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Google Reviews

I would NOT use Dealer Rater==>Google. Why not using Google so the customer uses their own account...

I guess in an effort not to be "pitchy" I didn't explain how this works very well. Let me try again.

DealerRater Push doesn't post anything to the Places Page. To borrow from a popular phrase we are separating the horses from the ackjasses and leading only the horses to water. We then scoop a big pitcher out and ask them to open up while we start pouring.

When a positive review is submitted by a reviewer that uses a gmail account for validation we send this as the response to make it very easy for them to help you on DealerRater and your Places Page. They are absolutely posting with their own account. Real people; Real posting. See below:

ScreenHunter_04 Aug. 22 16.38.jpg

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 www.brienfordreviews.com for example? That seems more logical and less liability.

Yago,

I totally disagree with dealer branded review pages and might come across a little strong here; they do more harm than good. I now see why you and I disagreed about uploading a written testimonial on behalf of a dealer in another thread. Are you copying review content from other sites and loading it on these dealer branded pages too? No offense, but if you think copying content without a citation doesn't carry huge liability you might want to read up on the FTC investigation of Google that started all this discussion.

I think that sometimes we forget about the credibility or believability aspect. The site you referenced has 183 5 star reviews, not one negative, not one I could find below a perfect 5 stars. Do you think any prospect that page is sent to believes what they are reading is a fair representation of the business? How many instantly think that the dealer is trying to pull the wool over their eyes and now have a reason to distrust them? Word of Mouth works because it is coming from an objective 3rd party, a branded page is obviously coming from the dealer and is in no way objective because it is marketing. Consumers don't expect you to be perfect on a review site and they can reject you if you claim to be through a branded site.

The web revolution for automotive is all about transparency, pricing and otherwise. To me, branded pages with altered review content, "review syndication", impersonating a customer, and spamming 5,000 sites with the same 12 positive reviews to dominate page one of the SERP is not any better than the bait and switch and throwing the keys on the roof tactics of yesteryear. The dealers that get caught doing this when a customer is just looking for an honest objective review from a peer lose...
 
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In-house "dealer branded" reviews VS 3rd Party review services?

I'll pipe my endless supply of consumers to review on the 3rd party review site over a self hosted review page any day. As Ryan points out, 3rd party sites have way more credibility over a "dealer branded" review page. Heck - I don't even feel comfortable having a "customer testimonials" page on by dealership website, even if it is powered my DealerRater.com.
 
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Yago,

I totally disagree with dealer branded review pages and might come across a little strong here; they do more harm than good. I now see why you and I disagreed about uploading a written testimonial on behalf of a dealer in another thread. Are you copying review content from other sites and loading it on these dealer branded pages too? No offense, but if you think copying content without a citation doesn't carry huge liability you might want to read up on the FTC investigation of Google that started all this discussion.

I think that sometimes we forget about the credibility or believability aspect. The site you referenced has 183 5 star reviews, not one negative, not one I could find below a perfect 5 stars. Do you think any prospect that page is sent to believes what they are reading is a fair representation of the business? How many instantly think that the dealer is trying to pull the wool over their eyes and now have a reason to distrust them? Word of Mouth works because it is coming from an objective 3rd party, a branded page is obviously coming from the dealer and is in no way objective because it is marketing. Consumers don't expect you to be perfect on a review site and they can reject you if you claim to be through a branded site.

The web revolution for automotive is all about transparency, pricing and otherwise. To me, branded pages with altered review content, "review syndication", impersonating a customer, and spamming 5,000 sites with the same 12 positive reviews to dominate page one of the SERP is not any better than the bait and switch and throwing the keys on the roof tactics of yesteryear. The dealers that get caught doing this when a customer is just looking for an honest objective review from a peer lose...


I don't see how dealer review sites can do more harm than good. A record of the relationships a business has with its community is something that has been done for years in the form of letters, guestbooks, presents, etc. Making that record available in a digital format doesn't change anything. We are not doing anything new here.

Copying review content in clearly a liability, furthermore there is no need to do that. Asking your own clients to add their reviews to your own review site (a digital asset that you own) is what we tell dealers to do. When a customer hand writes one, then we tell the dealer to add it themselves and maintain a hard copy of the review.

I don't disagree with you and Jeff about the lower credibility of a dealer owned page, but I can list 20+ 3rd party review sites (Yelp, Google, Judy'sBook, etc) where is the need for yet another one like DealerRater? Keep in mind that all the previous sites I mentioned are FREE, DealerRater is a subscription program. I strongly disagree, specially with your last paragraph, where it seems that you automatically call cheat and liers to all dealers that dont use dealerrater and try to build their own pages.

Let me tell you how dealerrater works:

This is Klein Honda dealerrater page where you sold advertising to their closest Honda competitor. That sounds like Autotarder's banner game...


Klein Honda - Honda - Dealership Ratings

NOTE: I didnt put this line to call you anything, but to demonstrate that in the end this is a for profit enterprise and not charity work for the customer's behalf.


So what you are telling me is that if a dealer owns its site, he will lie one it (or that should be the perception), but if a dealer uses Dealerrater it will be policed so it will not be able to cheat? (or that should be the perception).
  • If what we are working here is in a perception--then use all the already free and available sites.
  • If what we are workign here is on building a record of a business relations (in addition to)--then have your own review site.
About the 5 stars--do you want me to find dealers in Dealerrater with 100+ reviews and a 4.5/5 star...?
Here are some:

Toyota of El Cajon - Toyota, Scion - Dealership Ratings
http://www.dealerrater.com/dealer/DCH-Toyota-of-Simi-Valley-review-22075/

Maybe they are true--I dont question that at all--I'm just refuting the fact that if a dealer owns his site you call them a cheat but if they are with dealer rater they are not. All sites and systems at the moment can be cheated to a certain degree.

If the dealer asked for a review at the time of sale, yes--I do believe--that those 183 reviews are true and positive. I was too positive about my experience when I bought each one of the cars I have ever owned. If you are not happy about the dealer after that, there is nothing that stops you from going to any site of all the free available ones to add any post coments that you want.

However let me tell you the way all this will work with Dealerrater or with the dealer's pages:

All review numbers MUST match to a certain degree from site to site.

That is the secret recipe and why dealer rater, nor any other particular site, is needed. A collection of sites is what will create a true account for a business.

My final thoughts:

Just because someone doens't use your web doesn't make him a cheat.
A dealer's reputation is made of many websites.
Dealer rater works fine (minus the advertising banner game).
If a dealer has budget for one--in my opinion--build your own.
 
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Yago,

You post some great comments and ideas but I don't know if pimping your own companies service vs DealerRater is really serving the communities best interest. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Not trying to flame ya :)


Ryan,

No problemo.

Changed the link from the site we built to one done by Presto (so now I don't advertise my site to you, Jeff, and Ryan).

Anyone can do this type of sites--some better than others--and they are nothing more than a record website. So no much intention to push a $150 website. We have done them for our current clients because we strongly felt it was a good way to keep up with custonmers that didn't have Google or Yelp accounts.
 
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Yago,

Somehow we went from getting reviews on Google to branded pages to DealerRater's value proposition, I love DealerRefresh! I would like to address some of the things in your reply in order to clarify what DealerRater actually does. I don't want this to degrade into a vendor battle royale cage match as much fun as THAT would be so I've done my best to say all that I want to say with this post. I really appreciate this forum as a place where these differences of opinion can be shared openly and I don't want to get booted when I'm getting so close to my 100th post. Thanks for the discussion and I'll give you the last word if you want it.

A record of the relationships a business has with its community is something that has been done for years in the form of letters, guestbooks, presents, etc. Making that record available in a digital format doesn't change anything. We are not doing anything new here.

We aren't talking about loading reviews to the testimonial page of a Dealer's site here, you are creating a page for marketing purposes that has the appearance of an independent 3rd party, that is what is new in this scenario. It doesn't matter if you are talking about a site you bought or built or are just buying the ability to freely remove content you don't like from at your discretion, it is marketing and should be clearly identified as such to preserve credibility in the eyes of the consumer. My point is blurring the lines between compiled marketing and objective reviews isn't consumer friendly.

I don't disagree with you and Jeff about the lower credibility of a dealer owned page, but I can list 20+ 3rd party review sites (Yelp, Google, Judy'sBook, etc) where is the need for yet another one like DealerRater? Keep in mind that all the previous sites I mentioned are FREE, DealerRater is a subscription program. I strongly disagree, specially with your last paragraph, where it seems that you automatically call cheat and liers to all dealers that dont use dealerrater and try to build their own pages.

Where is the need for DealerRater? Man, I want to give a sales pitch here... but I won't. If any of the 20+ sites did what DealerRater does for FREE I would spend more time on the for hire section of this site. ;) Free stuff can be REALLY EXPENSIVE! I don't know what the going rate for branded pages is, but I will defend the value proposition of DealerRater over any other comprehensive strategy and I don't think I'll lose. DealerRater isn't a place to collect reviews, we train dealers to make Rep management an offensive strategy and we supply the tools and feeds to carry out that strategy. We help setup processes that work and we also consult as needed for everything from handling a specific negative review to leveraging content, and we do all that for $95 a month. If you pay yourself by the hour you'll spend multiples of that just trying to make the 20+ FREE sites list your business correctly.

Let me tell you how dealerrater works:
Klein Honda - Honda - Dealership Ratings

NOTE: I didnt put this line to call you anything, but to demonstrate that in the end this is a for profit enterprise and not charity work for the customer's behalf.

This is Klein Honda dealerrater page where you sold advertising to their closest Honda competitor. That sounds like Autotarder's banner game...

Well, at least you didn't call me an extortionist ;) Look, I don't think anybody has us confused with Mother Teresa for Charitable Acts and I know we don't want to be either. We absolutely monetize the site through ads, some dealers love them and are really taking advantage of the opportunity to buy strategically, some don't and that is okay too. We do give first right of refusal to any dealer that certifies and every dealer pays the same price for certification, AutoNation to single point Kia store. There is certainly some gamesmanship, but it is entirely dealer driven and no different than any other competitive property. Are you abandoning your Adwords campaign because you are competing for your make or city with another dealer? Did you bury your head in the sand and delete your website when you found out another dealer was challenging you for page rank? Did you move your dealership when a competitor leased the billboard on your exit? There's other dealers on your place page, and your oem sends every dealer in your PMA the same leads.

The whole "they sell your ad space" stuff is weak. This is the car business, if you're scared of competition in the marketplace go sell... Nevermind, I can't think of a damn thing you can sell if you are that scared of your competition.


About the 5 stars--do you want me to find dealers in Dealerrater with 100+ reviews and a 4.5/5 star...?
Here are some:

Toyota of El Cajon - Toyota, Scion - Dealership Ratings
DCH Toyota of Simi Valley - Toyota, Scion - Dealership Ratings

Maybe they are true--I dont question that at all--I'm just refuting the fact that if a dealer owns his site you call them a cheat but if they are with dealer rater they are not. All sites and systems at the moment can be cheated to a certain degree.

Two things here. I never called anyone a cheat and I don't think you can reduce the discussion to that. The average rating is a 24 month average. You'll find the averages to be lower if you look at all of them as dealers get more successful reconciling as they go, but anything older than 24 months doesn't matter to the customer anyway.

I work with a lot of very involved men and women who happen to have their name on the side of the building that are acutely aware of every negative review. They work diligently to reconcile with that reviewer and they often succeed. I have a dealer principal in OH that gives my cell number to every reviewer he successfully reconciles with and I get a call from the reviewer. He does this, I certainly didn't ask him to! He wants me to know "he fixed it" because his name is on it and I respect that! That is why I get a little riled up when there is any hint that a positive score isn't the result of a lot of work on the part of managers and owners.

My final thoughts:

1. Just because someone doens't use your web doesn't make him a cheat.
2. A dealer's reputation is made of many websites.
3. Dealer rater works fine (minus the advertising banner game).
4. If a dealer has budget for one--in my opinion--build your own.

1. I did not say that or imply it. I take umbrage with an attempt to reduce the conversation to that. The original post was about a feature we have driving reviewers TO the place page, hardly a "DealerRater or you're a cheat" topic.
2. Agreed, but the credible ones are the ones they don't control the content on. The rest are marketing not objective and customers know the difference.
3. DealerRater works. Some dealers play in the sandbox more aggressively than others, I'm not going to fault them for that.
4. ...and in my opinion, spend your marketing dollars wisely.
 
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This is the real value of Dealer Refresh, so thank for for sharing your voice with me.

Ryan Leslie; said:
We aren't talking about loading reviews to the testimonial page of a Dealer's site here, you are creating a page for marketing purposes that has the appearance of an independent 3rd party, that is what is new in this scenario. It doesn't matter if you are talking about a site you bought or built or are just buying the ability to freely remove content you don't like from at your discretion, it is marketing and should be clearly identified as such to preserve credibility in the eyes of the consumer. My point is blurring the lines between compiled marketing and objective reviews isn't consumer friendly.

The branded site is created for marketing purposes, but at the end of the day so is dealer rater. However I disagree that it has the appearance of a 3rd party site. Presto revwies does that and looks like a 3rd party site when is not. To do so they add the PR logo, name, etc as in this example Harris Ford Reviews | Ford Lincoln Mercury Dealer Lynnwood Washington We dont do that, our pages are 100% dealer pages and they say so. We exclusively have the dealer's name, logo, facebook, twitter, employees, hours of operations, etc Brien Ford Reviews I understood the possibility of deceptoon and that is why we created them this way. I also understand your point about "freely remove content you don't like from at your discretion" but let me tell you one thing I have learned about the Internet: You can't control it. I coach my dealers to embraze a complete change and to bravely accept that sometimes we will fail and that some people will just not like doing business with us. To hide a bad review in one website will do nothing for the good of the business. Dont worry too much about that--the Internet knows better.

Ryan Leslie; said:
Where is the need for DealerRater? Man, I want to give a sales pitch here... but I won't. If any of the 20+ sites did what DealerRater does for FREE I would spend more time on the for hire section of this site. ;) Free stuff can be REALLY EXPENSIVE! I don't know what the going rate for branded pages is, but I will defend the value proposition of DealerRater over any other comprehensive strategy and I don't think I'll lose. DealerRater isn't a place to collect reviews, we train dealers to make Rep management an offensive strategy and we supply the tools and feeds to carry out that strategy. We help setup processes that work and we also consult as needed for everything from handling a specific negative review to leveraging content, and we do all that for $95 a month. If you pay yourself by the hour you'll spend multiples of that just trying to make the 20+ FREE sites list your business correctly.


Ryan--we do that too... and I'm sure the Presto guys too, and Brian Pash, and Ralph Paglia, etc. everyone coaches their clients best they can without putting a $ to every pitch. I went to Brian's seminar in CA and he gave tons of info about online reputation. Branded sites go for $150 each.

Now, in my markets your salesperson has made a mistake because he hasn't sold Dealer Rater for $95/month. Lets be honest about what we do, what it cost, and what it does.

My point was that there web is already full of sites that collect reviews from customers, why one more? When will be enough? Cars.com now has one, Edmunds has one... pretty soon the pin stripe guy will have one too! It is becoming unmanageable and dealers need to take charge by controlling this proliferation and extorsion of the review business.

Ryan Leslie; said:
Well, at least you didn't call me an extortionist ;) Look, I don't think anybody has us confused with Mother Teresa for Charitable Acts and I know we don't want to be either. We absolutely monetize the site through ads, some dealers love them and are really taking advantage of the opportunity to buy strategically, some don't and that is okay too. We do give first right of refusal to any dealer that certifies and every dealer pays the same price for certification, AutoNation to single point Kia store. There is certainly some gamesmanship, but it is entirely dealer driven and no different than any other competitive property. Are you abandoning your Adwords campaign because you are competing for your make or city with another dealer? Did you bury your head in the sand and delete your website when you found out another dealer was challenging you for page rank? Did you move your dealership when a competitor leased the billboard on your exit? There's other dealers on your place page, and your oem sends every dealer in your PMA the same leads.

The whole "they sell your ad space" stuff is weak. This is the car business, if you're scared of competition in the marketplace go sell... Nevermind, I can't think of a damn thing you can sell if you are that scared of your competition.


At certain point you sounded liek DR is the dealer review police and I tried to point that it is a for profit organization just like anyone else (Yelp, Judysbook, etc). So no intention to harm there, just to prove that yes--Dealer rater is just another site of the hundreds bleeding small biz out of money to add reviews when dealers can do this on their own.

Ryan Leslie; said:
Two things here. I never called anyone a cheat and I don't think you can reduce the discussion to that. The average rating is a 24 month average. You'll find the averages to be lower if you look at all of them as dealers get more successful reconciling as they go, but anything older than 24 months doesn't matter to the customer anyway.

I work with a lot of very involved men and women who happen to have their name on the side of the building that are acutely aware of every negative review. They work diligently to reconcile with that reviewer and they often succeed. I have a dealer principal in OH that gives my cell number to every reviewer he successfully reconciles with and I get a call from the reviewer. He does this, I certainly didn't ask him to! He wants me to know "he fixed it" because his name is on it and I respect that! That is why I get a little riled up when there is any hint that a positive score isn't the result of a lot of work on the part of managers and owners.

I think that you called a cheat to the processof dealers owning their review sites and although I agree that there is a stronger change of that to happen I also think that we are in a time of learning and that many dealers will learn and discover to manage them properly in their own assets.

My point was not to call the DR process a failure but to notice that dealers doing things differently than the DR process are also involved and working hard to get their reviews straight.

Ryan Leslie; said:
1. I did not say that or imply it. I take umbrage with an attempt to reduce the conversation to that. The original post was about a feature we have driving reviewers TO the place page, hardly a "DealerRater or you're a cheat" topic.
2. Agreed, but the credible ones are the ones they don't control the content on. The rest are marketing not objective and customers know the difference.
3. DealerRater works. Some dealers play in the sandbox more aggressively than others, I'm not going to fault them for that.
4. ...and in my opinion, spend your marketing dollars wisely.


1. Ryan, I undertood it that way and I did agree partially with you in the fact that there is stronger chance for cheating to happen. Wait and see that in 6 months all this will be different and that you and I may be taking very different positions.

2. All sites are credible until proven otherwise... (here you are again). Content can be controlled in all sites right now. This will change in the near future with stronger content controls and even laws that may prohibit deception as false advertising of a business.

3. OK (you win this one).

4. Let me expand on this one:

Google 'tom matson dodge' and you will see pissedconsumer riding their name: tom matson dodge - Google Search

I have identified over 40 websites taking on this type of business-- the bad reviews business. Notice that they actually have just a few bad reviews. Pretty good dealer in fact.

Now check this out and Google 'clyde revord' clyde revord - Google Search+

The review site that we built for them indexes 4 times in their first Google 10 thus not leaving space for people like pissedconsumer.com.

Yet with this we have not stopped Google reviews, edmunds, insiderpages, yahoo, etc so the customer has access to any and all the reviews they want.

So we set up a process, dont interfiere with the regular review process on 3rd party sites, give the dealer a sandbox to record their experience, and help control their SER plus keeping bad review sites out of the way.
 
It's had little effect for my Toyota and Mercedes dealer - this it due to the extreme low volume of costumers without a @gmail address. It amazes me how many people are still using Yahoo and hotmail addresses. Heck, I still see a few @juno addresses.

My Nissan dealer (being 20 minutes closer to the DC / Baltimore metro area) has had better success with the feature. I've seen a hand full of the same customer testimonials on both DealerRater and Google.

It would be nice to see what kind of results overall DealerRater is seeing with this new feature.

What I don't understand is Google's priority for listing the dealer reviews...they're obviously not displaying the latest reviews first. I have some not-so-great reviews that are years old, continuing to reside on the main Google places page, even though we several newer reviews. For some reason these newer positive reviews reside on page 2. A page I doubt many voyage their way over to.