Clint, maybe I can help provide a different perspective on this for you.
I'm a longtime fan of DealerRater, as it provides dealers the only 3rd party / consumer facing review platform that allows you (the dealer) to help manage their online reputation, at least within the DealerRater ecosystem. They also offer a dashboard that allows you to manage several other review websites.
If a dealer signs up to be DealerRater certified, typically this means the dealership is taking their online review with some degree of seriousness. Allowing bad reviews to have a 2 week gave period may initially lean a bit towards the dealerships advantage but until you step through the actual process of working with a customer that has written a bad review, it's hard to throw out a negative opinion. I personally appreciated it, especially when first getting a dealer onboard to accept and understand the importance of reputation. Remember, if nothing is done to make the customer feel better (even if something is done), the bad review or edited bad review still goes live unless the customer doesn't respond back to the dealership within the allocated time frame. This measurement helps prevent other from gaming the system.
For me online reputation and reviews goes much deeper than stars and reviews. It's a tool you can use to help pioneer real change at your dealership. DealerRater provides dealers the platform to prepare, promote and build a process for that change.
What I don't agree with is dealers cherry picking and systems that ALLOW dealers to cherry pick their reviews by only asking customers that have a high probability to leave a positive review. This is GAMING the system and strips away from the true value of online reviews and word of mouth. IF you're going to do it (online reviews) for all the right reasons, then you need to allow each and every sales and service customer the opportunity to review their experience. Be prepared for some no so great reviews - which is great, because this is how you change.
