With the growing popularity of social media, online reviews have become more important than ever in establishing your business reputation. One survey from Bright Local found that three in four customers trust a company more if the majority of the company’s reviews are positive. The same study found that 1- or 2-star reviews failed to convert 86% of prospective customers. This is a major loss for businesses.
Fortunately, business owners can take steps to protect their reputation with online reputation management software. These programs work by helping you monitor your reviews and mentions, increase the number of positive feedback, and can even help to drive unflattering web content off the first pages of web search results.
There are a lot of online reputation management programs available. Previously, we compared Rize Reviews with Grade.us and BirdEye. In this post, we’ll discuss how Podium compares as an online reputation management service.
| Rize Reviews | Podium | |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews via email, texts & in-store kiosks |  |  |
| Fully-managed service? |  |  |
| Month to month contracts? |  |  |
| Strategic support? |  |  |
| Local SEO expertise? |  |  |
| All the integrations you need? |  |  |
| Flexible sign-up options? |  |  |
| Customizable Website Widget? |  |  |
1. Podium vs. Rize Review: At a Glance
Rize Reviews
Rize Reviews is an online reputation management service that allows you to monitor, manage and generate online reviews. In addition to text messages, Rize Reviews allows you to collect feedback from customers through in-store kiosks, emails and custom ‘review us’ cards. A centralized dashboard allows users to get complete and easy access to their reviews. Rize Reviews includes review marketing features, such as a widget that displays positive online reviews on your website or email signature. The platform also offers automated social media postings.
Podium
Like Rize Reviews, Podium is an online reputation management platform that allows you to monitor the web chats, messages, and reviews you get from one centralized inbox. Reviews are generated via text message, allowing customers to review on-the-go. Customers receive SMS messages asking them to leave reviews on various review platforms. The text messages include direct links to feedback pages. Business owners have the option of creating custom text messages or using any of the available templates provided by the platform. Unlike Rize Reviews, Podium is limited to text message communication.
2. Features and Benefits
Rize Reviews
Rize Reviews uses automated email and text messages to help you get more reviews—but in a uniquely hands-off way. Rize Reviews online reputation services start when you provide Rize Reviews with a list of customer contact information—and that’s it! Rize Reviews takes care of the rest. Rize Reviews sends out feedback requests on your behalf via text messages or email. Don’t have contact information yet? Rize Reviews can install in-store review kiosks for you so you can get some. With kiosks, reviews are quick and easy for your customers to do while still in-store.
Rize Reviews takes a customized approach to review management. Emails, text messages and the review dashboard itself are completely customizable to match your brand story and voice. All review data is collected in one place, so you can easily view all of your customer feedback.
Rize Reviews offers review marketing features, including a WordPress plugin that embeds 4+ star reviews to your website or email signature. The platform can also automatically post positive reviews to your social media pages, adding powerful social proof to your brand. Rize Reviews helps you handle not-so-positive reviews as well. The platform solicits feedback in an online form that gets delivered to your inbox, allowing you to quickly and privately resolve customer issues.
Other Rize Reviews features include sentiment analysis, social media monitoring, and printed leave-behinds for customers. With no user minimum, Rize Reviews is perfect for both small businesses or big enterprises. Rize Reviews gives you the tools you need to transform reviews and feedback into a powerful marketing strategy.
Podium
Podium also uses automated feedback requests for review generation. All customer interactions and online reviews are consolidated into one dashboard for online review management. Since the dashboard includes messages across multiple social channels and webchat, you get a complete history of every interaction with a client. Through the dashboard, you can send review requests, respond to reviews, and send and receive text messages with customers.
Podium also helps you stay on top of not-so-good reviews. The platform sends instant alerts any time a review is posted, so you can quickly respond to bad reviews in a private, two-way conversation.
Podium provides reporting on sentiment analysis and competitive benchmarking so you can identify trends and see areas for business improvement. If you want to build your review presence across multiple sites, you can. Podium lets you define how many customers are sent to which review sites for a robust review ecosystem. Other Podium features include message assignments, an easy-to-use mobile app, and multi-location listing management.
3. Software Integrations
Rize Reviews
Rize Reviews integrates with all major CRMs and POS systems. In addition, Rize Reviews integrates with 200+ review sites including Google, Facebook, YP.com, BBB, as well as many other niche, industry-specific sites that some competitors are missing. There is really no review site that Rize Reviews can’t work with!
Podium
Podium integrates with many popular business applications, including Salesforce, Square and QuickBooks. Podium makes sure your reviews show up on Facebook, Yahoo, and 20+ industry review sites. Podium has an API partnership with Google and Google My Business (GMB) integrations to make collecting and managing Google reviews easy and secure. One limitation is that integration with some review sites is limited.
4. Pricing
Rize Reviews
Rize Reviews offers a 14-day trial period for $5. From there, Rize Reviews doesn’t have just one price for every client, since it is determined by many factors. Depending on the business’ needs, number of locations, and more, the price range is typically between $150-$250 per month. For example, there might be discounts for signing up more locations with the service.
Podium
Podium has quote-based pricing, but service typically starts at $200/month on a yearly contract, which can be pricey for smaller businesses. Cancellation can also be a hurdle, with three months prior notice required in order to cancel your contract.
5. Technical & Strategic Support
Rize Reviews
Rize Reviews offers “white glove” customer service. Rize Reviews is with you every step of the way from set-up to management, saving you time to focus on more important business tasks. Whether you need technical help or are looking for strategic online reputation support, the Rize Reviews team is easily accessible to you.
Podium
Podium offers technical support via phone, online chat, and email, but customer support is limited after the initial set-up. Podium users can expect a more DIY approach in the day-to-day management of the platform. Podium does offer a robust library of training material and video to help tech-savvy users smooth out any kinks properly.
6. Conclusion: Rize Reviews vs. Podium
Since securing and managing reviews can be a time-consuming task, a comprehensive reputation management and marketing solution is needed, which is where Rize Reviews can help. Contact us to learn how to manage your online reputation with Rize Reviews, or fill out the form below to get started with your 14-day trial!
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