Awesome advice
@craigh
Here, take it a step further and prefill the 5 star rating for the customer as well!! This link will show you how.
https://www.webworksofkc.com/blog/g...ss-reviews-by-giving-customers-a-direct-link/
Once you grab the link, it will contain info like mobile, device, etc... Just remove the extra stuff from the link like this and then use a shortner
This is what I got when I used my phone and a incognito browser
https://www.google.com/search?q=bea...lrd=0x8864668d585a502f:0xbf32cf8deaddbc67,3,5
Strip out everything between "beaman+toyota&' 'Ird=" so you have something like this
https://www.google.com/search?q=beaman+toyota&lrd=0x8864668d585a502f:0xbf32cf8deaddbc67,3,5
Then plug that into a shortner here
https://goo.gl/
and this is what I came up with
https://goo.gl/2JxJcH
For me it works on mobile and desktop in Chrome and IE in both normal and incognito modes. If the user is logged into Google, it works seamless. If not logged in, they will be prompted to login and they may have to refresh their browser depending on which browser they're using!!
That's slick
@Rick Buffkin - thanks for sharing that. I'll be passing that along to my Account Rep at Prime. I'm not sure if they're doing this already or not.
You could possibly set up campaign in your CRM to automatically send all customers X days after purchase an email inviting them to review/share their experience, while directing them to your Google Review page using the process that Rick shared.
The easiest way to accumulate reviews is by tapping into your
Service traffic. If you have a solid service department, go after those customers for reviews. I would bet you already have an after service / service retention program in place (mandatory by most OEM's) that emails the customer after their vehicle has been serviced. See if you can customize the "after service" email communication and solicit for the review. You may even be able to use your CRM to accomplish this.
Find out if your service retention program or CRM has the ability to recognize the email address so if the customer has a @gmail.com email it will automatically change the link and/or email template, pointing the customer directly to your Google review page.
I've been using Dominion's "Prime Response" for reputation and review management since it was released. Before Prime existed, I had my dealers on @utoRevenue, which was a service marketing and retention program that Dominion eventually acquired. I was using @utoRevenue to email EVERY customer 1 day after Purchase or Service. The email came from the Sales or Service Manager asking the customer to review their experience. This is when our reviews really took off!! That feature of @utoRevenue morphed into Prime Response and is now a full on Reputation Management and Social Marketing platform. When I came back here to MBH, it was one of the first services I insisted we partner back up with.
1154 reviews on DealerRater -
http://www.dealerrater.com/dealer/Mercedes-Benz-of-Hagerstown-dealer-reviews-15971/?__v23=1
531 reviews on Cars.com -
https://www.cars.com/dealers/152876/mercedes-benz-of-hagerstown/reviews/
100+ reviews on Google
100+ reviews on Facebook -
https://www.facebook.com/mercedeshagerstown/
Of course our DealerRater and Cars.com reviews are now combined.
So to answer your questions directly --
I am curious if anyone is aware of best practice methods for getting customers to leave Google reviews?
Ask EVERY customer to rate and review their experience. Be prepared to handle some negative reviews but if you're a solid dealer, you'll be just fine.
Is there a third party vendor that helps drive google reviews from your customers?
I use Dominion's Prime Response
Do some dealerships use internal BDC techniques to encourage customers to leave Google reviews?
Reinforce / remind the customer to review during the after Sale or Service phone call. Get some POP material, postcard size hand out with some visual cues to explain where and how to leave reviews.
Has anyone out there seen other dealers grow Google reviews like this and know the secrets to that success?
ASK EVERYONE!
Do Google reviews help with natural search engine position?
I sure it does to some degree.