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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 commend Birdeye's exceptional support, appreciating their quick assistance and ease of integration in managing customer relations.
Users commend the ease of use of Birdeye, praising its intuitive navigation and exceptional support throughout implementation.
Users appreciate the convenience of centralized review management with Birdeye, streamlined by excellent support and helpful features.
Users find the missing automation features in Birdeye limiting, impacting efficiency and real-time collaboration.
Users note that the AI chatbot needs improvement, as it struggles with complex queries and can frustrate customers.
Users find the dashboard confusing and struggle with integration and disputing 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 SOCi, enjoying streamlined management for multiple businesses in one platform.
Users commend SOCi for its effective post scheduling, enhancing relevance and traffic for their businesses effortlessly.
Users love the post scheduling feature of SOCi, which helps manage multiple businesses efficiently.
Users highlight missing features in SOCi, particularly the need for better accuracy monitoring and review management tools.
Users face posting issues with SOCi, struggling with platform limitations and timing confusion for their content.
Users express concerns about limited features, especially regarding the image library and social media management 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 love the ease of use of Reputation, enjoying features that enhance their workflow and efficiency.
Users highlight the ease of use and tracking of Reputation, praising its efficient review management capabilities.
Users appreciate the premade responses feature and value the intuitive interface and excellent customer service of Reputation.
Users express a need for improved functionality and support, particularly regarding reporting delays and template updates.
Users feel the platform lacks essential features for tracking reviews and requires better reporting on engagement.
Users report challenges with spam and misplaced reviews, which can significantly impact their overall scores and response 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 of Podium, facilitating seamless payments and customer communications.
Users appreciate the timely communication facilitated by Podium, leading to increased review completion and reduced no-shows.
Users love the effective communication capabilities of Podium, facilitating quick and professional interactions with clients.
Users struggle with messaging issues in Podium, finding it hard to keep track of large volumes of messages.
Users find the missing features frustrating, as updates hide options and lack essential tools for their needs.
Users find Podium's limited integration options and features hinder their ability to effectively manage communications and reports.
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 extensive features of HighLevel, enabling effective organization and maximizing business potential.
Users value the helpful support team of HighLevel, providing prompt assistance and effective communication for business needs.
Users praise the exceptional customer support of HighLevel, which greatly enhances their business management experience.
Users find the steep learning curve challenging, impacting their initial experience before becoming more manageable over time.
Users point out the missing features in HighLevel, particularly in workflow, third-party dialer, and JS/HTML capabilities.
Users face a steep learning curve with HighLevel, requiring time and effort to master its 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's ease of use excellent for managing multiple locations and ensuring accurate business information seamlessly.
Users value the quick response time and user-friendly service of Yext, praising its excellent customer support.
Users value the centralized management of Yext, streamlining updates across all store locations effortlessly.
Users find Yext's complex usability challenging, particularly regarding navigation, account management, and integration issues.
Users note a significant learning curve with Yext, although help and documentation are available to assist them.
Users find Yext to have a difficult learning curve, complicating initial usage and navigation of the platform.
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 NiceJob, simplifying customer review management and saving valuable time.
Users praise the increase in reviews and engagement from NiceJob, appreciating its seamless integration and automation features.
Users appreciate the effortless review management of NiceJob, simplifying the process and boosting their client feedback.
Users express frustration over the missing features in NiceJob, seeking a more versatile tool for customer engagement.
Users find NiceJob to be somewhat expensive, particularly for those on a tight budget or solo ventures.
Users experience communication delays and unclear onboarding steps, complicating their efforts and causing frustration.
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 Right Choice exceptionally easy to use, streamlining local marketing tasks into a single, efficient platform.
Users laud the 24/7 customer support of Right Choice, emphasizing its helpfulness and expertise in optimizing services.
Users praise the helpful all-in-one marketing solutions of Right Choice, streamlining local marketing and reputation management effortlessly.
Users express disappointment with the limited features of Right Choice, hoping for updates and enhancements soon.
Users note several software bugs, but appreciate the prompt resolutions from the support team and overall functionality.
Users experience some software bugs, but appreciate the team's prompt resolution of issues for improved performance.
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 their overall experience significantly.
Users highlight the ease of use of Liftify, appreciating its intuitive interface and exceptional customer service.
Users value the responsive customer service of Liftify, appreciating timely support and continuous platform improvements.
Users find the reporting inadequate, requiring extra effort to understand and communicate effectively within their teams.
Users find the access limitations frustrating, as not all features are available, hindering communication efficiency.
Users find that the AI tool can be repetitive in its replies, impacting the uniqueness of generated 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 of Experience.com, finding it simple to navigate and manage.
Users appreciate the exceptional customer service of Experience.com, praising prompt assistance and strong collaboration for business growth.
Users love the integrative capabilities of Experience.com, enhancing client engagement and review management effortlessly.
Users find the linking issues in Experience.com frustrating, preferring direct posting to other review sites.
Users struggle with manual review management, finding the process cumbersome and the dashboard not user-friendly.
Users find missing features in Experience.com, including difficulties with survey follow-ups and cumbersome image publishing.
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 very helpful for tracking employee performance and motivating through competitions and incentives.
Users praise the helpful and efficient customer support from Edge, noting quick resolutions and professional assistance.
Users find Edge to be user-friendly and easy to use, enhancing their overall experience with helpful notifications.
Users experience poor customer support, facing delays and complications with login and password reset issues.
Users find the learning curve challenging initially, especially when navigating the dashboard of Edge.
Users report a lack of important features, such as data transfer and account recognition, causing inconvenience.
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 and effective for managing business tasks.
Users appreciate the automation features of Thryv, making scheduling and follow-ups efficient and streamlined.
Users highlight the phenomenal customer support at Thryv, enhancing their overall experience with the software.
Users find the missing features in Thryv frustrating, particularly regarding reporting and email integration options.
Users find the learning curve steep with Thryv, requiring significant time and effort to master its features.
Users desire more robust reporting and customization options, along with better AI and SEO integration for emails.
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, particularly praising live chat assistance for prompt resolutions.
Users praise the helpful and quick customer service from the Reviews.io team, resolving issues efficiently.
Users find Reviews.io easy to use, with excellent support and seamless integration with existing systems.
Users find the pricing quite expensive for additional features, impacting their overall satisfaction with Reviews.io.
Users experience poor customer support, facing inconsistent responses and a lack of clear communication in resolving issues.
Users find the difficult navigation challenging, often struggling to locate review submission areas efficiently.
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, simplifying online reputation management and enhancing their digital marketing efforts.
Users find Synup incredibly helpful for automating tasks and managing online reputation effortlessly.
Users praise Synup's exceptional customer support, highlighting their responsiveness and helpfulness for businesses navigating challenges.
Users find the learning curve steep with Synup, as navigating its numerous features can be overwhelming.
Users find the feature limitations of Synup challenging, causing difficulty in fully utilizing the tool's capabilities.
Users find the difficult learning curve of Synup challenging, needing extra time to navigate its myriad 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's exceptional customer support, enhancing ease of use and facilitating effective social listening.
Users enjoy the user-friendly interface of YouScan, finding it easy to harness detailed insights for effective monitoring.
Users find YouScan's data access and AI insights incredibly helpful, enabling effective social media analysis and support.
Users find the learning curve steep, making it challenging for those unfamiliar with new technology to use YouScan effectively.
Users find the difficult learning curve a challenge, particularly in mastering search functionalities and navigating the system.
Users experience slow performance with YouScan, facing delays in alerts and time-consuming data collection.
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.