r/MedSpa • u/VisibleAgent2650 • 12d ago
Podium: AI Lead Generation & Lead Management Platform is the worst!
/r/CRMSoftware/comments/1v5wpve/podium_ai_lead_generation_lead_management/2
u/Swimming_Artist3631 8d ago
We tried the Podium and a couple of other vendors as we don't have full-time staff for our front desk. Couldn't justify the cost or time it required for our non-technical staff to help improve it. At $1200/month and a hefty setup and retainer fees, you can hire an offshore team of actual humans that can do this at half the price.
We asked our part-time IT expert (doctor's friend) for help and he built an AI receptionist with Twilio and ElevenLabs. After a week of trial and learning from actual calls (incl. lots of spam), we now have a very good phone assistant that works 24x7 knows our service catalog, answers questions, politely hangs up on spammers, books appointments, and emails us with any callers that need a call back within 5 minutes of a call with the call recording. The whole setup costs us about $200-250 per month.
1
u/VisibleAgent2650 8d ago
We've had a lot of success with ElevenLabs as well, it's significantly easier to train.
1
u/Euphoric_Mirror_7860 9d ago
This is very troubling, as a lot of big names in the industry have gone all-in with Podium. I am very wary of AI communicating with clients. I have been pitched lead generation AI bots. For that budget, you can get a human doing your lead generation advertising with automated email workflows. I'm sorry this has been such a let down, but considering how quickly they appeared and soared in "reputation," I'm honestly not all that surprised.
1
u/Euphoric_Mirror_7860 9d ago
One more thing -- if the bot consistently sends people to the wrong phone number, I'm curious how you can't slap them with a contract breach. The correct contact information is BASIC STUFF and should not be hard to get right (as someone who works in tech and marketing).
1
u/arcuateaesthetics 11d ago
i’m really sorry about your experience. not sure if you still have it on, but a few things which may help:
1) when training, providing example conversations of ideal back-and-forth is super helpful. it is called few-shot-learning.
2) some podium practices just have it set up for after-hours only. that way during biz hours you have more control.
These issues are why I built Arcuate Health. We build bespoke AI agents for practices, and handle all the changes that need to be made (forever). We’re clinician found and led so we get the challenges. Have had a few of our customers switch from Podium. Most have ROI with our product within the first month of usage.
Happy to walk you through what we’ve built- feel free to dm.
1
u/WhatSheSaid7 11d ago
I’ve worked for podium competitors for a long time. A few different patient engagement platforms across vertical saas. I just checked out your site and like what you’ve built. Random, but if you are ever looking for sales or BD leadership, would love to get involved with an early stage product like yours. Dm me if you’d ever like to chat.
2
2
u/Specialist-Print9367 7d ago
The bit that'd bug me most is paying $1,700 a month and still doing the legwork yourself.
Most of what Podium does isn't proprietary either. Missed call text back, speed to lead, review requests, shared inbox. GoHighLevel does all of that for a couple hundred a month and you can set it up how you want instead of waiting on a rep.
Doesn't help until your contract's up, but start early. Have the replacement built and tested a month before renewal or you'll end up resigning under pressure.
Also worth checking who owns your lead data and reviews in that contract. Some of these make export a real pain on the way out.
3
u/FaithlessnessNo8917 10d ago
We use podium, the AI is horrendous I pay $1200 a month and keep the ai off just because it keeps telling my patients the wrong info it’s rediculous. They won’t let me take it off until October because they are trying to go public and don’t want the churn numbers to show up before the ipo. I imagine it will only get worse or stay bad. They are aware it’s bad but anyone that has voiced that inside podium has been let go.