This just came out very recently:
For us, the word reviews isn't hot, it's searing!
For us, the word reviews isn't hot, it's searing!
How HOT is the word REVIEW in our Space?
- Thread starter joe.pistell
- Start date
Short answer - no, we don't know. And all the surveys/studies by competing vendors and promoters are only muddying the water.
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Reviews are "hot" because dealers make them as such, esp on certain sites. Yes, reviews will be written regardless of if the dealership has a process or system to help push good reviews. But, I think we have made alot more out of it, and made it now our problem, than it should be. So much so, we now have to hire companies to manage our presense and reviews.
A local restaurant that is very busy, and probably sees more customers than a dealership in a month, had a 3.5 star review in my area.. but only 2 reviews. (Don't they have someone that does reputation management for them?) Did that stop me from going? No. Did the restaurant deserve a 3.5 star? No, I had a 5 star experience - did I write a review... no (Just not that kind of person right now). Actually - looking at all the mid to high end restaurants in my area on Google, Yelp, etc.. hardly any of them have a ton of reviews, and none have 4.5+ stars - and they are still busy as all heck, and provide 5+ star service in most cases.
I think you need to fish where the people are - moniter your top 5 review sites and find out where people are finding out about you. You ask "Where and how do I know what sites are popular for me?"
Google - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
Yahoo - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
Yelp - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
DealerRater - This one pisses me off, you have to call and ask them how many pageviews you are getting.
you get the picture - then target and "get" reviews as needed. But let it happen naturally... for the most part it will. A simple link at the bottom of your thanks email "Like how you were treated? Please click here and tell"
Should link to a page that YOU control and allows the person to review on thier preffered site.... example:
http://rate.sandsglendale.com
http://rate.sandskia.com
http://ratelibertybuick.com
Any site like this you can change the links/logos to ones that you "need" reviews on.
Anyways.... I think I went off track - most of this is just my opinion - as I have no hard stats or data. Most of you might already know this and I was just ranting.
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Reviews are "hot" because dealers make them as such, esp on certain sites. Yes, reviews will be written regardless of if the dealership has a process or system to help push good reviews. But, I think we have made alot more out of it, and made it now our problem, than it should be. So much so, we now have to hire companies to manage our presense and reviews.
A local restaurant that is very busy, and probably sees more customers than a dealership in a month, had a 3.5 star review in my area.. but only 2 reviews. (Don't they have someone that does reputation management for them?) Did that stop me from going? No. Did the restaurant deserve a 3.5 star? No, I had a 5 star experience - did I write a review... no (Just not that kind of person right now). Actually - looking at all the mid to high end restaurants in my area on Google, Yelp, etc.. hardly any of them have a ton of reviews, and none have 4.5+ stars - and they are still busy as all heck, and provide 5+ star service in most cases.
I think you need to fish where the people are - moniter your top 5 review sites and find out where people are finding out about you. You ask "Where and how do I know what sites are popular for me?"
Google - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
Yahoo - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
Yelp - Sign up and claim your page... it gives you tons of info
DealerRater - This one pisses me off, you have to call and ask them how many pageviews you are getting.
you get the picture - then target and "get" reviews as needed. But let it happen naturally... for the most part it will. A simple link at the bottom of your thanks email "Like how you were treated? Please click here and tell"
Should link to a page that YOU control and allows the person to review on thier preffered site.... example:
http://rate.sandsglendale.com
http://rate.sandskia.com
http://ratelibertybuick.com
Any site like this you can change the links/logos to ones that you "need" reviews on.
Anyways.... I think I went off track - most of this is just my opinion - as I have no hard stats or data. Most of you might already know this and I was just ranting.
- Apr 20, 2009
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- Ryan
Drew,
This is what makes this community so great. I had the opportunity to learn from you earlier this week in an area outside of my field on another thread and I sincerely hope that my comments here will be beneficial to you. If nothing else I want to try to challenge a few of your opinions about reviews.
I'll start by saying I absolutely agree with you on this point. I've seen and heard some ridiculous suggestions and best practices that were stated as fact and just like a review, I'd strongly urge a healthy dose of "consider the source."
Are actual pictures of inventory "Hot" because dealer's made it so, at what point did more than 1 pic become HOT? How about actual pricing on pre-owned units, when did that get HOT as opposed to "call for price"? Emailed quotes? Chat? etc and on and on. My point is simply that every facet of the business is a result of consumer demand, right? I'm sure you are familiar with the marketing wave concept. The early adopters offered a price, took better pics, or started leveraging reviews extremely successfully when they were the only ones in their PMA doing it. They knew consumer's would respond. The consumer base became educated and gravitated toward those businesses that offered that information freely and everybody else plays catch up or fails. Some markets are mid-wave, and some markets are on the back side of the review wave. Also, don't forget the review marketing wave isn't isolated to dealerships, the consumer is utilizing this content in a lot of their online shopping behavior. Consumer Demand is what is driving review marketing right now, not dealers.
I think the restaurant market in your area is pre-wave, but watch and see what happens when that wave hits...
I'm going to ruffle a few feathers here with my opinion... NO, YOU DON'T! Do you have a vendor on retainer for upset customers in your showroom? "Quick Mrs. GM, hide under your desk and I'll call our Reputation Vendor to come talk to this unhappy person." Totally Ridiculous, right? The best person to handle an upset customer in the showroom, or online, is the GM or Owner. PERIOD! There are some great tools available to help you identify potential problems, but most don't NEED a managed solution.
I get really aggravated by the fear mongering that is going on in the review space. There are a lot of businesses that have popped up that are attempting to sell a service based on fear, and as powerful of a motivator as that may be to engage online, it is the wrong way to go into a review marketing strategy. This isn't a war, it isn't you against the customer! They are your best asset, not your enemy. ZMOT got mentioned in this thread already, you can watch a short video on it here, but the stat that gets left out of a fear mongering pitch is that 80% of review content is POSITIVE. Why isn't 80% of the sales pitch about leveraging authentic positive reviews?
Nobody likes reading negative mentions of their business and I'm truly sorry if anything we do causes you to be "pissed off." You are absolutely right about needing to request that analytical data at this time. The good news is that we have heard this request and we are working on a robust reporting package for our partner dealers, but our support team is very available to pull this manually in the meantime. This could be a totally new post, though. I challenge my dealers not to sit back and wait for somebody to stumble on their page. They are missing so many great opportunities to improve lead to show if they aren't leveraging the content early and often in the cycle. If the consumer is looking for this content shouldn't our sales team's be offering it as early as possible?
Is there anything else about DealerRater that upsets you? I'd be happy to talk with you offline if you like. Please PM me if I can answer any questions about what we do, I'd really like to talk to you about it if it is bothering you.
Ryan
This is what makes this community so great. I had the opportunity to learn from you earlier this week in an area outside of my field on another thread and I sincerely hope that my comments here will be beneficial to you. If nothing else I want to try to challenge a few of your opinions about reviews.
I'll start by saying I absolutely agree with you on this point. I've seen and heard some ridiculous suggestions and best practices that were stated as fact and just like a review, I'd strongly urge a healthy dose of "consider the source."
Are actual pictures of inventory "Hot" because dealer's made it so, at what point did more than 1 pic become HOT? How about actual pricing on pre-owned units, when did that get HOT as opposed to "call for price"? Emailed quotes? Chat? etc and on and on. My point is simply that every facet of the business is a result of consumer demand, right? I'm sure you are familiar with the marketing wave concept. The early adopters offered a price, took better pics, or started leveraging reviews extremely successfully when they were the only ones in their PMA doing it. They knew consumer's would respond. The consumer base became educated and gravitated toward those businesses that offered that information freely and everybody else plays catch up or fails. Some markets are mid-wave, and some markets are on the back side of the review wave. Also, don't forget the review marketing wave isn't isolated to dealerships, the consumer is utilizing this content in a lot of their online shopping behavior. Consumer Demand is what is driving review marketing right now, not dealers.
I think the restaurant market in your area is pre-wave, but watch and see what happens when that wave hits...
I'm going to ruffle a few feathers here with my opinion... NO, YOU DON'T! Do you have a vendor on retainer for upset customers in your showroom? "Quick Mrs. GM, hide under your desk and I'll call our Reputation Vendor to come talk to this unhappy person." Totally Ridiculous, right? The best person to handle an upset customer in the showroom, or online, is the GM or Owner. PERIOD! There are some great tools available to help you identify potential problems, but most don't NEED a managed solution.
I get really aggravated by the fear mongering that is going on in the review space. There are a lot of businesses that have popped up that are attempting to sell a service based on fear, and as powerful of a motivator as that may be to engage online, it is the wrong way to go into a review marketing strategy. This isn't a war, it isn't you against the customer! They are your best asset, not your enemy. ZMOT got mentioned in this thread already, you can watch a short video on it here, but the stat that gets left out of a fear mongering pitch is that 80% of review content is POSITIVE. Why isn't 80% of the sales pitch about leveraging authentic positive reviews?
Nobody likes reading negative mentions of their business and I'm truly sorry if anything we do causes you to be "pissed off." You are absolutely right about needing to request that analytical data at this time. The good news is that we have heard this request and we are working on a robust reporting package for our partner dealers, but our support team is very available to pull this manually in the meantime. This could be a totally new post, though. I challenge my dealers not to sit back and wait for somebody to stumble on their page. They are missing so many great opportunities to improve lead to show if they aren't leveraging the content early and often in the cycle. If the consumer is looking for this content shouldn't our sales team's be offering it as early as possible?
Is there anything else about DealerRater that upsets you? I'd be happy to talk with you offline if you like. Please PM me if I can answer any questions about what we do, I'd really like to talk to you about it if it is bothering you.
Ryan
- Sep 30, 2010
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- Bill
I had to grab this screenshot from my Google Places page while the reviews are sill visible there 
This particular customer had just moved to our area and needed some general car repairs for her Lexus. She reason that she chose our dealership was because of our positive online reviews compared to other dealers in our area. My office is very near our service write up area and I overhear new customers to my my store telling my service writers the same story quite often. Not all of them take the time to go to a review site like the one who wrote the review. Experience has taught me that if I know of this happening once with the customer who wrote the review as proof, that it is probably happening countless other times that I cannot prove. Sort of like our conversation in the Autotrader thread of overthinking ROI and what actually brought them in.
This particular customer had just moved to our area and needed some general car repairs for her Lexus. She reason that she chose our dealership was because of our positive online reviews compared to other dealers in our area. My office is very near our service write up area and I overhear new customers to my my store telling my service writers the same story quite often. Not all of them take the time to go to a review site like the one who wrote the review. Experience has taught me that if I know of this happening once with the customer who wrote the review as proof, that it is probably happening countless other times that I cannot prove. Sort of like our conversation in the Autotrader thread of overthinking ROI and what actually brought them in.
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Nailed it Bill!
Kinda reminds me of the invisible autotrader/cars.com shopper. They're there, but you need boots on the ground to see them.
Kinda reminds me of the invisible autotrader/cars.com shopper. They're there, but you need boots on the ground to see them.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
I guess a few things have changed since this thread started... however I wanted to point out that regardless of the changes in Google/G+/FB/etc what we see is a merge between the world of purchases influenced by the community and the world of social media.