Google Reviews

[ajholland]

With all of the changes that have occured over the last few weeks with Google/Dealerrater reviews, we are trying to implement a process to get reviews on Google.

Does anyone have a process that has worked really well for them getting customers to write reviews on Google?

 

[Alex Snyder]

The best "automated" one I've seen revolves around a CRM or ILM system having the ability to differentiate between people who have GMail addresses or not.

When [email protected] is present, send template "Ask customer to leave a good response for us with Google" after they buy or service with us. For all other people with a different email address do the exact same thing with xxxxx review site.

Then it just becomes a matter of massaging what the email template says and when it goes out.

 

[Eley Duke]

Have you seen DealerRater Push? It is their answer to the Google changes. So far we have not seen anything push over, but its just gone live.

I would love to do what Alex is talking about above, however our CRM will not allow us to. So what we did was create 4 email templates. 2 are for service, warranty and customer pay, that have the Google Reviews logo and the Dealer Rater logo. They ask a customer if they have a Gmail account to please leave us a review at our Place page. And all others to please leave it at DealerRater. We send this the following day after CP or WP RO's close. The 3rd is for all new sold that mentions the OEM survey and 4th for used, we send those the following day after the deal closes in F&I.

We have just gotten an iPAd2 and are implementing a process to ask for reviews after F&I and in service on DealerRater. Starting Monday we are identifying gmail users in service and asking them if they have a minute to please to step over to a PC that they can go straight to our Google Places page and leave us a review. Doing the same in Sales right at the sales consultant desk.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

We've had 3 - 4 reviews/customers "push" from DealerRater over to gmail already. Nice added feature if you ask me.

 

[ryan.leslie]

We've had 3 - 4 reviews/customers "push" from DealerRater over to gmail already. Nice added feature if you ask me.

Hey Jeff,

We have already seen a good number of reviews "pushed." You know I'm anti-sales pitch, so I hope this doesn't come across that way, but I'm really excited about the results so far for our certified dealers. Chip took lemons and made lemonade with Red Stag in it. I'll go so far as to say this is an improvement... Hear me out before you flame me for sales BS.

First it never failed, I'd have a dealer with 100's of great reviews and what did Google show as the snippet? The one review from 2004 that started with "This is the worst..." or even better than that, Google grabbed a glowing review that started with "I had a miserable experience with their competitor before I came in..." but Google truncated the snippet so it read "I had a miserable experience..." With Push, we are able to screen for gmail users, AND for positive reviews. Only the positive ones are invited to push their review to the place page which is a huge improvement. It really sets up more like our FaceBook integration where it can be used as a tool.

Second thing is the lag is gone. I had dealers waiting 6 weeks for snippets to show up and there are threads here from Mitch and others asking for help with all of the scraping inconsistencies. All that pain is gone. Are you going to get every gmail user to push a review? Probably not, but the ones that do will be positive and show immediately. That is worth the trade off to me.

Here are some recent pushes if you are interested. DealerRater is still, and always will be, an offensive strategy to improve lead to show and closing ratio based on the Dealer's intentional use of the reviews as a marketing tool. Push makes a lot of sense as a part of that end goal.

***
DealerRater: Mercedes-Benz of Fort Lauderdale - Mercedes-Benz - Dealership Ratings (review by mmvita on 8/18/11)
review was PUSHED to
Google Places: Mercedes-Benz of Ft. Lauderdale (review by Mark on 8/18/11)

***
DealerRater: Valencia BMW - BMW - Dealership Ratings (review by illegalprelude on 8/16/11)
review was PUSHED to
Google Places: Valencia BMW (review by Sohrab on 8/16/11)

 

[Walt Kustra]

I Much prefer the dealer rater reviews to Google places and hope our stores get back on the band wagon asap. We get many more useful reviews from customers that were easier to share and from what I can see it is much easier for a customer to submit a dealer rater review than one on places as well. We had a system in place to sell our customers on our reputation...i dont know...its just not the same to say to someone "check us out on google places". They look at me like I have three heads.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Great point Walt. Dealer Rater = relevance to the consumer when asked to review and leaving a review. Hence the reason it converts. Let's also consider - DealerRater, as you mentioned, is a tool and not just a marketing channel. A progressive dealership can build a process and culture change around Dealer Rater. Not so much with Google reviews. I've channeled many consumers to many of the "review" sites in the past and present and Dealer Rater converts the highest. Of course one could argue this is due to having a process built around it while also reinforcing the Dealer Rater brand with the supplied customer handout cards for sales and service. Before I get off my Dealer Rater soap box, I give Chip and the crew at Dealer Rater a kudos for quickly having an answer to the recent changes with Google. Their new "push" feature (or whatever you want to call it) works. We've had 3 or 4 customers review us on Dealer Rater while also reviewing us on Google at the same time. Walt, get your team back on board. BTW, have you watch the video of myself and Tom White on Cars.com Dealer Advantage, speaking on dealer reviews and getting the dealerships buy-in?

 

[Walt Kustra]

I actually have not seen that video, do you have a link to it? Id love to share it with everyone here. I just feel like we had that process in place to not only acquire the reviews after the sale, but also did a really good job of using it in the sales process as we were building value in our store. I don't hear any of my guys telling their customers to check them out on Google places if you know what I mean.

 

[Brian Podolak]

...

We have just gotten an iPAd2 and are implementing a process to ask for reviews after F&I and in service on DealerRater. Starting Monday we are identifying gmail users in service and asking them if they have a minute to please to step over to a PC that they can go straight to our Google Places page and leave us a review. Doing the same in Sales right at the sales consultant desk.

A small word of caution. I had a dealer do something similar and one of his clients gmail accounts was hacked. No one could say for sure where it occurred so make sure your clients log out each time.

I would also guess after time, Google seeing the same IP might be an issue. If you have dynamic DSL, reboot it here and there for fresh IP. Good luck!

 

[yagoparamo]

A small word of caution. I had a dealer do something similar and one of his clients gmail accounts was hacked. No one could say for sure where it occurred so make sure your clients log out each time.

I would also guess after time, Google seeing the same IP might be an issue. If you have dynamic DSL, reboot it here and there for fresh IP. Good luck!

Most dynamic DSLs still use a range of IPs that the ISP changes once on a while. However when you login/logout you will be using that range only. An IPAD with a mobile connection seems to work better, for now.

I would NOT use Dealer Rater==>Google. Why not using Google so the customer uses their own account without you getting involved and then you copy the review in your own review site like http://www.harrisfordreviews.com/for example? That seems more logical and less liability.