Getting Dealership Reviews Across Multiple Review Sites

[Jeff Kershner]

Best Practices for Getting Dealership Reviews Across Multiple Review Sites

Ever since Google terminated 3rd party reviews from their Google Places page, it's been a real awakening for many dealerships.

Many of us (including myself) have placed most of our focus into 1 review site such as DealerRater and we haven't diversified our customer reviews as much as we should have. But hey - we're dealers. One execution at a time.

Since many of us are in the same boat and feel like we are "Starting Over" with dealer reviews, we thought it would be a great to start a thread for all to share some ideas on how other already are or are going to obtain reviews across multiple sites OR just Google Places alone. - great idea Eley

How have you shifted your focus and what are you doing or going to do to obtain reviews on Google and/or across other review sites?

 

[Chip Grueter]

We will be giving Certified dealers the option of directing Gmail users to their Place Page to leave their reviews. Once we have identified a user as a Google user, we will include steps in our verification email to easily leave their review on the dealer's Place Page as well. Look for it in our next Saturday's release.

Chip-

 

[ajholland]

Chip, do you know how quickly this will be going into effect?

 

[ShortlineSubaru]

I'm in the process of building a simple wordpress site like some of the review companies offer. http://www.iloveshortline.com/

And then we're inviting sold customers to visit the site in our follow up thank you email.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I'm in the process of building a simple wordpress site like some of the review companies offer. I Love Shortline Automotive | Shortline Auto Reviews | Denver, CO CarsAnd then we're inviting sold customers to visit the site in our follow up thank you email.

Chris, I've been wanting to do this as well. Some added SEO and great page/URL to brand across other marketing mediums. My hesitancy has been due to time and resources. Another site to build out and manage. Ehhh..

It's a nice page/site to land customers on and allow them to choose where they would like to review. You may even get a few to duplicate their review across more than one site with this method. Though the 101 of conversion is to land the customer on the page of most relevance and in this case it would be actual review page for the corresponding review site you are wanting to obtain reviews on.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Once I got the news of Googles change, I quickly had my retention email marketing service provider (@utoRevenue) make a change. We are now segmenting out customers with gmail email address and landing them on the Google Places review page. This is something I had intended to do before the news but was dragging my feet on. Sure wish I hadn't done that.

I see Chip at DealerRater are offering to do this for Certified Dealers as well. Nice touch Chip!

 

[Bill Simmons]

We have a dedicated reviews website that we created. We email this link as part of the sold follow-up process. It has only been up a short time so too early to tell if it is working. We have produced a video that we will be embedding on the page explaining the use of these sites to our customers.

Haley Toyota Certified Center - Review Us

Chip, we are are Certified Dealer Rater dealer, so very excited to hear about the change that you mentioned.

 

[Chip Grueter]

Hey Bill and AJ,

The development was finished today on it and full testing will happen on Monday. Typically we release feature updates on Saturdays but I believe the plan here is to do a mid-week release to capture as many Google users as quickly as possible for the dealers. We'll be sending out an email to our dealers going over the updates as there's also a review page update that is going to be released with it .

Chip-

Edit: Just took a look at your review site, Bill - looks great! If I may make one suggestion, I would link right into the Add a Review pages for the review sites. This will just eliminate any chance of the user missing where to click to leave a review.

 

[Eley Duke]

Thanks Jeff for starting this thread, I am sorry I didn't sooner as mentioned, we had a busy few last days here moving iron!

For us, we are committed to sticking with Dealer Rater, and I am excited about the changes Chip has outlined here. We are also going to go after the Gmail accounts to review on our Google places page. Currenty we have a link like Bill does at Haley to both Dealer Rater and Google Places page; Duke Automotive | New Chevrolet, CADILLAC, Buick, GMC dealership in Suffolk, VA 23434 .

As well, we continue to ask for reviews in sales, F&I, and the serivce lane. We follow up with emails that are tailored to the customer whether they are a sales customer, warranty, or customer pay. We include both Dealer Rater and Google links and logos.

We just started in May, already have 51 reviews at Dealer Rater and a power score of 5. And NO, none of those are BS, we work very hard to give every customer a very positive experience here at Duke.

Thats our plan, we look forward to seeing what great work-around Dealer Rater will bring with regards to Google!

 

[LBeaubien]

You can certainly direct consumers to the particular site in which you’re trying to increase reviews. However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask them to write a review on whichever site they used to find your dealership.

Not only would you be diversifying your reviews, but you would also gain an insight into where your customers do their research. Ultimately, you want to have reviews on multiple relevant sites, where car shoppers are likely to see them.

-Lauren