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Right on Marc! I hate to say this but anytime you get the opportunity to bypass people and automate a process such as this, it needs to be done in order to achieve great results.


There is only 1 reason why my Toyota dealer has over 300 reviews and counting on dealerrater...I bypassed people and automated the process to ask for reviews.


I did something interesting just to prove a point...


I trained the whole dealer body on dealer ratings and how to leverage. I reviewed our process for obtaining more reviews with sales and service staff. I built out templates and individual DealerRater pages for each adviser. I ordered extra DealerRater cards so the advisers had some material to hand out to their customers.


To get reviews and buy-in jumpstarted, we ran a dealer wide contest (I personally hate running contest and paying people to do their job). A nice bonus check to the sales and service adviser that obtained the most reviews in 1 month.


Even with the bonus, the reviews were minimal. It gave us a little jumpstart but not long after the contest, we went were back to little to no reviews. And this was after another additional training and the implementation of a monthly "DealerRater Report Card" that I put together.


Phase two, bypass the service advisers and automate the service review request. We use AutoRevenue for much of our service marketing so I set up an automated after service email asking each and every customer to review their experience. This is when the review flood gate opens.


WARNING: when you automate the process asking for customer reviews you better be willing to accept the good with the bad. You WILL get bad reviews, especially if your service department is not on the same page and doesn't truly provide a good experience.


I say do it anyways - if your going to be transparent then go all the way. Just be sure the GM and Owner understand the true importance of transparency and customer reviews. When you take this approach and you have upper management on-board, it quickly brings real accountability to the service team. The department where it matters most!


I have yet to bring my sales team over to the automated process. This will be going live next week. I'm done waiting around for them to react and see the importance. Not saying I won't continue to push the message with ongoing training and our DealerRater Report Card.


Customer testimonials are much more than just a review. And dealers going after ONLY the good reviews - that's LAME! Get your shit together and ask each and every customer to review. I challenge you to automate your process. 


Everyone touches on the marketing and self promotional value in the dealer ratings but most are blind to the real profound shift in culture that comes about when adopting true transparency across your business/dealership. The payoff is priceless.