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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 and helpful support provided by Birdeye, enhancing their overall experience and efficiency.
Users highlight the ease of use of Birdeye, benefiting from its intuitive interface and excellent support.
Users love the convenient review management by Birdeye, fostering genuine connections and enhancing customer relationships effortlessly.
Users wish for missing features in Birdeye, particularly for automation and real-time collaboration functionalities.
Users note that the AI chatbot needs improvement as it struggles with complex queries and provides inconsistent responses.
Users find the dashboard confusing and struggle with the review dispute process in Birdeye.
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 SOCi, effectively managing multiple businesses and streamlining social media tasks.
Users find SOCi's post scheduling features intuitive, boosting their social media engagement effortlessly across multiple platforms.
Users love the post scheduling feature of SOCi, allowing efficient management of multiple businesses seamlessly.
Users express concerns about the missing features of SOCi, particularly regarding accuracy monitoring and social media integration.
Users experience posting issues with SOCi, finding it challenging to manage content across platforms effectively.
Users find SOCi's limited features hinder functionality, especially for listings accuracy and social media integration.
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 invaluable, enhancing job performance and improving their RepX scores effortlessly.
Users value the ease of use and effective review tracking of Reputation, enhancing their review management experience.
Users find the intuitive platform and excellent customer service of Reputation to be highly effective and convenient.
Users feel there is a need for improvement in reporting delays and user control over templates and features.
Users feel a lack of missing features such as robust tracking and stock image libraries hampers their experience.
Users find it frustrating that spam and misplaced reviews hinder their ability to manage reputations 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 Podium, finding it simple to manage payments and customer communications effectively.
Users find Podium to be extremely helpful for timely communication and generating more customer reviews.
Users love how Podium enhances communication, enabling quick, professional interactions and seamless message management.
Users face messaging issues with Podium, struggling to keep track of large volumes and retrieve past correspondence.
Users find that the missing features and complex updates make Podium less user-friendly, causing frustrations in accessibility.
Users find that Podium has limited features, especially lacking integration options and enhanced tracking capabilities.
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 extensive features of HighLevel, which help streamline their business organization and community integration.
Users value the helpful support team and appreciate the all-in-one organization features of HighLevel.
Users praise the exceptional customer support of HighLevel, making it invaluable for business growth and management.
Users find the steep learning curve challenging initially, impacting the ease of use while mastering HighLevel.
Users note the lack of advanced features in HighLevel, particularly regarding workflow and third-party dialer integration.
Users face a steep learning curve that requires consistent effort to keep up with changes and features.
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 ease of use of NiceJob, appreciating its intuitive setup and automation for gathering reviews.
Users commend NiceJob for its automated review requests, leading to increased engagement and simplified customer feedback collection.
Users praise NiceJob for its seamless review management, making it easy to collect and manage customer feedback effortlessly.
Users express frustration with NiceJob's missing features, desiring more comprehensive tools for customer engagement and website management.
Users find NiceJob to be somewhat expensive, with pricing concerns especially for solo business operations.
Users report communication delays and difficulties with onboarding, impacting overall satisfaction with NiceJob's features.
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 Right Choice, streamlining local marketing and reputation management effortlessly.
Users value the 24/7 expert customer support of Right Choice, ensuring seamless integration and assistance whenever needed.
Users value the ease of use and integration of Right Choice, simplifying local marketing and reputation management.
Users express disappointment over limited features and eagerly await updates for enhanced functionality and customization.
Users face some software bugs, but the team addresses these issues promptly, ensuring a smoother experience afterward.
Users experience minor software bugs, but appreciate the team's quick resolution and continuous improvements.
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 Liftify for its responsive customer support, enhancing the overall user experience and satisfaction.
Users commend Liftify for its ease of use, making review collection and integration seamless and efficient.
Users commend Liftify for its great accuracy and responsive customer service, making the platform user-friendly and effective.
Users struggle with poor reporting, requiring assistance to understand data and improve usability for better engagement.
Users face access limitations with Liftify, finding some features restricted, complicating tasks like mass texting.
Users find that the AI tool's repetitive replies diminish its effectiveness and uniqueness in generating content.
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 with Yext, simplifying management of multiple location listings from a central dashboard.
Users appreciate the quick reporting and user-friendly features of Yext, streamlining review management effectively.
Users value the centralized management of Yext, simplifying updates for multiple store locations effortlessly.
Users struggle with the complexity of usability, facing challenges with navigation and account management.
Users note a noticeable learning curve with Yext, but they find support and documentation helpful in overcoming it.
Users experience a difficult learning curve with Yext, making navigation and edits frustrating at times.
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 with Experience.com, finding it user-friendly and easy to navigate.
Users appreciate the exceptional customer service of Experience.com, receiving timely assistance and valuable support for their needs.
Users value the integrations with top review sites, enhancing credibility and client engagement through effortless management.
Users find the linking issues frustrating, as connecting accounts and publishing images is cumbersome and complicated.
Users find the review management process cumbersome, requiring manual intervention and often leading to frustration.
Users find the missing features of Experience.com, such as easy survey tracking, frustrating and cumbersome to use.
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, enabling smooth management of business processes and excellent support.
Users value the automation features of Thryv, simplifying task management and ensuring consistent follow-ups with leads.
Users praise the phenomenal customer support from Thryv, enhancing their overall experience and confidence in the software.
Users find the missing features in Thryv, like robust reporting and AI tools, quite frustrating and limiting.
Users note a significant learning curve with Thryv, making it challenging to utilize the platform effectively.
Users desire more robust reporting and greater customization for templates, advocating for improved AI and SEO tools.
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 Edge incredibly helpful, enabling them to monitor employee performance and motivate teams effectively.
Users commend the exceptional customer support of Edge, highlighting their professionalism and quick, efficient responses.
Users rave about the ease of use of Edge, finding it user-friendly and helpful for their needs.
Users find the customer support inadequate, experiencing delays and complications with login and password reset processes.
Users find the learning curve steep, as the dashboard can be initially confusing and requires adjustment.
Users experience missing features like data transfer limitations and account recognition issues, hindering overall usability.
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, especially appreciating Jenson's timely assistance.
Users praise the quick and helpful support from Reviews.io staff, ensuring efficient problem resolution every time.
Users find Reviews.io easy to use, appreciating its straightforward interface and excellent customer support.
Users find the pricing quite expensive for additional features, making it a strain for small businesses.
Users experience poor customer support, often facing inconsistent response times and ineffective communication in resolving issues.
Users find difficult navigation challenging for locating reviews and managing manual submissions, though they eventually adapt.
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 Synup, finding the platform streamlined and user-friendly for managing online reputation.
Users find Synup incredibly helpful for automating processes and providing valuable insights for better decision-making.
Users commend Synup's exceptional customer support, praising their responsiveness and assistance in navigating business challenges effectively.
Users find the learning curve steep due to the overwhelming features and complicated user interface of Synup.
Users notice feature limitations in Synup, finding it challenging to fully utilize its extensive capabilities effectively.
Users find the difficult learning curve of Synup challenging, needing more intuitive navigation to utilize its features 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 commend YouScan for its exceptional customer support, ensuring effective use and continuous improvements for better outcomes.
Users find YouScan to be exceptionally easy to use, enabling quick learning and effective social listening for all teams.
Users value the access to unique social media data and exceptional customer support offered by YouScan.
Users find the learning curve steep, making it difficult for those less tech-savvy to operate YouScan effectively.
Users find the difficult learning curve of YouScan challenging, though support and documentation help mitigate the issue.
Users experience slow performance with delayed alerts and challenging UX, affecting efficiency and immediate results.
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.