Imagine this: You've just moved to a new neighborhood and you want to go out for dinner. You do a quick Google search and come up with a few nearby restaurants in your price range.
Now, here's the million-dollar question. What do you do next?
If you're like 98% of consumers, you immediately check out some online reviews to help you decide which restaurant will get your business tonight.
Online reviews matter. In 2023, 74% of consumers report that online reviews increase their trust in a company, and 49% reveal that they trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.
As a business owner, you simply cannot afford to ignore the overwhelming impact and benefits of foregrounding and nurturing your business's online reputation. When handled right, the review generation and management process can help you improve customer experiences, compete more effectively in your niche, build your business's reputation, improve SEO, boost conversion rates, and allow you to make more efficient use of your time.
That being said, review generation and management is a big field to tackle. If you feel overwhelmed by it (or continually put it off because so many other priorities get in the way), you aren’t alone. That's why online reputation management software tools exist.
In this review, I’ll take a closer look at Rep.co, an up-and-coming reputation management platform, and explore how it helps businesses streamline the review generation and monitoring process while also leveraging it for maximum advantage.
Rep.co is a fully featured platform that streamlines and automates review generation and management for small businesses and agencies alike. Founded by small business owners Jacob Kettner and Nate Fischer in 2021, it was born from their combined experience generating and managing online reviews for clients and their vision of creating and offering a much-needed product. Rep.co distinguishes itself through its exceptional customization and service options. Its core features include review generation, review management, review monitoring, review marketing, reporting, and white label services.
As a digital marketing expert with a lot of experience with reputation management software, I'm a fan of Rep.co. It's a simple platform in the sense that it's dedicated to just one thing (reputation management), but don't let that fool you. Rep.co has been thoughtfully designed by business owners in the digital marketing trenches who understand firsthand the impact of reputation management done well. Attention has been paid to the pain points that other platforms have overlooked, and this gives Rep.co a really strong edge.
Even though Rep.co is young and still evolving, I've given it an overall rating of 4.5/5 stars because I believe it offers truly valuable services. I won't shy away from also providing some criticism, but you can expect this review to be overarchingly positive.
For what it offers, Rep.co's pricing is very affordable. Rep.co operates on a disruptive pricing model that charges for service based on the number of locations. Annual subscriptions come with a modest price reduction compared to monthly rates, but neither option is exorbitant.
Rep.co is extremely useful. Local businesses and agencies alike will benefit from the streamlined automation and customization options that its services incorporate.
Rep.co is a fully featured platform that offers thoughtful and customizable options for everything from review generation to review management, reporting, and white labeling services. I've refrained from giving it a full five stars simply because some of its competitors offer a wider selection of advanced features.
Rep.co has a simple and straightforward user interface with a no-frills feel that makes it intuitive to navigate and use. The business dashboard has a menu of options along the left-hand side that can be used to access features and make customizations. These include:
Now that we've gotten a sense of how the Rep.co platform is organized, let's dive a little deeper into its core feature offerings:
Rep.co's review generation software helps businesses reach out to customers, collect their feedback, and encourage them to post new reviews on various review platforms. The process of building social proof organically is vital to your business's success, but it doesn't happen overnight. Rep.co's software streamlines the process by using reliable and proven strategies (many of which can be automated to ensure consistency and free up your time) and helps you build your online reputation as efficiently as possible.
One great thing about Rep.co is that it allows businesses to reach out to customers via text or email and ask them for direct feedback. In this way, you can rectify and respond to negative feedback while keeping it private. Positive feedback, on the other hand, can be responded to with a request for permission to post it publicly on your preferred review platforms. This setup is ideal, allowing you to reap the benefits of improved customer experience without having to resolve negative comments in public.
Customizing your campaigns will allow you to get the most out of Rep.co's software. Once you've selected how you’d like messages to be sent to customers (SMS or email), what types of feedback you'd like to receive, and whether reviews will come to you directly or be posted to public review platforms or your website (or a combination, using Rep.co's threshold filter), Rep.co will take over and do the heavy lifting. Each business location you pay for comes with up to 500 emails and 100 SMS messages per month, which should be more than adequate for most small businesses. If you require more, you can contact Rep.co directly.
Keep an eye on what customers are saying with review notifications customized to your own personal preferences (e.g., only get notifications for positive or negative reviews). Real-time notifications allow you to stay on top of customer feedback and respond expediently to resolve any comments that may be negative.
Rep.co's review widget allows users to conveniently turn positive feedback into customer testimonials that can be displayed on their business's website. I really appreciate how simple Rep.co has made this process—especially because positive testimonials can dramatically boost local SEO and conversion rates.
Rep.co's reporting feature enables users to automatically schedule customized reports and keep tabs on how their review generation campaigns are unfolding. Metrics include how many reviews you've collected, your business's overall rating, and which sites are generating the most reviews. This information can help business owners tweak their campaign strategies and overall approach to reputation management as needed.
Here's your opportunity to rebrand Rep.co's reputation management software as your own and provide it to your clients without having to lift a finger. I really feel that this option is a wonderful opportunity for a wide range of businesses that don't have the time or capacity to build their own reputation management systems from the ground up to reap the benefits of Rep.co's proprietary software.
Rep.co offers a very complete white label service for digital marketing agencies, B2B businesses, local SEO businesses, social media marketing agencies, and more. Taking advantage of this service can free you up to spend more time focusing on your areas of expertise and helping your clients directly. In addition, I've had only positive experiences with Rep.co's responsive support team.
As I mentioned earlier, Rep.co's pricing scheme is based on the number of business locations you require service for. For just one location, you'll pay $25 per month or $285 annually. But the price per location reduces as you add more locations. For instance, if you've got 25 locations being served by Rep.co, you'll pay an average of $14.41 per location per month (total payment of $360.25) or $164.27 per location annually ($4,106.85 in total).
All in all, Rep.co's pricing is straightforward and competitive. There are no tiers or varying levels of service.
While I'm a fan of Rep.co, there are quite a few other review generation and reputation management solutions out there. Some of them are standalones like Rep.co, while others are part of more comprehensive digital marketing platforms.
For me, Rep.co's focus on customization and white labeling services set it apart from the crowd. That being said, you can check out SerpFocus's posts titled Top 10 Review Management Software In 2023 and Podium Vs. Birdeye Vs. Rep.co for more in-depth looks at how the platform compares to its competitors.
To conclude, Rep.co is a dedicated review generation and reputation management platform that's relatively new on the digital marketing software scene. Though it lacks the advanced features that come with some of its bigger and more established competitors, I believe its exceptional customization options and white labeling services make it a standout and a service to keep your eye on.
If you're looking for a fully featured reputation management software option that's efficient, customizable, and can scale with your business, Rep.co may be the perfect solution.
For more information about review generation and reputation management or to discuss any other digital marketing topics, contact me directly at SerpFocus.
