May 22/29, 2017: Volume 31, Issue 25
By Lindsay Baillie
Podium, a customer interaction platform, is looking to make it easier for flooring retailers to manage their online reviews and customer interaction. The company, which was founded in 2014 by Eric Rea and Dennis Steele, allows businesses to not only build and manage online reviews, but also drive interest with potential and existing customers through channels like text message. By collecting reviews, businesses can improve their local search optimization, which generally means they rank higher in search results to ultimately drive more business.
“We compare online reviews to the new word of mouth,” said Matt Boyce, director of demand generation. It is with this focus, he notes, that Podium has developed its platform and features.
Not to be confused with other platforms, Podium is not a traditional marketing company. What separates Podium from other platforms is its focus on helping businesses communicate and interact with their customers to get reviews and in-depth feedback.
“Podium offers a customer interaction platform that focuses on making the exchange of collecting customer feedback on key websites really easy,” Dallin Palmer, sales director, home services, explained. “We use a three-stage program to help retailers get found, get chosen and get insight into their business.”
One of Podium’s key features is its text messaging system that allows businesses to ask customers for reviews with a push of a button. By using this feature, businesses are able to request a customer review—to any device—seconds after a service is performed. According to the company, this increases the business’ probability of gaining more reviews.
Podium takes this feature a step further by generating an easy-to-use, interactive text message that allows the customer to choose which review site she would like to use. The list of review sites the customer sees is completely customizable by the business sending the text message. Podium has found that the top two platforms most businesses target are Facebook and Google. In addition, while the company doesn’t generate reviews on Yelp, it is an official Yelp Knowledge Partner, which means it can pull Yelp data for a business into the Podium platform, according to Palmer.
While the platform is available to all types of businesses, flooring retailers can really benefit from Podium’s products, Palmer explained. “For most flooring business owners in most areas you’ve got really stiff competition. We’ve found in situations where you’re selling a commoditized product, people are looking at the reviews and past experiences of others to learn about the services they will receive. Consumers leverage these reviews to make buying decisions.”
The ultimate goal, according to Palmer, is to change the paradigm. “We want to revolutionize the way local businesses go about communicating with their customers. It’s all about identifying the needs within this area.”