Replying in reverse order...

Andrew:
Edmunds is doing something like that. It is moderated and requires approval. I sent a couple of tests -- one legit, one semi-legit but spammy (as if written by the dealer), and one that was clearly a bashing that was poorly written.

The legit one went through fine. The spammy one was edited to remove a link that I tried to sneak in. The bashing was heavily edited, but the ratings (zero across the board) stuck.

Overall, I was extremely impressed. It would be a massive undertaking that would fall under many catch-22s. First, to generate income, it would have to accept advertising without accepting dealers. That would be a problem, considering the IT and moderating manpower required. Edmunds is making nothing, perhaps losing money on the venture, but they don't mind because it's just a value-add to them for traffic. They are already considered "neutral" so they can do whatever they need to do to draw traffic.

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Laura:
Great link. Nancy Miller (Wired Mag Editor) is someone whose opinion I respect.

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Jeff:
I like your choices. I just hope you have the time or a budget. To make it work (which it definitely can and should) will require some planning, hard work, and babying for a while. Consider professionals (unless you are a pro-blogger, of course) or plan on at least a couple of hours a day, 5 days a week, just to do the bare minimum to get it built.

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Ryan:
You know I'm a supporter of your work. Keep it up!

Online reputation management is an important issue for all businesses and auto dealers in particular. Buying a new or used car is still considered to be one of the worst retail experiences for many consumers.

70 percent of car buyers get price and product information from the Internet before they contact a dealer. Increasingly consumers are also Googling “Dealer Name” + complaint to find and eliminate dealers with “consumer issues”. This will dig up even old postings. Consumers are more likely to use a dealer with no complaints than one that has even a few complaints.

Of course the real problem with user generated content is that often you don’t know the motivation of the individual poster. Is the poster a dissatisfied prospect, a disgruntled employee or competitor? But even fake comments are likely to influence consumers more than anything that you tell them.

Another challenge to managing your reputation is that not all posts and comments are publicly visible. The content of paid sites like angieslist will not show up in searches. So unless you subscribe to such sites and visit them often you will not know if your being “flogged”.

Clearly, managing your online reputation is a difficult task that will only get worse. What I think is needed is a service that enables dealers to create a credible online rating similar to ebay’s merchant ratings. A site that can’t be gamed and only allows feedback from actual customers. A credible and robust rating would go a long way to counter “flogging” and most likely would attract high value customers.

this was a topic of discussion on npr-talk of the nation a few months back...

Thanks all for some great ways to overcome such a scenario.

What about this?

Now I haven't mapped this all out yet and would like others input, but I would like to do one or more of the following:

1. An open car shoppers blog marketed to the dealership's selling area, to allow your and your competitor's customers to post their shopping experience; good or bad. Great way to learn and adjust processes accordingly.

2. Create, manage, and promote a blog pertaining to only your dealership for all of the dealership customers to: hopefully praise the great sales or service experience, or vent on any known/unknown dissatisfaction of the visit to allow the dealership to rectify issue before becoming out of control.

Or this next option which Im in the process of doing...

3. Create a personal blog specifically for your internet customers to reference. I imagine the front page with some sold customer photos and testimonials and since I already take 5-10 photos to send to buyer's friends on day of delivery and on anniversary thereafter on day of purchase. Then other pages on satisfaction of shopping experience, satisfaction of vehicle, and the list can go on and on. Can't speak for other IM's, but for long distance customers we're trying to build the trust with, I think would be a great reference.

All of these options would at least give the customer a way to 'vent' on what they consider to be a poor experience before creating their own blog which would be alot more for us or the dealership to overcome once posted.

All comments welcome please.

Excellent point, J.D. Situations like this are an opportune time for dealers to recruit more business. The challenge, of course will be in catching it before too long. One of the most famous "flog" stories of all time is of Kryptonite Evolution 2000 U- Lock hacked by a Bic pen where the lock company did not respond quickly enough to the negative press on Engadget.com which resulted in detrimental damages to its business.

In the case for car dealers and with today's better awareness of things like this, situations like this can be handled more effectively. If the dealership does not have a blog and something like this occurs then the best means of attack/defense is to start taking an active (day-to-day) role with the plaintiff blog site to do some damage control, as some of the people here have commented.

Simultaneously, the dealership needs to launch a counter-campaign on the subject through his own site (or blog). You do not need a blog dedicated to the issue because that would be a poor use of resources, but for a few hundred dollars a month dealers could add a "content channel" to their blog focused on its service level commitment. For more about content channels please visit our site.

While flogging is different from a public display of dissatisfaction from a customer off-line, the means of countering can have an equal impact. With a little effort and dedication, dealers should be able to get their counter-campaign at least as visible as the smear campaign.

Great topic,
-Ryan Gerardi

To me, the best case scenario is to do as Jeff recommended -- turn the negative into a positive. Instead of the top blog headline being "John Doe Ford Ripped Me Off", it gets bumped down on the blog or deleted altogether, replaced by "John Doe Ford Really Cares About Their Customers". That sort of sentiment in a high listing on the SERPs is awesome.

Dealers need to enter "Internet 2007". I would venture a guess that no other market that relies so heavily on the Internet has a lower percentage of stores with blogs. It is great for marketing, SEO, and can act as a "Flog Shield".

If a customer is searching for your dealer name, they are looking for you. They will click on you right up top where they expect to find you. Flogs (I love the coined term, by the way) will then only have a negative effect on customers who notice them before they are able to click on the dealer.

A high quality dealer blog will greatly reduce the chances of the flog getting noticed. While I respect Umer's suggestion of posting a spam blog as one way of handling it, I think there is a better approach.

If you put your name on it, why would you want it to be low quality? Some people will click on it. Those who do will want to gain something from it.

There are companies out there, many of whom post on this blog, who have services for dealers who don't want to spend the time doing it on their own.

Many customer issues escalate not because there is no resolution, but because there appears to be no one listening. As consumers we tend to become frustrated when we are disempowered and blogs put a small amount of power back in our hands.

Negative feedback, "Floging" is what businesses are most afraid of. Your customers can say it to you, or about you. However by addressing these issues you show you care and you learn something in the process.

There's an art to addressing negative feedback you can say "good point, thank you!" and then write a post praising the customer and showing what you are doing to improve. This will make the customer happy, maybe. You can also take a poll to see if, indeed, others are experiencing the same issue. It makes you look more heroic and a heck of a lot more accessible.

Once a company has dealt with negative feedback it gets easier to go from the "fear" of what customers might say to the "freedom" to improve products, services and relationships. Basic and simple stuff, stuff you learn in college that our parent paid good money for.

Negative feedback is really a gift from our clients letting us know what is going on, how do we know that some lot jockey is not switching tires unless there is a client telling you. You just need to know how to package it and act on it.

Feedback can often contain profound seeds of truth. Companies pay consultants big money to unearth problems; blog feedback can offer them this information free of charge. The best approach, as you've said, is to respond to them kindly and humbly. That usually defuses the flog's negative respondents. It keeps the tone of the conversation civil and acknowledges everyone has been heard, and their comments are appreciated, no matter if they are negative.

Companies like LLBean do this as a part of the way they do business and have done this since they opened. LL Bean has operated this way for over 100 years. Offer quality products and service at affordable prices with total concern for customer satisfaction.

Some dealerships have been abusing customers for so long they have no other way to do business. This opens doors for "Boutique Dealers" who will go into a community and steal away the business by servicing the clients like they should be serviced.

There are many examples of these quality companies through out the business world and it is "Standard Stuff"

Embrace the "Flogger" and hold them close. Thank them and let them know when they come into your store they are valued as a preferred client, like all your clients are.

Excellent video... I would also setup Google Alerts... Google Alerts - Monitor the Web for interesting new content to keep tabs on sites like ripoff reports, dealer rater, yahoo answers, answers.com, supperpages, google maps and others...

one way to resolve this is to spam blog... and start your free mini sites... and just post content on that for the keyword that is triggering bad review to come up... make sure to get some links to them... submit to google, yahoo, blog directories to index and in month or two you can get that bad review off the first page... not entirely gone but it still helps.

We have recently embarked on this area with our business. We currently take professional photographs for dealerships.

What if you had the ability to produce a 640 x480 Flash Video with Audio at 30 fps in two minutes, have it available to you Inventory Management Consolidator/Content Delivery company like Homenet in seconds ready for distribution? The process has been streamlined and a solution does exist.

Not dreams or speculation anymore: Login to view embedded media View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5biOQMPtQ

The website is www.automax.tv in regards to my previous comment.

I've been doing videos for the past 6 months.
I've got everything setup for my Australian market, videos will be huge, but take much in preparation.

I'm late to the dinner table here, but may I offer a few thoughts? I just so happen to operate several video classified ad sites (http://www.usedcarvideoshowcase.com) now and even though it is just now a start up business I can tell you that the dealers I have spoken to are excited about the prospect of featuring their inventory on video.
As mentioned in one of responses above, allowing the car buyer to sit back in the comfort of his/her home or office and view videos of the make and model of car that they are interested in is the wave of the future in internet used car marketing. According to Wards Auto.com, 60% of all used car buyers start the search for a used vehicle on the internet with 70% of the new car buyers using the same.
Will videos bring more business to dealers? It’s too soon to tell. But it will allow dealers to showcase their inventories to the shoppers, whom with the price of gas these days, are hesitant to drive from dealer to dealer in search of a car.

Doing a test right now means nothing. Wait until all of your competitors have videos on their site, in youtube, google, autotrader, ebay. Then do your test. This will be like avoiding the VCR move from tape to dvd. Or try avoiding the move from telegraph to telephone. Or how about the typewriter. Television is the best form of advertising because it involved moving motion graphics, sound and words. Now you have the opportunity to do this online for a fraction of the cost. Add to that the majority of people don't read anymore. So how will text be effective? This conversation is over. Until then enjoy my show.

If you are a dealership - How can you ignore it?! Fastest growing medium in the history of media, 50,000,000 viewers in under 2 years. First mover advantage to those that do it right. I understand dealers by and large do not like change as it requires more investment but this is another opportunity to make decisions that if implemented properly will be rewarded with 20x gains. Web user knows what you sell. What they care about is WHO you are and video is the most effective way to inform and entertain. We help dealerships produce, edit, package and syndicate video. Optimized video site and optimized search in both text and video.

Vanessa Interactive

I may be late coming to this party, but I can't help but feel video will be a big benefit if not already. Consider using video if you are selling a Z06? What if I can't afford a Z06? What if I am looking for a nice Cobalt or Accord? Would you give me the same walk-around in person on a Cobalt as a Z06 or would you short that customer because he is only spending $15, 20, 25,000?

If a customer is interested in a vehicle in your lot, budget providing, I would put a video on it if at all possible, and preferably not a stitched video. When we started using it at our store, my viewership was low, but they pretty much watched the whole thing. Additionally, I noticed trends on WHEN people were watching particular vehicles. For example, Cobalt/Cavalier "hoopties" were more viewed in the mid-morning (10) and night times (10-12). Vans, trucks were seen more before 10, 2, and after dinner around 7.
Don't sell video short. It also provides a pretty good reporting tool.

Hey guys the main reason we came up with our pan and zoom player was to give the video effect without the background noise, jitter, image quality and bandwidth. One thing I did like about hot swap was the narration, we currently offer text to speech which everyone seems to be doing these days so we are going to offer audio narration via telephone. I think it will add a personal touch to our current offering and look very professional!

Jim writes:
Zero value?
Waste of bandwidth? (even though it's free).
Wait for Download?
Picture, specs, pricing are all that are needed?

Do you have any idea how incomplete your used car specs are now? (an industry wide problem). Jim, You're in the car biz, you can't tell me that a well prepared killer walk around on the lot won't work on the net.

Just one example...
If there are 145 used Chevrolet Impala's in a shopper's 10 mile radius and yours needs help to "stand tall", you tell me how you're going to communicate why your's has OnStar and that 95% of the other Impalas are prior rentals that have OnStar deleted (and we all know how risky a prior rental can be...wink, wink). Oh... did I mention that it's GM Certified? As part of the GM Cert. process, it has NEW rubber (stick fingers in tread) and on and on...

Don't we preach to the men in the trenches to sell something OTHER than price. Isn't that why we're all afraid of the 'net? Price, Price, Price?

What about lady shoppers?
We all know that they fear the experience. You can't tell me that a well planned video process can make the fearful shopper more at ease.

You mentioned Excess Bandwidth (read: higher hosting costs) and a slow Load time. Visit YouTube. You and 100 million other users are loving the free fast video site. Yea it's grainy, leave that to your still photos.

I have no financial position in video, no product or service to offer, IMO, consumers will appreciate a well executed video walk around.

I am in Sean's camp. Text is flat. Video "breaks the plane" and reaches out (when it's executed properly).

Joe

Videos do not sell cars -- it is a waste of time and bandwidth and cost -- it adds zero value to the buyer. A good picture with specs and pricing are all that are needed. Online users click quickly through process -- they won't wait for a video of the same image.

Hotswap got funding and they may succeed because the economic buyer is the dealer, not the customer. Ego will drive dealers to the latest technology, just like they like to see themselves on TV. Most won't be able to measure change in conversion, so they will keep buying.

Most sellers are product and brand and seller-centric in their thinking, not buyer-centric, so they won't think through the lack of value add to the buyer.

Umer,
Been following your posts, Awesome work and awesome heat map! It confirms...

#1). The home page is the "fly over" page where "Folks arrive to find". No selling can be done there.

#2). Kill all home page auto-audio. Look at the traffic records, all those cube surfers at work get upset when the ad comes busting out! Let the surfer opt-in to the running video!

Keep it up!
Joe

Hi Everyone,

So, thanks Sean for the Mile One shout out, even if you got the name a little wrong. Yep, we are dabbling in the google video world and completely agree that it will be first page soon.

As for Video, I am in the "pro" group and will leave it at that. We have enough reasons why.

As for Video Players, we have been looking at Vimation and are really impressed with their company thus far. The founders, Peter and David seem extremely bright and have been in this game for a while. They aren't video novices and they are doing some awesome interactive pieces with their video. I will see if I can get them to post some test links on here.

I have to agree that informational videos are excellent to have on your site... I have a heat map of dealership website located at http://www.autojini.com/blog/images/heatmap_vidoes.jpg that shows that visitors are actually clicking on the videos and playing them... and looking for more videos... or may be they are trying to mute it since it auto plays but the clicks on the video button below counters that perspective... (I blurred the dealership name in that jpeg)

Chrome just introduced the wheel TV videos for new vehicles... and they are bit addictive... reminds me of motor week on PBS... so this is going to stick around and I think for younger generation it is no longer images but videos.

I wonder if someone can run a quick Craigslist test... by posting one inventory with link to a video and one without... any clearly mentioning it in title. Since it has the traffic and just costs time and effort...

A Video Zelot weighs in...

Shoppers are out there sitting in chairs for hours and hours in a sea of flat, lifeless, 2-d information.

Video Commerce is coming!
The more complex and expensive the product, the more valuable video is. Car sales are the poster child of video commerce.

Fact:
Would a good, personal video walkaround by a knowledgeable rep. help you pick up the phone?

CONSIDER... If we're here to sell something OTHER THAN PRICE, can anyone tell me a better way to get a shopper off of price than a good walk around video??

I can't even believe there is any debate on this topic. The "dark side" of this debate is rooted in the production... I agree, It's a PIA to do video right!

Video helps make the net personal!
Can you overlook google's jillion dollar buy of YouTube?

Video adds another dimension to the shoppers experience and we all know the best customer is the one that is tired and ready to end the process, video appeals to the EMOTIONAL side of the brain.

Joe

Look at the activity in this post. WOW! 13 comments since this post has been sent live and I am scouring the comments looking for the answer to video for my clients. I want to know who, how, and is there and efficient and effective way to streamline this process right now?

And wow, Sean Bradley is all over it!

Someone tell me . . . . or us . . . where do we go to get simple, streamlined service for videos that will produce better results that 30-40 quality, high resolution images will do on its own? That is really what I am hoping to take away from the time invested in reading this excellent "theory".

I agree with Sean Bradley, and disagree with everyone who is looking at the now results on video. I think that the results that have been realized thus far are because we as a group of automotive internet folk have not tapped into the true channel of how video will produce sales for us, or our clients if we are vendors.

What needs to be done to really find the place for video in this market?

I think that is what Sean is pointing out to us all . . . that regardless what has happened thus far . . . it is coming and will be part of how we market vehicles to the online customer. We have to tap into this medium and make it an effective way to do what we all do . . . which is drive the #2 driving force of this economy. I just want to know how??

Springer
Blu