Podium

Pros: It worked great in the younger growth phase of our company. The review tracking was especially helpful.

Cons: Absolute predatory and bottom notch customer service. After being a loyal, paying customer for years, it no longer suited our needs. They refused to cancel our plan citing 4 year old contract for auto renewal signed by an employee no longer with the company and absolutely refused to do the right thing and terminate the contract. After cancelling the card on file when the cancellation was refused, they went around the marketing contact, called our front desk and got an updated card from someone not even involved.

Cons: ⭐☆☆☆☆ Podium is still very much a product in development and not suited for mid-sized businesses (it may work for a small business or corner shop). The tech support is virtually non-existent. [sensitive content hidden], the sales rep, promised the world just to close the deal but clearly didn’t understand his own product. After investing 100+ development hours in just 30 days, we were left completely on our own. Even after sending a cancellation notice for phone lines, they insisted we cancel Dialpad, claiming Podium had the same level of functionality and support—which it does not. Bottom line: do not trust their promises. Do your own research before investing your time and money here.

Pros: Podium is a good tool, easy to use and offers an ergonomic space. It works well with our setup — we can send payment links and bulk SMS to clients quickly and securely. It’s a software that helps us respond efficiently to our clients’ requests.

Cons: I didn’t notice many downsides with Podium, but I wish it added some features like being able to offer a phone number so people can reach us if needed or in case of urgent issues.

Pros: At our Agency we all have access to Podium letting us send messages to clients /saving their contact info and allowing us to communicate with them efficiently when we are unable to get a hold of them over a phone call or Via email. We all have access to see customer reviews and see any incoming information regarding the agency I work for.

Cons: I have yet to come across something I dislike using Podium. I have worked in this industry for years and have never until now found something that helps all staff members be able to have access to all text messages being sent in and out with clients.

Pros: It is still our best contributor to getting public reviews online, even after using it for about 9-10 years.

Cons: Since it has incorporated more and more features, it feels like Amazon Prime (where you start paying for things you don't need nor want). Current accounts are grandfathered, but when considering new accounts, it becomes less viable.

Pros: Podium assisted us in being able to touch base with shoppers; very much on a personal level, particularly for reviews and text messaging. I love that I can respond to customer inquiries via SMS quickly, while not switching between platforms including sending reviews requests directly after making a sale while the luster of excitement is still there.

Cons: It’s obviously designed with service businesses in mind, so some features that are common in retail, like inventory integration or product-oriented messaging aren’t exactly on point. We had to work around that a little bit to shape it to our flow.

Pros: Multiple features to utilize all we need to use Podium for.

Cons: Small glitches which make some tasks harder to use.

Pros: We are able to send bulk messages as well as easily communicate with members of our school.

Cons: The interface can be a little overwhelming at times.

Pros: with our small business the AI allows customers to be helped immediately and streamlines our conversations when we enter the conversation

Cons: customers can get a little confused thinking we're here all the time as opposed to just a generic after hours message

Pros: There initial sales guy was great but went downhill from there!

Cons: the worst company I've ever dealt with! They don’t connect to Shopify, fail to send abandoned cart texts as promised, and never notify when an order ships. When you need help, they’re MIA! But they have no problem Charging $635 per month. stay away, or you’ll regret it!

Pros: Easy to use with continually growing features and solutions

Cons: expensive compared to similar software providers

Pros: It was the most cost-effective option at the time we purchased

Cons: Did not like the features, felt like customer service was lacking

Pros: How easy everything is to use. Getting client information as well as responding to their inquiries is a breeze

Cons: Not being able to contact a person with issues. Their website does not have a contact me phone number

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.

Pros: So easy to send secure payment links and send mass-messages. Checking payments at the end of the day is simple and easy. Refunding payments is a breeze.

Cons: There is no archive of photos that have been sent by customers. The search function is finnicky and often does not find what I am looking for.

Pros: the simplicity of the Program was great.

Cons: I am not sure there was anything that I didn't dislike

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.

Pros: Easy to use. Easy for our employees to use on both mobile and desktop. Easy setup on our website. Captures reviews from customers.

Cons: Unable to connect our Facebook pages to Podium, even after talking with support.

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.

Pros: Easy to navigate and gets the job done fairly quickly

Cons: Not as efficient at getting our messages to patients

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

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.

Pros: The only thing is that you can reply to reviews easy. But for a cost.

Cons: Phone service is just horrble dont reccomend them.