Mike Blumenthal on Onsite “Review Stations” and Google

[Jeff Kershner]

I'm with you Kcar. Maybe we should start a thread showcasing these cheating dealers. No way there are real reviews What goes around, comes around. I said it several months ago in a tweet - it's rare I find any value in Google Places reviews.

 

[ryan.leslie]

One more quick thing to add on the Yelp reviews. It is interesting to look and see how many have been filtered out. I do like that aspect of Yelp's platform.

The gamer's figure out when they've been blocked and usually stop posting to that property. The sales pitch being used on dealers to get them to sign on is totally deceptive. I've had more than one GM tell me that they had no idea what the company was actually doing, and it wasn't anything at all like the pitch. The lithmus test needs to be "is the consumer the one pushing submit, and are they doing it because they genuinely want to, not because it is part of your process in the store?" Anything less than that standard needs to be evaluated in my opinion.

***Personal Note***
Hey kcar, I want to apologize if my post felt like I was attacking you personally. I'll be the first to admit I get a little passionate about this topic.

The more you post the more "real" you become, to me anyway. I do hope you'll let us know who you really are at some point. Again, my sincere apologies if I came across like a jerk, that really wasn't my intention.

 

[JamieS]

Wait a second... 1,300+ Google User REVIEWS, and ONLY 19 Google +1's on the homepage.. Something isn't right here... Plus, they show off the reviews, but there's nothing on their website that tells customers how to post reviews or where to post the at.. Plus they don't have the inventory, they have 200 new cars, 93 used cars, no way they are moving enough inventory for that many customers..

Next is YELP, 16 reviews.. Almost ALL are negative, 2 stars.. DealerRater only 157 reviews..

Also, I'm 90% sure I know which company they are using.. It's one that will post all those reviews for you, something I frown upon myself..

I'm going to have to say this is not legit or done by customers at home.. (My own personal opinion, but it just doesn't add up). I'm going to guess we've found our first dealer that MAY be abusing the system already..

Lol! I just shined a huge spotlight on them. Truly not my intention but I had to mention it as it's perplexed me for some time.

 

[ed.brooks]

...The best part of customer reviews (good and bad) is getting honest feedback so you truly know where you're doing great and where you might need to place some additional focus for better customer service.

...IF you can get past using reviews for nothing more that a Marketing ploy, you would have a better understanding and appreciation on how you can use the service to better your dealership all together.

I'm with you 100% on this Jeff. I seem to always get into trouble with my stance on 'Online Reputation Management' (I think it's bull shit).

It's not that I don't think you should have a process in place to both monitor and encourage reviews. I just think the word 'management' implies that you can control consumers perception after they've bought from you. That it can be 'managed'. I think that consumer perception today, in the internet era, is much more organic than that. It's like watching a plant grow; you plant seeds, you water and fertilize, but what you get at the end may be a little different than what you expected. That's not a bad thing.

Reviews should be an accurate representation of consumer's perception of your dealership. If that perception is poor, it gives you a road map of things to fix. 'Managing' the reputation isn't the answer. Producing happy customers is. Once you start producing happy customers, do everything in your power to encourage reviews. By putting reviews before customer satisfaction, you're putting the cart before the horse.

 

[michaelsos]

I don't get review stations. Engaging customers using loyalty marketing is so easy and effective for building reviews. Why go through the trouble of instituting this operational abortion?.. if not implemented right it will be construed as sleazy by your customers, it only works on google and it utilizes the online platform in ways it was unintended to be used.

I believe the best approach is to engage customers within the loyalty cycle for sales and service. Build a campaign that utilizes the strategies that are effective in lead generation. If you build it right, you will have all kinds of tweaks you can make to dial in the program like a race car and drive reviews.

This is what we do with our Prime Response Reputation Management program at Dominion Dealer Solutions.
check out this screen shot of what a good reputation program did for this dealer at DealerRater.com, can you tell when we turned it on?:


This isn't manipulation, just engaging customers and asking them for reviews.

Ryan is right, the litmus test should be "is the consumer the one pushing submit, and are they doing it because they genuinely want to, not because it is part of your process in the store?" Anything less than that standard needs to be evaluated in my opinion."

This screen shot shows that you CAN get results without breaking this rule just by engaging customers. All the happy customers are the ones that are not motivated to participate...a little engagement will go a long way.

Here is a screen shot of one of the dashboards in Prime for a dealer i am working with right now:

Notice the spread of reviews across the web? We are actively influencing multiple sites by changing our campaigns. This can not be done with a review station. We do this relatively inexpensively and without changing any process in-store. No training meetings, No sleazy hand holding...Easy Peasy.
Thanks for the Help with that idea, Jeff!

 

[michaelsos]

Very true, Ed. I perfer Reputation Intelligence and Influence. The only thing you can do is influence the person to share their opinion, track the results and make changes in your organization to produce a better result.

 

[Nyagoslav]

My humble opinion:

1. Google does not officially support review stations. On the contrary, they are against them as part of the "conflict of interest" guideline (check here). While review stations are not named in the mentioned document, they might naturally be associated with that category.

2. Review stations are bad practice in two main ways:

A) The customer's opinion expressed in reviews collected this way would anyhow be biased and affected by the specifics of the review station. Therefore, the feedback would not be realistic, which could in many cases cause more troubles for the business, than it would solve.

B) Positively, the anti-spam review algorithm would be triggered if numerous reviews are being posted via the same location, especially if this location is the same through which the business owner themselves log in to their Google Places verified account.

Conclusion: review stations are a big no-no.

 

[joe.pistell]

Google is a giant, enormous company. Like all Goliaths, It suffers from "the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing".

Any way you cook it, Review stations are an open door to abuse.

Abuse = Bad Data. Bad data = FAIL.

 

[MMurgadoJr]

Wait a second... 1,300+ Google User REVIEWS, and ONLY 19 Google +1's on the homepage.. Something isn't right here... Plus, they show off the reviews, but there's nothing on their website that tells customers how to post reviews or where to post the at.. Plus they don't have the inventory, they have 200 new cars, 93 used cars, no way they are moving enough inventory for that many customers..

Next is YELP, 16 reviews.. Almost ALL are negative, 2 stars.. DealerRater only 157 reviews..

Also, I'm 90% sure I know which company they are using.. It's one that will post all those reviews for you, something I frown upon myself..

I'm going to have to say this is not legit or done by customers at home.. (My own personal opinion, but it just doesn't add up). I'm going to guess we've found our first dealer that MAY be abusing the system already..

kcar, you are referring to my company. I can assure you that all reviews are collected legitimately. I take great Pride in my company and how we service our customers. Ultimately, we do our best to deliver exceptional service. When we do get a negative review, I always give my cell number so I can personally resolve any issues that may have popped up.

 

[ed.brooks]

Worth saying, "I told you so...", I wish it wasn't the case.