Over time, Corrigan has seen the impact of online reviews in influencing the customer journey. Today’s consumer is much more educated and savvy than ever before and they’ve conducted significant research online before they even walk through your doors. Because of this, Wilson Diamonds focuses on collecting reviews online. Prior to implementing Podium, most of the store’s online reviews came organically. If the salespeople thought about it, they would ask customers who had a good experience for a review, but it wasn’t something the staff was proactively seeking out.

“When people are buying jewelry, they typically come into the showroom three or four times before they make the purchase, so our salespeople are able to build good relationships with them over time,” related Corrigan. “Because of those relationships, it’s been a very seamless process for us to ask for and receive reviews from our customers since we implemented Podium.”

The feature in Podium that has been most helpful to the staff of Wilson Diamonds is the mobile application. It makes it very easy for salespeople to transition from closing a transaction to inviting customers to review the business. Corrigan has developed a number of scripts to help his staff know what the most effective methods are for securing reviews. One approach frequently used is they note that they are not paid on commission, but what the customer could do to help them out is to leave an online review and mention the salesperson by name. Another helpful feature is the Reviews Dashboard. Wilson Diamonds is currently running an incentive to motivate the staff to send invites. The ability to track invitations and reviews easily from a single location has been invaluable to Corrigan.

The biggest benefit Wilson Diamonds has seen since implementing Podium is an increase in the number of online reviews as well as the frequency at which they’re coming in. In just a short period of time, the business has collected hundreds of new reviews and boasts an average overall star rating of 4.9 across all review platforms. An additional benefit that Corrigan didn’t anticipate was the teamwork online reviews have fostered. “Everyone is notified when we get a new review,” concluded Corrigan. “And there has been an increase in camaraderie among our employees that has come as a result. It has helped our employees realize the joy they bring to our customers and that’s been really cool.”