2 store implementation, so higher cost, but not large enough for volume pricing leverage. the interface for synchronizing contact database information was not overly straightforward.

Jacqueline
csr in US
Retail, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

podium review

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Overall i think Podium is a great app to use. Its very user friendly as well as reliable and has alot of useful features for small and big businesses.

Pros:

Podium is very easy to use and access, especially via the convenient app. we personally really like the ease of sending out review links as well as how hassle free the payment processing is.

Cons:

The app has alot of features and even options for different users on the same app, however it can sometimes get confusing when trying to switch profiles.

Robbie
Marketing in Canada
Automotive, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Medicore product, over promised and under delivered

2.0 2 years ago

Comments: Terrible customer service and sales team.

Pros:

Not much, the automation was nice, that was about it.

Cons:

The constant phone calls from different sales specialists that are trying to sell you services. BRUTAL for anyone who employs podium.

Robin
Administrator in US
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great Product/ Pricing is high

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Loved the fact that I could email and text on the same screen.

Cons:

The price, we had to switch due to cost savings and response from support

Caitlin
Payroll and Tax Coordinator in US
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Big fan of this software!

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

Podium has made it easy to get in touch with clients in a non-threatening way that can be easily responded to in the time a client has available.

Cons:

There are updates often that change the layout and can make it difficult to navigate while getting used to the new layout.

Jordan
Jordan
VP in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Retail, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Very expensive but worth it depending on your model

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: Fantastic, We collect customer payments via the text payment feature. It is expensive but allows us to reach our clients and accept payments the way that they want to and in a secure way.

Pros:

It is always on the forefront of new technology and they will keep you up to date on when new features come out as well as sometimes let you beta test.

Cons:

It is extremely expensive for what it is. The personnel also don't coordinate very well so often you will get a marketing solicitation call and email even though you already use the product.