GM Reputation Management "Required"

[ryan.leslie]

Other restrictions come from being forced to put the poor reviews with the good. I understand that poor reviews are an opportunity to stand out and I feel that a negative review is needed every now and again on review sites to keep things honest. On our actual website though I feel we should be able to make that decision. We spend a lot of time, energy and money to get traffic to our websites so that is the last past we want to highlight a negative customer experience and drive the new customer away from OUR website after we finally got them there. A customer visiting an exact dealership website will understand that the business is only going to want to highlight positive interactions and is using to help promote business. If I were shopping for some type of big ticket item, I would not expect to visit a website for an ATV or boat dealership for example, and find negative reviews on that dealerships own website. That is not a good selling point and I would question why that business did that before I appreciated them for their honesty.

(emphasis mine)

You are right on Cory! There is no precedence for this that I can think of either. Before you say, "Amazon, Ebay, Cabelas, Lowes, etc all have negative reviews" it is important to realize those are largely negative product/reseller reviews, NOT negative reviews ABOUT the primary retailer. Amazon doesn't really care what product you buy from which reseller, so long as you buy it from Amazon, right? That isn't an apples to apples comparison. It would be like posting mixed reviews on a Chevy Cobalt to aid your consumer's research and retain them on your site, you stay above the fray because you offer more than Cobalt's.

Hmm... I'm already not making friends here so I might as well speak my mind, right? Cory, if this is such a great plan to build confidence from your potential customers why aren't there any negative reviews of Cobalt here? I didn't see any negative sentiment about Digital Airstrike here either? Did GM ONLY get rave reviews of all their models or shouldn't we see some negative press included here too to show we're honest? I'm just asking the question?

I'm going to take a stab at why they are forcing this, but this is just my opinion. I could be wrong, it has happened once before.

When you say: I feel that a negative review is needed every now and again on review sites to keep things honest. I think you get right to the meat of the issue. They are trying to compensate for the fact that your website isn't a review site. By forcing negative content into the marketing feed they are trying to simulate a credible third party when in fact they are an agent of the retailer. Let me try to rephrase that for clarity. They have to try to compensate for the fact that they have complete CONTROL! If they collected, "verified", and posted reviews about you FOR you without including negatives no consumer would believe a thing they were reading, right? The consumer would immediately discredit what they were reading as advertising. What YOU say about YOU is purely advertising and has NO intrinsic value to the consumer. Negative reviews are included to attempt to build content credibility because they recognize that the consumer is naturally challenging the credibility of the content they perceive to be about you from you.

I agree with you Cory. The more I think about the Amazon example above the more convinced I become that this initiative was never about the success of the individual dealer.

 

[Kelly Wilson]

So as we just took on a Buick/GMC store it looks like we will be going with the lowest level of Cobalt's RepMan. This process has been as slow as I've found most GM things this far (10 weeks). As I have been unable to create any true interest (belief in the value) in the front line (sales people) of our Dodge store in asking for reviews, it will be interesting to see what happens across the street. I look forward to reporting back!

 

[Eley Duke]

it stinks to be forced to use an inferior product.

Good luck.

Amen!

And totally off topic, what stinks even more is being forced to use all the inferior products GM has aligned themselves with! I better stop there or I will go off the handle on the forced $1M renovations we are about to start May 13th, after just renovating 7 years ago under their approval. That shiny white tile with the 1/8 inch thick grout sure is going to help us sell so many more Chevys vs the off-white and gray tile and 1/4 inch grout they approved 7 years ago!!

 

[Eley Duke]

But I can tell you Google and Yelp reviews are very difficult to get for a few reasons. Both require you to register as a user first.

I second that. We find it's a lot harder to get Google reviews for the reasons you said. We use Dealer Rater, of course you have to register but our customers seem to not mind and like that much more since it is dealership related. Again, its all in how you set it up with the customer.

A few more observations: Sales customers are much more willing to write a review than service customers. Reviews are more likely to occur if you give the customer a heads up that a review request email is coming. And sending it as soon as possible after the sale seems to help.

Are you sending all your customer pay service customers an email asking for a review with a link? We find the opposite true, that we get more service reviews. But its all in how the advisors and sales people set it up and ask!

If I find a way to opt-out of the GM RepMan program without jeopardizing SFE Money, I'll let you know how it was done. Somebody has to be bright enough to see we are being forced to use a service that is not very effective and pull the plug on this thing!

Reminds me of the... "Hey, we're putting all your inventory on eBay" experiment GM tried a year or so ago.

D

I am LMAO!

Are you multi-line? We are and we found out if we went multi-line SFE, we didn't have to participate in the RepMan program.

 

[Eley Duke]

We signed up two dealerships and choose Digital Air Strike for our Buick GMC Cadillac location and Cobalt for our Chevrolet location. Between those two I would give the edge to Digital Air Strike. That BGC dealership does not have the same amount of sales and service opportunities so it is tough to compare them head to head for review counts and survey replies. The integration process was a little smoother with Digital Air Strike and they are easier to work with. For example we requested the script for the review widget so we could insert that on other websites and Cobalt refuses to do that. We are considering switching our Chevy dealership over to DAS or Naked Lime but our LMA pays for it through Cobalt so we are going to stick it out a little longer and see how everything works out.
For example we are trying to set up different contact points for warranty pay vs. customer pay for closed service R.O's and want to make sure the GM Survey does not get lost in all of this activity. GM will not allow that dates of when these are sent though. We want our customers looking for the GM survey and do not want them to think that these short rep management surveys are what they should be looking for. Little things like that are giving this negative feedback and disappointment. Other restrictions come from being forced to put the poor reviews with the good. I understand that poor reviews are an opportunity to stand out and I feel that a negative review is needed every now and again on review sites to keep things honest. On our actual website though I feel we should be able to make that decision. We spend a lot of time, energy and money to get traffic to our websites so that is the last past we want to highlight a negative customer experience and drive the new customer away from OUR website after we finally got them there. A customer visiting an exact dealership website will understand that the business is only going to want to highlight positive interactions and is using to help promote business. If I were shopping for some type of big ticket item, I would not expect to visit a website for an ATV or boat dealership for example, and find negative reviews on that dealerships own website. That is not a good selling point and I would question why that business did that before I appreciated them for their honesty.

Were you told you had to with BGC? Because we were told only Chevy!

Congrats by the way on Buick, GMC, and Cadillac dealer of the year with Dealer Rater in IA!

 

[Eley Duke]

So as we just took on a Buick/GMC store it looks like we will be going with the lowest level of Cobalt's RepMan. This process has been as slow as I've found most GM things this far (10 weeks). As I have been unable to create any true interest (belief in the value) in the front line (sales people) of our Dodge store in asking for reviews, it will be interesting to see what happens across the street. I look forward to reporting back!

Kelly, did they tell you that you had to do Rep Man? I was told by our reps only Chevy stores or stores with Chevy, but if you are multi-line SFE you do not have to participate! Did the rules change?

Welcome to GM Kelly, if you need anything you know how to get me!

 

[Daringo]

Are you sending all your customer pay service customers an email asking for a review with a link? We find the opposite true, that we get more service reviews. But its all in how the advisors and sales people set it up and ask!

Actually, with the Cobalt RepMan service you are correct - more service customers are leaving reviews on our cobalt website. I think this is a shear numbers thing though as there are many more service invoices in a day than Sales. With our other RepMan service, sales customers leave more reviews on 3rd party sites. I think this has to do with the excitement of getting a new car vs. the "excitement" of getting your car serviced. Just my opinion though.

I am LMAO!

Are you multi-line? We are and we found out if we went multi-line SFE, we didn't have to participate in the RepMan program.

I'm not sure about this "multi-line"? A reference to more than one brand? Not sure sorry. Need to find out though ASAP! Thanks.

 

[Kelly Wilson]

Kelly, did they tell you that you had to do Rep Man? I was told by our reps only Chevy stores or stores with Chevy, but if you are multi-line SFE you do not have to participate! Did the rules change?

Welcome to GM Kelly, if you need anything you know how to get me!

Thanks Eley! I do need to find some time to get with you. We seem to be strong arm'd into SFE and RepMan was forced too. "They" really didn't want to let us get the store-and it's been a fight every step. Over a month after signing up we still don't show up as registered.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Remember when I said that this program had the potential to negatively impact GM dealers by pushing unsold prospects off their website and back to the web to find "real reviews with real stories?" I rest my case.

GM, you are failing your dealers if you think this is going to help them win business. 5 Words and 5 Stars does NOT sell cars!

Does this motivate you to want to work with this dealer?



...and my all time favorite from the same dealers feed:



This is a 5 year leap in the wrong direction! Consumers aren't positively impacted by 1st party content, especially non-verified content like this that is completely devoid of anything resembling a story they can connect with? The source is what gives any Word of Mouth validity and credibility. No source = Not trustworthy! I know that SFE isn't really a choice for some of you, but please don't rely on it, because this is clearly not a well thought out deliverable when "No Comment" is displayed in your review feed.

I'll be blunt. If you are a GM store on the SFE mandated Reputation Management program you have a greater need for a REAL 3rd party strategy than your competitors, especially off-brand. A smart competitor will use a feed like this on your own website to take business away from you by creating a strong seed of doubt that a.) the content is even from REAL customers in the first place, and b.) that you can provide an experience worthy of their business when your previous customers have "No Comment" about their own experience. If I were selling against this dealer I certainly would.

 

[Criss Castle]

Re: GM Rep Management "Required"

Just as in the academic arena, when there are requirements to get to the next level, such as to get into college, students have to to have a certain GPA, then the GPA measurement becomes useless. Every student has an "A." Some schools go as far a creating new GPA measures to be on a glorified scale rather than the traditional 4.0 and then we end up with students with GPA's higher than 4.0.
When a manufacturer gets involved in measuring performance, dealers who simply cannot perform at the standard most often find a way to enhance their position and it all becomes a lost measurement tool.
CSI is the perfect example. How many CSI fraud incidents can you recall? "Burning" a survey because the customer was upset, creating fake email addresses so the dealer can pick up the survey and fill it in themselves or using fake emails all together so the customer never gets a survey by email. Then the customer never gets notifications that they really need such as recall information and the OEM can't market to them by digital means because the contact information is incorrect. When manufacturers tie money to any performance, the dealers whose poor performance are the same dealers who will falsify the new system. And if you think it can't be done, think again. So, then all the 'bad' ratings go away and all the dealers appear as if they live in a perfect world and every dealer is making every customer happy. So, the OEM is happy. And absolutely nothing is achieved except for a false sense of security that their brand is protected.
The reality is that real reviews assist us in performing better. The good ones are a reminder of what we are doing right and the bad ones are a reminder of where we need to improve. The negative reviews are an opportunity to resolve a problem you may not have known existed or was recently created by a change in process or personnel. It is an opportunity to actually be better than you were the day before and to reflect on how to continually improve.
When the voice of the upset customer is muffled by the drive for only positive reviews and an external force of the dealers' hand, it creates a system much like the academic arena where every kid gets an A and it's hard to measure who the stars really are.
When a manufacturer finds that a dealer has reputation management issues, they know there are other issues as well. The manufacturer has access to all of the R.O.'s, to the sales documents, to finance records; they know there are problems internally before a negative review is ever posted online. Forcing the dealer to enter into an agreement with and use only certain vendors deflates the competitive nature of our business models. It goes against the very essence of differentiation strategy. GM is well known for controlling their dealers. Their track record shows how successful this philosophy has been in the past with websites and CRMs; not a winning situation, unless you are the vendor.