In today’s digital world, online reviews and reputation management are critically important for local businesses.
According to a recent study, over 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a local business, and positive reviews make them more likely to visit. With review sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp being most people’s first stop when searching for local businesses, having a strong online presence and reputation is essential.
This is where online reputation management platforms like GatherUp and Birdeye come in. These tools allow businesses to monitor reviews, generate new reviews, respond to customers and analyze their online reputation. This article will compare the two leading options—GatherUp and Birdeye—to help local businesses determine the best choice for managing their reputation online.
GatherUp is an all-in-one platform that focuses on review generation, review monitoring across sites and social listening. It aims to help businesses get more reviews, respond quickly and turn feedback into insights. Birdeye takes a broader approach as an all-in-one marketing suite for local businesses. It includes reputation management features as well as website chat, business listings management and SEM tools.
GatherUp Overview
GatherUp is a review management and reputation platform founded in 2012 that helps businesses generate and manage customer reviews across the web. Its key features include:
- Review Generation: GatherUp makes it easy for businesses to collect reviews by sending review requests via email, SMS, business kiosk, or online. Customers can easily leave reviews on the businesses’ website or review sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp.
- Review Management: All reviews are centralized into one dashboard for the business to monitor and respond. Businesses can flag, hide or delete inappropriate reviews based on custom rules.
- Review Marketing: Showcase positive reviews on the company website or social media. GatherUp also pushes top reviews to the top of major sites like Google to boost visibility.
- Analytics: In-depth analytics and reporting provides insights into review volume, scores, sentiment, competitors and more to inform reputation management strategy.
- Integrations: GatherUp seamlessly integrates with Google, Facebook, Instagram and other sites to streamline review management and monitoring.
Overall, GatherUp aims to provide a complete review generation and management solution for businesses to control their online reputation.
Birdeye Overview
Birdeye is an online reputation management and review platform founded in 2007 by Naveen Gupta and Anurag Wadehra. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
Birdeye helps multi-location businesses manage their online presence and reputation across various sites. Some of the key features of Birdeye include:
- Review monitoring: Birdeye integrates with over 200 review sites to aggregate customer feedback in one dashboard.
- Review generation: Businesses can send review requests via email, SMS or QR codes to collect more reviews.
- Review responses: Businesses can publish public responses to reviews.
- Review sites integration: Birdeye offers deep integration with major sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp to syndicate reviews.
- Surveys: Businesses can create custom surveys to collect customer feedback.
- Social publishing: Publishes reviews to business’ social media profiles.
- Analytics: Provides insights into review volume, sentiment, and keywords.
Overall, Birdeye helps businesses manage their online reputation, generate more reviews, engage with customers and leverage reviews for marketing. The platform consolidates various reputation management activities into one solution.
Pricing Comparison
GatherUp offers two pricing plans: Single and Multi-Location.
The Starter plan is $99 per month and includes features like review generation and management, review site integration, reputation alerts, and custom surveys.
Birdeye has four pricing tiers: Starter, Basic, Plus, and Premium. The Starter plan is free and includes basic review management features. The Basic plan is $299 per month and adds review generation tools, alerts and notifications, and location management. The Plus plan is $399 per month with Yelp integration, custom surveys, and Google Posts. The Premium plan is $499 per month which includes multi-location support, advanced analytics, and custom reporting.
For small businesses, a far better option to both is ReputationStacker’s plans, starting at $79/mo.
Review Generation Capabilities
GatherUp and Birdeye both provide tools to help businesses generate more online reviews, but they differ in their approaches.
GatherUp automates review requests through email, SMS and printable review cards. It also offers review widgets businesses can add to websites and email signatures to collect reviews. Users can customize the review collection process with custom fields and scoring.
According to Capterra, GatherUp makes it easy to collect reviews at scale across locations with automated review requests, resulting in a higher volume of reviews.
Birdeye focuses more on review responses and reputation management than direct review generation. It does provide email and postcard review requests, but the main value is in monitoring reviews and using Birdeye’s templates to respond appropriately.
According to BrightLocal, Birdeye takes a more hands-on approach to review generation compared to the high level of automation from GatherUp. Birdeye may generate fewer reviews but provides more control over review responses.
In summary, GatherUp appears more effective for collecting a high volume of reviews automatically, while Birdeye focuses on careful review monitoring and response. The right platform depends on the business’s goals and resources for reputation management.
Integration with Review Sites
Review site integration allows reputation management platforms to automatically pull in reviews from major sites and centralize them for easy monitoring and response.
GatherUp integrates with over 25 review sites including Google, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie’s List. It automatically pulls in new reviews from these sites so businesses can view and manage all their reviews in one dashboard. According to GatherUp’s website, setup takes just a few minutes and requires no coding.
Birdeye also connects with all major review platforms including Google, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, and many more. It continually syncs reviews from across the web into its dashboard. Birdeye claims to have the deepest integration in the industry. Setup can be completed in under five minutes with their guided setup process.
Both platforms offer extensive integration capabilities to aggregate reviews from the top sites businesses care about. Birdeye touts the deepest integration, but GatherUp also connects with all the major players. For most businesses, the integration breadth should be sufficient on either platform.
Analytics and Reporting
Both GatherUp and Birdeye provide robust analytics and reporting to help businesses understand and improve their online reputation. Here’s an overview of each platform’s capabilities:
GatherUp offers real-time analytics and automatically generated reports that provide insights into review volume, sentiment, keywords, competitor benchmarking, and more. Businesses can view analytics by location, see response rates and times, and track the ROI of your reputation management efforts. Custom reporting and exporting options are available on higher-tier plans.
Birdeye also provides real-time analytics and benchmarking data. Birdeye’s reports include review sentiment tracking, response times, competitor comparisons, and tracking the impact of your marketing campaigns on reviews and reputation. Birdeye offers 60+ configurable reports and custom reporting options are available for premium users. Users mention Birdeye’s analytics as a major plus.
In comparing the two, Birdeye seems to have a slight edge in terms of the breadth and depth of reporting options, with GatherUp close behind. Birdeye’s longer history in the industry and larger customer base provides more aggregate data for benchmarking and comparison. However, both platforms offer excellent analytics with customizable options to gain data-driven insights into a business’s online reputation and customer experience.
Ease of Use Comparison
When it comes to ease of use, both GatherUp and Birdeye aim to provide intuitive platforms that make reputation management simple for businesses.
GatherUp prides itself on having an easy-to-use dashboard that allows businesses to get set up quickly. The platform has been designed to be user-friendly even for those without much technical expertise. According to reviews on G2, GatherUp’s simple and streamlined interface enables users to start generating and managing reviews right away.
Birdeye also offers a clean, modern dashboard for accessing key features. However, some users find the platform to have a steeper learning curve compared to GatherUp. There are more advanced configuration options that allow customization but can also introduce more complexity. While Birdeye provides onboarding and support, some users report needing a longer ramp-up period to use the platform fully.
In terms of overall user friendliness, GatherUp appears to have a slight edge. For businesses that want a solution they can pick up quickly without much training, GatherUp is likely the simpler choice. Birdeye offers more robust capabilities for larger businesses willing to invest time in setup and customization.
Ideal Users
When it comes to ideal users, GatherUp and Birdeye are better suited for different types of businesses:
GatherUp is ideal for:
- Small businesses with 1-2 locations: GatherUp has an affordable starter plan suitable for very small businesses.
- Service-based businesses like salons, spas, auto shops: GatherUp makes it easy to send review requests via SMS after a service is completed.
- Businesses focused on Google reviews: GatherUp has deep integration with Google Business Profile for easy review management.
Birdeye is better suited for:
- Larger multi-location businesses: Birdeye offers enterprise plans that can scale to any size business.
- Retail, restaurants and hospitality: Birdeye provides guest surveys and integrates with POS systems common in these industries.
- Businesses focused on Facebook reviews: Birdeye makes it easy to generate and manage Facebook reviews.
In summary, GatherUp excels at helping small service businesses generate Google reviews while Birdeye is ideal for larger multi-location businesses in retail or hospitality that want Facebook and other review integration.
Pros and Cons
When comparing GatherUp and Birdeye, it’s important to look at the pros and cons of each platform.
GatherUp
Some of the key pros of GatherUp include:
- Easy to use interface
- Automated review requests
- Integration with review sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp
- Affordable pricing plans
Some potential cons to consider:
- More limited features compared to Birdeye
- Less customization options
- Can only manage one business location per account
Birdeye
Birdeye’s main pros are:
- Robust platform with many features
- Can manage multiple locations
- Powerful social listening and analytics
- Highly customizable
The cons of Birdeye include:
- More complex interface with steeper learning curve
- Higher pricing than GatherUp
- Requires more hands-on management
In summary, GatherUp offers an easy-to-use solution at a lower price point but has limited capabilities, while Birdeye provides more advanced and customizable features but can be more complex and expensive. Businesses should weigh their specific needs and budget when deciding between the two platforms.
A Superior Reputation Management Platform
ReputationStacker stands out as the superior choice over BirdEye and GatherUp due to its user-friendly interface, affordability, and focused approach. While BirdEye and GatherUp offer a broad range of features that can be overwhelming and costly, ReputationStacker specializes in seamlessly automating review generation and management.
This targeted approach not only simplifies the process for businesses but also ensures a steady stream of positive feedback, enhancing online reputation without breaking the bank. For businesses looking to optimize their reputation management with ease and efficiency, ReputationStacker is the clear winner.
