Having Trouble Getting Reviews? Take a Look At Our Favorite Software

As a marketing guy and lifelong fan of technology, I’m always evaluating software and apps that will make a company more efficient and not complicate the workflow.
I’m often asked about how to make the process of collecting and generating online reviews easier. Even the happiest of clients can be slow to follow through on leaving a review, or maybe they get stuck somewhere in the process and lose interest.
After a lot of experimentation, I have a software that I feel 100% comfortable recommending. But first, here are a few quick tips to keep in mind.
3 Tips for Making Reviews Part of Your Workflow
And that’s half the battle: it HAS to be part of your workflow:
- Make a goal. You set lead count goals, so why not review goals? Talk about it with your team, give them ownership over the process, and set clear goals with clear incentives (if possible).
- Make it part of your process. Don’t leave it to chance. Ask clients for a review and make it easy for them. This is where the right technology really comes into play (more on that below).
- Track it. See where your reviews are coming from, where the most are being shared, and which of your team members are making it happen.
Podium: My Favorite Program for Reputation Management
I stumbled across this program a number of years ago, and liked it so much that I became a referral partner and reseller in December of 2020.
I must’ve been onto something! Google recently invested heavily (and exclusively) in Podium as a reputation management software, clearly seeing the same value.
Going Deeper Than Reputation Management Alone
Podium is actually a messaging platform.
Think Facebook Messenger, only with far more features and more universal. It relies on text messaging (SMS) prospects and clients, and then those replies come through the Podium messaging dashboard making them easy to track and manage.
Podium also integrates with Facebook Messenger, Apple Messenger, Google Business Messages, and a few others, meaning that any of those chat streams you have going are all organized and funneled through your Podium dashboard. No more chasing messages, missing replies, or digging through old conversations to find a specific client or prospect.
You can also assign messages to other team members, letting the right people handle specific chats.
Get More Reviews for Your Business with Podium
One of the key features that Podium offers, and one of the reasons why I started using and recommending it, is that they make it easy to get reviews. In fact, Podium says that the home services industry should be getting between 30% to 40% of their customers to leave reviews online using their platform. That’s the data they’ve seen when customers utilize their tool on a regular basis!
How does it work?
- You look up the customer’s name and/or phone number in the software
- Click a template message (like “review us”) from a dropdown menu
- Hit send
The customer will get the text message with a link to leave the review. The default setting sends them to Google Reviews, but you can set it up for Houzz, Facebook, etc.
Leadership Board
I am a huge fan of getting your technicians (or crew) to help get more reviews. It’s a team effort! Podium said that they see the best results when a crew member in the field uses their software right when they finish a job, and before they leave the property. This is where they see 30% to 40% of customers leaving a review.
Podium has a leadership board in their platform that allows admins to review who is sending links and getting the most reviews. You can use this information perhaps as a fun contest, or to manage a bonus system (pay for performance).
I’m not going to dig too deeply into the other features here — that’s content for another post. But just as a quick recap, Podium also offers:
- Surveys & Feedback (NPS score)
- Payments (accept payments via text)
- Centralized inbox
- Team chat
- Private 1 on 1 chat
- Web chat
- Video chat
- SMS campaigns, and more

Podium is a software that your entire company will end up using, from the initial engagement with a prospect to the sales team, crew, front office, and/or billing staff. I just scratched the surface on what Podium is able to do, but I think it is something worth exploring. I am happy to walk you through a demo and answer any questions you might have about the product.
Podium has allowed me to offer several different price points that are exclusive to A David Creation, starting as low as $99/month. Reach out to learn more about how Podium can help not only grow your online reviews but your entire customer experience!