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Buyer's Guide: Online Reputation Management
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the quick support team and find Birdeye easy to integrate and use for customer engagement.
Users highlight the ease of use of Birdeye, appreciating its intuitive navigation and excellent support throughout the process.
Users value the convenience of centralized review management and appreciate the effective support and auto-reply features.
Users desire missing automation features in Birdeye, including social media management and improved real-time collaboration.
Users note that the AI chatbot requires improvement as its responses can be inconsistent and unhelpful for complex queries.
Users find the dashboard usability lacking, leading to confusion and difficulty in managing and disputing reviews.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the ease of use of SOCi, effectively managing multiple businesses with helpful AI features.
Users appreciate the ease of post scheduling with SOCi, boosting engagement and simplifying social media management.
Users love the post scheduling feature of SOCi, enabling efficient management of multiple business's social media effortlessly.
Users are frustrated with missing features in SOCi, particularly around accuracy monitoring and review management.
Users face posting issues with SOCi, struggling with platform limitations and timing of their posts.
Users express concerns about limited features, hindering effective asset management and social media integration within SOCi.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users find the ease of use in Reputation enhances their workflow and boosts their performance consistently.
Users appreciate the ease of use and effective review tracking provided by Reputation, enhancing their management experience.
Users appreciate the intuitive platform and helpful customer service that enhance their experience with Reputation.
Users express the need for improvement in reporting delays and more user-friendly features for better experience.
Users are frustrated with the missing features for tracking reviews and the lack of image quality improvements.
Users find it frustrating that spam and misplaced reviews can negatively impact their scores and response times vary.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the ease of use with Podium, highlighting effortless payment processing and streamlined communication with customers.
Users appreciate the ease of communication with customers through Podium, leading to increased review completion rates.
Users love the efficient communication features of Podium, enhancing client interactions and streamlining project management.
Users experience messaging issues with Podium, finding it overwhelming to keep track of numerous inquiries efficiently.
Users find the missing features in Podium frustrating, often leading to confusion and accessibility issues.
Users find Podium has limited features such as lack of integration and inadequate reporting for optimal efficiency.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users love the extensive feature set of HighLevel, appreciating its organization and community support for business growth.
Users appreciate the helpfulness of HighLevel's responsive team and innovative features that meet diverse business needs.
Users praise the exceptional customer support of HighLevel, highlighting its importance for business growth and success.
Users find that the steep learning curve of HighLevel can complicate initial usage, despite eventual ease of learning.
Users notice a lack of missing features, particularly with dialer functionality and website enhancements on HighLevel.
Users find the steep learning curve challenging, requiring consistent effort to master HighLevel's many features and updates.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users find Yext to be user-friendly, simplifying the management of multiple location listings seamlessly.
Users value the quick reporting and user-friendly interface of Yext, complemented by excellent customer support.
Users value the centralized management of Yext, simplifying updates across multiple store locations effortlessly.
Users find Yext's interface to have complex usability, with a learning curve and limitations in customization options.
Users note a significant learning curve with Yext, though support and documentation help ease the process.
Users often face a difficult learning curve with Yext, making navigation complex and frustrating initially.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users love the ease of use of NiceJob, appreciating its straightforward setup and user-friendly automation for reviews.
Users value the increase in reviews and engagement from NiceJob, simplifying customer feedback collection significantly.
Users love the effortless review management offered by NiceJob, making client feedback collection incredibly simple and effective.
Users feel that NiceJob has missing features, lacking broader capabilities for customer engagement and website functionality.
Users find NiceJob to be somewhat expensive, particularly for solo operations or those on tight budgets.
Users report frustrating communication delays and unclear onboarding, complicating the overall experience with NiceJob.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users commend the responsive and helpful customer support of Liftify, enhancing overall satisfaction and service experience.
Users find Liftify's platform extremely easy and intuitive, enhancing their ability to collect valuable customer reviews effortlessly.
Users commend the excellent customer service of Liftify, noting quick responses and helpful support for their needs.
Users find poor reporting in Liftify challenging, though support helped improve understanding of the reports available.
Users face access limitations with Liftify, as some features remain unavailable, hindering efficient communication.
Users find the content repetition in Liftify's replies frustrating, wishing for more unique responses.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the ease of use of Right Choice, enjoying a streamlined approach to local marketing and management.
Users value the 24x7 customer support of Right Choice, which enhances their experience and ensures effective assistance.
Users appreciate the expert product knowledge and 24x7 support, enhancing their experience with Right Choice.
Users express frustration over limited features, hoping for enhancements in tracking, reporting, and interface design.
Users report encountering minor software bugs, but appreciate the quick response in fixing them effectively.
Users experience minor software bugs, but appreciate the quick response in resolving these issues promptly.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users highlight the ease of use of Experience.com, making navigation and review management effortless and efficient.
Users appreciate the user-friendly setup of Experience.com, making it easy to start and engage clients effectively.
Users appreciate the powerful review management and integrations that enhance client engagement and legitimacy effortlessly.
Users find linking issues frustrating, emphasizing the need for a simpler connection process within Experience.com.
Users find the review management process cumbersome, needing manual intervention instead of automation for sending reviews.
Users find missing features frustrating, particularly for tracking surveys and publishing images efficiently on Experience.com.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users find helpful features in Edge, enhancing employee engagement and motivating performance through insights and competitions.
Users praise the efficient and responsive customer support of Edge, highlighting quick resolutions and smooth interactions.
Users find Edge to be user-friendly and easy to use, enhancing their overall experience and satisfaction.
Users find the poor customer support frustrating due to complications in logins and slow response times.
Users find the learning curve steep, especially when navigating the initial complexities of the dashboard.
Users find the missing features in Edge inconvenient, particularly with data transfer and account recognition issues.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users praise the quick and helpful customer support from Reviews.io, enhancing their experience with immediate issue resolution.
Users value the quick and helpful support from Reviews.io, ensuring efficient resolutions to any issues.
Users find Reviews.io easy to use, with helpful support and seamless integration enhancing their review process.
Users note that the pricing can be quite expensive, especially for additional features and product grouping.
Users express frustration with poor customer support, citing inconsistent response quality and lack of clear communication on solutions.
Users find difficult navigation challenging, making it hard to locate and write reviews effectively.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users appreciate the ease of use of Thryv, finding it intuitive for managing business processes effectively.
Users appreciate the automation capabilities of Thryv, simplifying tasks and enhancing follow-ups seamlessly.
Users appreciate the phenomenal customer support from Thryv, enhancing their experience with the software's comprehensive features.
Users express frustration over missing features, like robust reporting and unsaved drafts, impacting their workflow.
Users find the learning curve challenging, with the training not translating well to practical application.
Users feel the reporting and customization limitations hinder their experience and usability of Thryv.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the ease of use of Synup, enhancing their online reputation management effortlessly and effectively.
Users find Synup incredibly helpful for automating tasks, enhancing online presence, and providing valuable insights.
Users commend Synup for its exceptional customer support, finding it responsive and invaluable for business growth.
Users find the learning curve steep, requiring time to navigate and effectively utilize Synup's extensive features.
Users find feature limitations in Synup that can complicate usability despite its extensive offerings.
Users find the difficult learning curve of Synup challenging, as navigating its numerous features can be overwhelming.
This description is provided by the seller.
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Users value the exceptional customer support from YouScan, enabling quick learning and effective tool utilization.
Users appreciate the user-friendly interface of YouScan, enabling quick mastery and effective social listening capabilities.
Users highlight the access to unique social data and exceptional customer support, enhancing their social listening experience.
Users find the learning curve steep, making it challenging for less technical team members to utilize YouScan effectively.
Users find the difficult learning curve of YouScan challenging, especially with its complex features and search functionalities.
Users experience slow performance with delayed alerts and data collection, impacting timely insights and overall usability.
Online reputation management software, also known as review management software, is designed to help businesses monitor their online reviews across many review platforms. These solutions help companies identify and respond to negative reviews, promote positive customer experiences, and solicit new reviews from their customer base. Most products also contain functionality for monitoring brand mentions across social media channels.
In addition to aggregating reviews, online reputation management platforms interpret and analyze review data to provide an overall picture of a brand’s reputation. These tools use sentiment analysis to determine positive, negative, or neutral emotion, enabling users to quickly discover unsatisfied customers and remedy the situation if necessary. Businesses also use online reputation management software to capture positive customer experiences and leverage them as social proof.
Online reputation management software can take a proactive or reactive approach to customer reviews. Reactive platforms exclusively provide review monitoring tools to either identify positive reviews or send alerts in case of negative reviews. Proactive products, on the other hand, provide tools such as review request forms, surveys, SMS marketing, and other mechanisms for review generation. Depending on a company’s strategies for review generation and customer experience, certain proactive, reactive, and hybrid response products can provide great overall benefit.
Online reputation management platforms offer a range of features that enable businesses to gather, monitor, analyze, and distribute customer reviews.
Customer feedback: Online reputation management products are designed to scrape reviews from a variety of review platforms and store them as historical records. This allows users to view all their online reviews from one centralized platform, rather than manually checking individual review sites. In addition to collecting reviews, online reputation management tools use feedback data to help businesses analyze their brand reputation, customer sentiment, and customer demographics.
Review generation: Most online reputation management platforms provide one or more methods for generating new customer reviews. Common tools for review generation include web forms and invitations to fill out surveys via email, SMS, or messaging platforms. As a result, many products integrate with or offer features from other popular software solutions, such as email marketing software, live chat software, and SMS marketing software.
Competitive intelligence: Companies may wish to benchmark their reputation performance against their competitors’ to see how they stack up. Online reputation management platforms offer competitive intelligence features that enable users to monitor their competitors’ reputations and customer sentiment in real time. Competitive intelligence data can help a business identify gaps in their competitors’ offerings and leverage this knowledge to improve their products or marketing strategies.
Sentiment analysis: Many online reputation management products incorporate natural language processing (NLP) software algorithms to analyze the text of a review or social media message and assign it a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment. Sentiment analysis gives users greater visibility into how customers are feeling and makes it easier to identify the most common issues or frustrations customers are raising.
Social media marketing: In online reputation management platforms, social media marketing tools help businesses engage in social listening and respond to customers on social networks. As a growing number of consumers share their experiences online, businesses need to be aware of what customers are saying about them on social media. These tools enable companies to respond quickly to customer complaints as well as promote positive customer experiences.
Other Features of Online Reputation Management Software: Digital Media Monitoring Capabilities, Employee Performance Capabilities, Revenue Reporting Capabilities, Social Media Management Capabilities, Team Workflow Capabilities
Online reputation management software can be beneficial across many different areas of business. While the main function of online reputation management platforms is to gather and interpret customer reviews, these products also provide capabilities for turning bad reviews into positive customer experiences, generating new reviews, and improving a company’s website ranking on search engines.
Review management: Most online reputation management software comes with tools for users to monitor keywords and brand mentions. Different alerts can be automated to signify positive and negative reviews as well as customer inquiries. Since it’s nearly impossible to delete or hide reviews, online reputation management products allow teams to identify users who expressed negative experiences. Instead of reporting the review or complaining to the reviewer days, weeks, or months later, companies can quickly ask about the problems and remedy the issues. If a business can fix or alleviate the complaint, customers are more likely to recommend a product or edit their review. Additionally, when businesses respond publicly to negative reviews, it demonstrates to potential customers that the company cares about providing a positive experience.
Review automation: It can be difficult for businesses to gather positive, verified feedback from real customers, but online reputation management software makes the process easier with capabilities for collecting reviews from a business’ customer base. These products come equipped with customizable surveys and forms that can be sent to customers, usually via email or SMS. Advanced solutions offer workflows to automate review generation. For example, a review request may be sent to a customer after they make a purchase or finish a conversation with customer support. Most products will enable businesses to collect customer reviews for a variety of review sites, social media platforms, and search engines, although some may focus on only one channel.
Reputation monitoring: With so many channels available for consumers to share their experiences with a product or business, it can be difficult for companies to gain an overall view of their brand’s reputation. Online reputation management platforms monitor multiple outlets where consumers may be leaving feedback about a business, so marketers and business owners don’t have to worry about tracking a dozen different review sites, directories, and social media channels. Review management software allows them to see all their brand’s reviews and ratings from a single dashboard. These solutions also enable businesses to view historical performance, which can be useful for understanding how a brand’s reputation has changed over time.
Search engine optimization (SEO): Online reputation management software can help businesses improve their website’s ranking on search engines. In local searches, search engine algorithms favor businesses with more reviews and higher ratings. Testimonials and customer reviews are also a great source of user-generated content, which businesses can post on social media as part of their SEO strategy.
Online reputation management software provides numerous benefits and features for both internal and customer-facing teams.
Customer service: Customer service teams use online reputation management software to monitor review sites for new customer feedback. Users can be alerted when a negative review is posted, so customer service reps can respond immediately. If a rep can resolve the complaint, the customer may feel inclined to edit their review and give the business a more favorable rating.
Marketing teams: Marketers use online reputation management platforms to source marketing materials. Positive customer reviews and testimonials are a valuable form of social proof and can be leveraged in digital advertising, social media marketing, and other promotions. Online reputation management products also provide important customer demographic data, which marketers can use to assess their marketing campaigns and create targeted campaigns that align with the customers’ demographics.
Product managers: While product managers may not interact with online reputation management software directly, they can greatly benefit from the data the platforms provide. If many customers write reviews complaining about the same product feature, online reputation management solutions can capture their feedback and identify the product feature as a common issue for customers. This information can help product managers understand pain points within their product and make improvements for future versions.
Related solutions that can be used together with online reputation management software include:
Social media monitoring software: Some online reputation management platforms offer features of social media monitoring software. These tools help companies listen for a specific brand or keyword mentions across social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Businesses use social media monitoring software to analyze customer sentiment, respond to positive or negative mentions, identify social trends, track competitors, and discover influencers.
Enterprise feedback management software: While online reputation management software collects a business’s reviews from external sources, enterprise feedback management (EFM) allows businesses to gather and store customer feedback internally. Companies use EFM applications to build surveys, solicit feedback, and calculate net promoter scores (NPS). The data collected through enterprise feedback management platforms can be distributed and leveraged throughout many different departments in an organization.
Product reviews software: E-commerce businesses use product reviews software to host reviews of products on their websites. These reviews help brands measure customer satisfaction, identify unhappy customers, and improve their products and customer experience. Though there is little overlap, some product review solutions also provide features of online reputation management software.
Local listing management software: Online reputation is an important consideration for local businesses, which often rely on word of mouth, reviews, and online visibility to improve their foot traffic and sales. As a result, many online reputation management products contain features of local listing management. These solutions allow businesses to manage and update their online listings across directories, apps, and websites, ensuring a positive customer experience and improving local SEO.
Depending on a business’ specific requirements and capabilities, adopting an online reputation management software can pose a few challenges.
Compliance requirements: Some industries must comply with certain standards to protect sensitive data or consumer privacy. For example, businesses in the healthcare industry must ensure their patients’ data remains confidential by working with software vendors that comply with HIPAA. If this is the case for a business, they must seek out vendors that promote compliance and ask about their privacy and security safeguards.
Responding to negative feedback: Not all reviews are going to be positive. Some customers are simply looking for a place to vent their frustrations, while others have genuine concerns or constructive feedback. It’s important to always respond to negative reviews—users must not ignore, delete, or hide negative reviews, as this can further erode the customers’ trust. Before implementing an online reputation management solution, businesses must establish the dos and don’ts of responding to reviews and make sure their team understands these guidelines. There are many resources online that advise on how to respond to negative reviews.
Siloed information: Online reputation management tools should be adopted by all stakeholders for a business to realize the product’s full potential. Ownership of the software may lie with only one department, but customer service and marketing teams should both be involved in the process of review management. By working together, marketing and customer service teams can respond effectively to negative feedback, resolve issues, and promote brand advocacy through positive reviews. Product managers should be looped in as necessary when customers make suggestions for new features or mention a bug.
Whether a company is purchasing an online reputation management solution for the first time or looking to replace their current system, G2.com can assist buyers with the selection process.
Generally, the most important considerations for this type of software are the feature set, pricing, integrations, and customer support. Businesses should create a list of requirements based on their desired outcomes for the product, for example:
Create a long list
Using their unique list of requirements, buyers should create a long list of potentially viable online reputation management products. They can consult online review sites like G2.com to find out which solutions are the most popular or have the highest satisfaction ratings. Take this opportunity to learn how the vendor manages their online reputation.
Create a short list
After creating a long list, buyers should narrow down their selections by eliminating the products that won’t meet their business needs. Pricing, integrations, compliance, and support may be factors that contribute to a product’s suitability.
Conduct demos
All products on the buyer’s shortlist should be vetted by conducting demos. This is an opportunity to find out how a product works firsthand, so buyers must come prepared with questions guided by the requirements gathering conducted at the beginning of the selection process. If the product will be used by multiple teams within the company -- for example, marketing and customer service -- they can ask the vendor to walk through the product’s features for each persona.
Choose a selection team
The organization should involve any relevant personas as early as possible in the selection process. With review management software, it will be necessary to consult both managers and individual contributors in marketing and customer service departments, as they will likely be the heaviest users of the platform. The selection team should also consist of a project manager to coordinate efforts and ensure the process runs smoothly.
Negotiation
Before signing a contract, it is imperative to open up a conversation about pricing and contract length. While a few vendors may not budge on pricing, most will offer flexible pricing plans based on the exact features the business needs or the length of the contract.
Final decision
To conclude the selection process, and before going all in, it is suggested to run a pilot program with a small group of users. If the platform meets all the requirements and is well received, the buyer can be confident in rolling out the platform to the rest of the company. If not, it might be time to try another product from the short list.
Social media
While only a small percentage of customers will take the initiative to write a review for a business without being asked, many more are likely to mention a brand, product, or service on social media. As a result, businesses need to invest in social listening if they are serious about managing their online reputation. Many online reputation management products provide enhanced social media monitoring features that enable users to track brand mentions, engage with customers, search and filter discussions, and identify trending topics. These tools can even help businesses engage in social customer service.
Natural language processing
It is increasingly common for reputation management tools to have built-in natural language understanding (NLU) capabilities to assist with keyword tagging, topic clustering, and sentiment analysis. These features make it possible not only for businesses to monitor their reviews, but to make data-driven decisions based on emerging trends and customer sentiment. For products that leverage artificial intelligence to consolidate and analyze customer feedback from other channels and not just review sites, buyers can browse G2’s category for feedback analytics software.