Getting Online Reviews

[Craig]

I view this as a positive since it allows you to now fix a process that is broken and provide your customers with even better service.

Exactly Jerry!
Everyone wants to talk about getting reviews while avoiding the underlying issue that we would not need reviews if our industry didn't have the reputation it has. Granted this reputation for many of us is undeserved but for many out there, I challenge you to really listen to your customers and provide them with what they are looking for in a sales transaction.

So many times I go to buy something at a real location and am turned off by the lack of knowledge of the salesperson. I try to buy local and avoid sending my money to places unknown on the World Wide Web, only to be disappointed by the local salesperson knowing less about the product they sell than I do. This combined with Google search pricing in an instant and online reviews force me back to buying online.

Take the feedback you receive from customers and learn something, then teach your people how to provide a positive sales or service experience, they will tell their friends about it.......in person and virtually.

We are fortunate that customers still need to visit a showroom (or at least think they do) to complete car deals.........what happens to us when they don't?

 

[Craig]

Here's a link to a reputation management article that Ed Brooks shared on Twitter this morning The 11 Unwritten Laws of Reputation Management - Andy Beal - Radically Transparent - Forbes

Thought it fit this thread nicely.

 

[Marc McGurren]

Secondly, in the service or F&I process, you should be asking customers if they have a Gmail account and if they do, hand them a wireless iPad and have them post a review on Google Places. Google accounts that are already created should not represent any in-house fraud since no new accounts are being created in the store.

Great idea Brian. I like that a lot. We are getting customers emails at the time of purchase so the salesperson and F&I manager will know where their email address is. But it is always nice to ask b/c we get work emails quite a bit and not their personal email.

I personally don't see a ton of gmail accounts which I find very interesting.

 

[TuneyFish]

Making the process as simple and intuitive as possible is the key to getting people to do a task that would clearly have little benefit to themselves.

This is a very important concept, not only in getting reviews written, but in usability in general.

If you have data on your customers, perhaps you know who's on Twitter, Facebook, etc then reach out in way that doesn't require logins or registrations, send them emails that have URL's that expire after a set period of time so they don't need to login.

Then when you think you've optimized the process, run through it, have friends and family go through the steps - this is called usability testing. Companies with huge budgets will spend 10's to 100's of thousands of dollars to have people come sit in a lab and bang on an application while they take notes and tweak the design, speed, and other things that will improve success metrics.

Find out what a review is worth to your business. Since traffic from review sites can be tracked, whats the conversion rate, and then calculate the cost per conversion. This would come from the amount invested in the process, divided by the number of conversions. If it took $1000 of optimization but net another 100 conversions than it was $10/conversion. Then for every 100 conversions you get a sale, you can do a quick cost benefit analysis to see if the ROI warrants the investment.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Find out what a review is worth to your business. Since traffic from review sites can be tracked, whats the conversion rate, and then calculate the cost per conversion. This would come from the amount invested in the process, divided by the number of conversions. If it took $1000 of optimization but net another 100 conversions than it was $10/conversion. Then for every 100 conversions you get a sale, you can do a quick cost benefit analysis to see if the ROI warrants the investment.

Scott,

Respectfully disagree with you on this point. CTR on ORM is not a good way to calculate ROI. CTR may be one of the worst ROI calculators for ORM, yes it is easy and anybody can follow the math, but it doesn't accurately measure the value. Reviews aren't the same as a banner on a classified site. I think you have to be cognizant of the buying cycle and where reviews fit into that cycle and your strategy before you determine an effective means to calculate ROI for your store. If all you are doing is collecting reviews and expecting that to sell you cars or bring in customer pay for your driveway you are going to fail. You build reviews to leverage them, a lot of the time the click isn't relevant, and this will rock your ROI calculator too, a lot of time and resources are spent preventing a click to somewhere else.

This thread makes a good analogy. 23 comments but 600+ views. Do only the folks that contributed to the conversation take something away from what they have read here?

Find out what a review is worth to your business.

Honestly, the opposite is true. Find out what an unchecked negative review is COSTING your business. Back to that preventing a click point, Law #7 from Craig's Forbes article is right on. You don't want to have to guess the CTR on www.dealershipnameSUCKS.com on your SERP.

 

[joe.pistell]

One of the challenges with getting reviews on Google Places is that they have to create a Google account. Two thoughts here. One, search your CRM system to find customers that have a gmail account and you can send them a special email template that acknowledges that they have a Google account and its will be easy to post a review.

Secondly, in the service or F&I process, you should be asking customers if they have a Gmail account and if they do, hand them a wireless iPad and have them post a review on Google Places. Google accounts that are already created should not represent any in-house fraud since no new accounts are being created in the store.

BRILLIANT!

 

[joe.pistell]

You don't want to have to guess the CTR on www.dealershipnameSUCKS.com on your SERP.

I own: usedcarkingsucks.com The Best $9 you'll ever spend.

 

[ryan.leslie]

I own: usedcarkingsucks.com The Best $9 you'll ever spend.

Doesn't surprise me at all that you do Joe. Now what does surprise me is that you have it parked. Smart as you are I'm sure you have a couple thoughts on how to make the most of a site for people that think you suck. Here's a few more while you are deliberating:

1. Start a support group- a simple contact us form to help you collect data on everybody that doesn't like you, could be useful
2. "yes, we do, but not as bad as these guys"- maybe you can frame in all the negative reviews for other dealers around you
3. "we're sucking all the Hot Air out of the car business"- ok, that may not work

Cheers!

 

[Marc McGurren]

A local dealer here has www.[I]dealershipnam[/I]esucks.com - when you google their name - this pops up 4th. Ouch!

 

[TuneyFish]

Scott,

Respectfully disagree with you on this point. CTR on ORM is not a good way to calculate ROI. CTR may be one of the worst ROI calculators for ORM, yes it is easy and anybody can follow the math, but it doesn't accurately measure the value. Reviews aren't the same as a banner on a classified site. I think you have to be cognizant of the buying cycle and where reviews fit into that cycle and your strategy before you determine an effective means to calculate ROI for your store. If all you are doing is collecting reviews and expecting that to sell you cars or bring in customer pay for your driveway you are going to fail. You build reviews to leverage them, a lot of the time the click isn't relevant, and this will rock your ROI calculator too, a lot of time and resources are spent preventing a click to somewhere else.

This thread makes a good analogy. 23 comments but 600+ views. Do only the folks that contributed to the conversation take something away from what they have read here?


Honestly, the opposite is true. Find out what an unchecked negative review is COSTING your business. Back to that preventing a click point, Law #7 from Craig's Forbes article is right on. You don't want to have to guess the CTR on www.dealershipnameSUCKS.com on your SERP.

CTR - click through rate, isn't a metric I had suggested. What I'm referring to is more along the lines of CPC - cost per conversion, which is usually used in SEM but the formula can apply to just about anything you do in business that you wish to track the results from.

If I buy 100 flyers and spend $100 on them, and get one sale, it means my cost per conv. was $100.

The reason why I suggest this is important is because visitors behave differently when influenced by other peoples experiences.

For me personally, it's often the final thing that I rely on when making a purchase decision because I can look at when the review was made, often times it being more recent and relevant to a particular product.

So I think the terms I used may have suggested I was talking about advertising when actually I'm not limiting it to search engine marketing or any particular means of marketing.

Another example of ROI in terms of relationship management and referrals that either come from word of mouth, online reviews, or any other medium that allows individuals the ability to engage in commentary about anything from an experience, a product or a service.

There's nothing wrong with measuring ROI on anything that ends up sending business to gain insight into how to improve the experience for the customer, hence the suggestion that by investing funds to enhance the review process and make it easier and more engaging will likely be a better long term investment that reassures those who may be considering a purchase but wants very much for it to be a fun experience as opposed to the opposite which they almost expect unless reviews suggest otherwise.