Press Releases

Podium Expands Interaction Management Platform with Launch of Teamchat

It will help local businesses centralize company interactions.

Published

5 years ago

May 22, 2019

INSTORE Staff

(PRESS RELEASE) LEHI, UT — Podium, the leading interaction management platform for local businesses, announced the addition of Teamchat to its existing suite of interaction management tools. The new communication solution will help local businesses centralize company interactions and allow employees to conveniently collaborate internally within the same platform used to interact with customers and vendors.

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With Teamchat, internal teams can exchange direct messages and group messages, include clickable links, send and receive attachments, and use mentions to help simplify and streamline internal communications. The solution centralizes interactions between team members, as well as between the company and customers.

“Podium Teamchat has allowed our teams to bring all our conversations into the same place, making it easy to collaborate on how to best help our fans,” says Ty Wardle, director of membership & sales services with the Utah Jazz. “Through the Podium Interaction Management platform, we’re able to easily manage every touchpoint with Jazz fans so we can maintain a superior customer experience while strengthening our business. Teamchat plays an integral role in this process because it empowers us to do more as a team by conveniently coordinating all our customer interactions.”

By centralizing interactions, employees can conveniently collaborate and drive leads into customers. Having conversations and sending information in context leads to better service for customers than simply sending memos, and convenient communication can help employees feel more engaged in work and improve camaraderie among coworkers. And unlike some other communication platforms, Teamchat has been specifically designed for local businesses.

“We set out to solve the review gap for local businesses, but in doing so, we found more pain points that we knew we could alleviate,” said Eric Rea, CEO of Podium. “This addition to our suite of interaction management solutions, will help make communication easier for these organizations in a way that email, text, and tools built for larger companies can’t. We know local businesses are the backbone of our economy—and our communities—and are dedicated to helping them be more efficient and successful.”

Founded in 2014, Podium is now working with more than 37,000 businesses. Creating more than 12 million customer interactions every month, nearly one in four (22%) U.S. smartphone owners have connected with a local business via Podium’s platform.

To learn more about Podium Teamchat, please visit podium.com/teamchat.

When There’s No Succession Plan, Call Wilkerson

Bob Wesley, owner of Robert C. Wesley Jewelers in Scottsdale, Ariz., was a third-generation jeweler. When it was time to enjoy life on the other side of the counter, he weighed his options. His lease was nearing renewal time and with no succession plan, he decided it was time to call Wilkerson. There was plenty of inventory to sell and at first, says Wesley, he thought he might try to manage a sale himself. But he’s glad he didn’t. “There’s no way I could have done this as well as Wilkerson,” he says. Wilkerson took responsibility for the entire event, with every detail — from advertising to accounting — done, dusted and managed by the Wilkerson team. “It’s the complete package,” he says of the Wilkerson method of helping jewelers to easily go on to the next phase of their lives. “There’s no way any retailer can duplicate what they’ve done.”