Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews

[ryan.leslie]

Wow - It seems as though this thread that started by seeming to ask a legitimate question; How to deal with dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews, has degenerated into one vendor slamming another... endlessly. Please refer to Vendor Wars!

Stay Classy!

I feel like I've posted WAY too much in this thread already... the whole thing was a false premise to begin with, read the OP. How's that article going by the way?

Hopefully some of the discussion was valuable and I sincerely hope I haven't disrespected this community by engaging in Vendor Battle Royale. This thread really should have ended at post #7 back in June. Jason said all there really was to say.




Tarrytown Honda is our client too. The only reason that I am responding to this post is because they were brought up by name and I feel they were misrepresented. Tarrytown Honda chose to certify with the ad in place, it had actually been there for 14 months prior to their certification, they weren't coerced and they knew exactly what they were doing. Tarrytown has claimed first right of refusal for the space and it becomes exclusively theirs on Dec 3rd.

Some dealer's want the space and use it, some very successful ones that post here often don't. As has already been said, this is commonplace in any ad supported web property. If you want the job of policing every dealer's marketing efforts it's all yours, but remember that for every conquest ad there is a confident dealer that wants to compete, I'm not going to stifle that.

 

[yagoparamo]

Tarrytown has claimed first right of refusal for the space and it becomes exclusively theirs on Dec 3rd.

You are such a great guy;

people can put reviews about MY BIZ,
in YOUR site that only you OWN,
I can't do much about them unless I PAY,
even if I pay I still DON'T OWN any of the review content,
and no matter what I have to abide to all your arbitrary RULES,

and yet--you give me the chance to pay to advertise under my own name and account so you would not sell it to my closest competitor!?

I've been wrong all this time Ryan, this is a great service to the automotive community.

 

[ed.brooks]

I feel like I've posted WAY too much in this thread already... the whole thing was a false premise to begin with, read the OP. How's that article going by the way?

Hopefully some of the discussion was valuable and I sincerely hope I haven't disrespected this community by engaging in Vendor Battle Royale. This thread really should have ended at post #7 back in June. Jason said all there really was to say.

Ryan, My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you've been trying to be helpful with some great advice and unless I missed something, haven't bashed other vendors. Certainly not by name.

Unfortunately other folks from 'vendor land' seem intent on bashing your company and your business model. To me that misses the point of DEALER Refresh. If a dealer has a beef with any of us, fine. Let's hear it and get some answers. If another vendor wants to sling mud, just keep that crap to yourselves.

Ryan, in my opinion, you've done a fine job "Staying Classy".

 

[yagoparamo]

Ryan, My opinion, for what it's worth, is that you've been trying to be helpful with some great advice and unless I missed something, haven't bashed other vendors. Certainly not by name.

Unfortunately other folks from 'vendor land' seem intent on bashing your company and your business model. To me that misses the point of DEALER Refresh. If a dealer has a beef with any of us, fine. Let's hear it and get some answers. If another vendor wants to sling mud, just keep that crap to yourselves.

Ryan, in my opinion, you've done a fine job "Staying Classy".

Ed,

Voicing and sharing opinions also contributes to everyone's learning exprerience for as long as they offer information and points of view. Agreeing on everything doesnt make anyone of us better vendors. The things we discuss in here help us shape what we preach to the dealers and that changes many times with the feedback that we (I) get from other people, including you and Ryan.

 

[ryan.leslie]

people can put reviews about MY BIZ,
in YOUR site that only you OWN,
I can't do much about them unless I PAY,
even if I pay I still DON'T OWN any of the review content,
and no matter what I have to abide to all your arbitrary RULES,

and yet--you give me the chance to pay to advertise under my own name and account so you would not sell it to my closest competitor!?


I've been wrong all this time Ryan, this is a great service to the automotive community.

(Last post in this thread from me and I'll probably lose my "classy" status.)

Wanna hear the funny part...until you got to "being able to exclusively advertise" on the page, you could have been talking about, Google, Edmunds, Yelp, CitySearch, Cars.com or any other reputable review site on the web. If this was supposed to be a dig Yago, you failed.

Pick up the phone and give Google a call. Tell them you'd like to exclusively own advertising on YOUR Place page because it has your name on it and you want them to remove the 4 ads and the 6 links to competing dealers in your market. I'm sure they'll hook you up with some POS material, Individual Pages for your sales reps to leverage, RSS feeds for your reviews to your website, priority support for fraud investigations, classified feeds of your inventory, a solid proven process for requesting reviews and a 10 year history of success doing so, email templates, unlimited training for your sales team on leveraging reviews to increase lead to show and closing ratio, certification icons and images for your website, individual at will consults with a guy that launched 250+ stores on their program on everything from process to handling specific negative reviews, a framed in DealerRater page to help get reviews there too, and oh yeah, Facebook Feeds of reviews and inventory with automated posting to your wall, I'm sure Zuck and Schmidt will go for it just for you, and be sure to tell them you need all that for less than $250 a month.

Wait, what's that you say? You can't actually CALL Google? hmmm...

You've been dead wrong more than once in this thread Yago, and I didn't call you out on it because I want to like you and I believe that you are passionate about what you do. I get that.

This IS a great service to the automotive community, it has been for 10 years! I'm really proud of what we do and the role I get to play in the success stories of some 4,000 odd dealers and countless sales people leveraging their own reviews. I know many of them read this forum and I'd be remiss not to defend their purchase decision from a baseless attack intended to glorify a branded page without 3rd party authenticity that they could create themselves for free.

 

[Jeffrey Tognetti]

Every time I think I am out they keep pulling me back in....

This is NOT a "Vendor Battle Royale" as I am NOT in your business and believe that Dealer Rater has found a niche and capitalized on it successfully (Kudos to you)

As for our slide you keep referencing...I can't see what is wrong with it and here is why;

1) If we take a dealers CSI and post it, (Something Dealer Rater should work to import from the manufacturer) what is wrong with that? NOTHING, nor is it a violation of any Law. (Contrary to your previous insinuation) If CSI is good enough for the manufacturer to affect allocation, hold back money and essential allow a dealer to exist why is it not good enough for Dealer Rater to make it a part of their rating platform? Interesting....

2) Dealer Rater's review system is clearly "Pay to Play" on every level, UNLIKE those that have stood the test of time like Amazon, eBay to name a few, which ONLY let users who have purchased leave a review, good bad or indifferent. Oh, and with eBay and Amazon (unlike Dealer Rater) the seller doesn't have to pay to respond to a negative review or get two weeks to hope that the negative reviewer doesn't reply to an attempt "to mediate" by said seller through Dealer Rater which then sides with the seller paying for a service thus getting the negative review removed-

As for Tarrytown and 100s of our other clients I offer you the opportunity to candidly ask them why they pay for your service. If you want, out of fairness I can arrange phone calls from a sample of dealers privately to hear their thoughts? No strings attached- But I'll give you a brief summary of what I believe you would hear. They pay $400 to respond to negative comments that if they didn't pay Dealer Rater for they couldn't respond to fairly or mitigate. They sign up because for now, Dealer Rater has established a necessity for them to do so, NOT for any perceived "Value Add".
Google Places maybe flawed but it is only a matter of time before their system, a NON Pay to Play system overtakes yours and others similar to it. You need look no further then Yelp's Registration doc today to glean a look at how they shifted their focus. HINT: Its on building a local advertising platform 1st with reviews being complimentary.

Finally, As for giving Tarrytown Honda..."our mutual client" the opportunity to "buy the rights" to the page they are already paying for on December 3rd, that is very gracious of you. But when did that happen? Considering I speak to them daily and as of earlier in the day when I asked them if I could post the image that we did, they had expressed great frustration to put it mildly...

Again...this is not a "Vendor Battle" as I am NOT in your business and believe that Dealer Rater has found a niche and capitalized on it successfully (Kudos). But of the 4,000 + clients you have, I would venture to say that many of them purchase your service because they feel they have to rather then want to-

 

[yagoparamo]

Every time I think I am out they keep pulling me back in....

This is NOT a "Vendor Battle Royale" as I am NOT in your business and believe that Dealer Rater has found a niche and capitalized on it successfully (Kudos to you)

As for our slide you keep referencing...I can't see what is wrong with it and here is why;

1) If we take a dealers CSI and post it, (Something Dealer Rater should work to import from the manufacturer) what is wrong with that? NOTHING, nor is it a violation of any Law. (Contrary to your previous insinuation) If CSI is good enough for the manufacturer to affect allocation, hold back money and essential allow a dealer to exist why is it not good enough for Dealer Rater to make it a part of their rating platform? Interesting....

2) Dealer Rater's review system is clearly "Pay to Play" on every level, UNLIKE those that have stood the test of time like Amazon, eBay to name a few, which ONLY let users who have purchased leave a review, good bad or indifferent. Oh, and with eBay and Amazon (unlike Dealer Rater) the seller doesn't have to pay to respond to a negative review or get two weeks to hope that the negative reviewer doesn't reply to an attempt "to mediate" by said seller through Dealer Rater which then sides with the seller paying for a service thus getting the negative review removed-

As for Tarrytown and 100s of our other clients I offer you the opportunity to candidly ask them why they pay for your service. If you want, out of fairness I can arrange phone calls from a sample of dealers privately to hear their thoughts? No strings attached- But I'll give you a brief summary of what I believe you would hear. They pay $400 to respond to negative comments that if they didn't pay Dealer Rater for they couldn't respond to fairly or mitigate. They sign up because for now, Dealer Rater has established a necessity for them to do so, NOT for any perceived "Value Add".
Google Places maybe flawed but it is only a matter of time before their system, a NON Pay to Play system overtakes yours and others similar to it. You need look no further then Yelp's Registration doc today to glean a look at how they shifted their focus. HINT: Its on building a local advertising platform 1st with reviews being complimentary.

Finally, As for giving Tarrytown Honda..."our mutual client" the opportunity to "buy the rights" to the page they are already paying for on December 3rd, that is very gracious of you. But when did that happen? Considering I speak to them daily and as of earlier in the day when I asked them if I could post the image that we did, they had expressed great frustration to put it mildly...

Again...this is not a "Vendor Battle" as I am NOT in your business and believe that Dealer Rater has found a niche and capitalized on it successfully (Kudos). But of the 4,000 + clients you have, I would venture to say that many of them purchase your service because they feel they have to rather then want to-

I think this puts everything toguether better than anyone else has before.

 

[yagoparamo]

(Last post in this thread from me and I'll probably lose my "classy" status.)

Wanna hear the funny part...until you got to "being able to exclusively advertise" on the page, you could have been talking about, Google, Edmunds, Yelp, CitySearch, Cars.com or any other reputable review site on the web. If this was supposed to be a dig Yago, you failed.

Pick up the phone and give Google a call. Tell them you'd like to exclusively own advertising on YOUR Place page because it has your name on it and you want them to remove the 4 ads and the 6 links to competing dealers in your market. I'm sure they'll hook you up with some POS material, Individual Pages for your sales reps to leverage, RSS feeds for your reviews to your website, priority support for fraud investigations, classified feeds of your inventory, a solid proven process for requesting reviews and a 10 year history of success doing so, email templates, unlimited training for your sales team on leveraging reviews to increase lead to show and closing ratio, certification icons and images for your website, individual at will consults with a guy that launched 250+ stores on their program on everything from process to handling specific negative reviews, a framed in DealerRater page to help get reviews there too, and oh yeah, Facebook Feeds of reviews and inventory with automated posting to your wall, I'm sure Zuck and Schmidt will go for it just for you, and be sure to tell them you need all that for less than $250 a month.

Wait, what's that you say? You can't actually CALL Google? hmmm...

You've been dead wrong more than once in this thread Yago, and I didn't call you out on it because I want to like you and I believe that you are passionate about what you do. I get that.

This IS a great service to the automotive community, it has been for 10 years! I'm really proud of what we do and the role I get to play in the success stories of some 4,000 odd dealers and countless sales people leveraging their own reviews. I know many of them read this forum and I'd be remiss not to defend their purchase decision from a baseless attack intended to glorify a branded page without 3rd party authenticity that they could create themselves for free.

Ryan,

I enjoy disscusing things with you, you have lots of knowledge and bring a ton to the table. Don't lose your cool or "classy" status for a light exchange of views in a forum where none of us has anything invested on. It will show very poor stance for criticism. I used to say that my hardest critics and customers are the ones that shape my company and force us to become better at what we do.

If I ever overstep in my criticism or words please PM me and I will cool down.

That said, this is my last post in this thead. I think a lot of opinions have been shared and some of the comunity's concerns expresed, which is all positive.

 

[Dan Rudd]

Hey Dan,

I'm no Google fanboy, I can assure you of that. You may have me confused with a guy named Brian (teasing of course)

For awhile here I have been disclaiming every post with "I'm not anti-Google I promise, but..." Honestly the reason that paragraph jumped off the page for me was that I questioned it too. I absolutely agree with you about Yelp. I wasn't at DD10, but "we don't want you to ask," combined with "we only want reviews from Yelpers" is just weird to me. I'm sorry to hear they didn't give a satisfactory answer to those questions.

I've been thinking about this since I read ZMOT. If the global product average is a 4.3 star review, why is it that the automotive community expects a much lower average? Is it dollars? Is it process? Is it outdated negative consumer perception? I think this is one of those BIG questions that may not have a definitive answer, but it's important to work on because it is affecting our process, often negatively in the eyes of the consumer.

There is a balance between "Don't Ask" and "come over here for a minute and write a review for me while we are waiting for the finance guy. You don't type well? NO PROBLEM, let me help you." Don't take it too literally, just trying to make the point. Are you choosing a process that gives you more control out of an irrational fear of a negative review?



Mr. Duke, ehem, I mean Eley, (last time I promise, that was for Jerry)

I looked at that place page and I don't know. I really don't think that is a "doctored" set of reviews, but I think we are quickly moving towards a quantity vs quality discussion. We are going to need to get "back to the basics" really early in the lifecycle of Reputation Marketing. What is the REAL point of all this? Are we collecting as many 5 star reviews as we can to improve our rankings and sort order, or are we looking for stories that will compel an unsold prospect to choose us over a competitor? I don't think I need 1200+ 5 star one liners with no real content, I need to identify with someone like me and be able to see how the business I'm considering treated you. Isn't that what WOM is really about?

I could be wrong, it has happened once before...

Ryan

I think you make a great point. But I don't think the Auto Industry expects a lower standard they just expect to be treated fairly.

I think you might be right. I think because there potentially is a stigma attached to the Auto industry that might lead to an increased sensitivity by consumers but maybe that is because beside buying a house it is the most expensive purchase people make in their lives?

If you buy a Sony DVD player from Best Buy for $150 are you really thinking that much about the buying experience?

As long as the cashier isn't an Ahole they will go on their way and if the product turns out to be crap they might go online and review it badly on some Electonics forum. But how much damage can that one review about that one product do to Sony? And how many people will actually take the time to leave that review over a $150 product?

On the other hand when someone is buying a $30000 car there is much more stress and apprehension about that purchase so perhaps they are more inclined to find negatives in the buying experience regardless of whether they end up purchasing or not which in turn might make them more likely to share the negatives of that process over the positives?

My point is as I said before, while the stats from the ZMOT thesis say one thing I think in reality the Auto industry for what ever reason do not fit in to the same shell as other industries. But that goes for a lot of things in this Biz.

Thanks for the dialogue.

 

[john.quinn]

There has been a lot written here, so maybe this point was already covered, or maybe I still have that "coerced" notion stuck in my craw... but remember the discussion a little while back when Google removed 3rd-party reviews? From Chip:

[Google reviews don't export to dealer websites, there is no reconcilation period to work with reviewers, there's no mechanism to work with a reviewer behind the scenes, Google reviews don't feed to facebook, there are no individual sales team pages and Google offers no training on best practices or leveraging your reputation. No classifieds on Place pages, no lead form and definitely no rating reminder cards come in the mail.]
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/google-places-removes-third-party-reviews-search-results-1936-2.html

The next day or so we had a meeting to discuss the Google/DealerRater thing, and I pretty-much used this paragraph word-for-word for consideration for continuing/discontinuing the DealerRater program.

We're still on it.

I offer this as a Dealer during this predominately Vendor discussion that there is a VALUE associated with the fee that I don't believe has been clearly ferreted-out on this string. (although this string wasn't really intended to go this route, this does seem to have become a central issue)