Mobile Social Networking Apps WILL Threaten Your Dealers Online Reputation!

[Jeff Kershner]

I'm sure by now you've heard of foursquare and gowalla. They’re a location service-based social network; a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you levels of "badges" for “checking-in”.

Ok, that's all good and fun right?

But now, Yelp has decided to jump in the game (I’m sure others will follow). Yelp is looking to make their current service even more interesting by adding a location based feature that allows reviewers to show how many times they have “checked-in” at a location while at the same time allowing users to write a review right from the Yelp mobile app.



You're following me right?

Let's say Mary Smith brings her Nissan 09 Maxima in for service. She finds herself waiting in the lounge 30 minutes past the intended time. Just as frustration sets in, the unfriendly service writer finally enters the waiting lounge only to let her know it’s going to be another 20 minutes (and forgets to apologize). Mary’s car is finally ready; she deals with an insensitive cashier and finally makes her way to her Maxima tightly parked between 2 other cars in the parking lot. As she approaches, she notices a scratch on the driver side front fender.

By now she’s had all she can handle and has determined that she’ll no longer be returning for service. She reaches for her iphone, fires up her mobile "check-in/review" social app and in less than 5 minutes has written about her whole experience before even leaving the dealer!

Mary just happens to have her Yelp and/or foursquare account tied into her Twitter and Facebook account. So not only will her negative review of this dealer be posted on this dealers Yelp business page but also automatically makes it's way to her Facebook page and twitter stream. TRIPLE WHAMMY!!






Can this really happen? You bet it can.

If you’ve been reading DealerRefresh for any length of time, you have a keen understanding of the importance of your dealer’s online reputation. As this new wave of social/review app continue to surface, it’s going to be even more imperative that you have a pro-active and re-active reputation management process established.

Are you currently tracking your dealer reviews on Yelp and other social business review websites?

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Glad you brought this up Jeff. It is a bigger deal than anyone is giving these kinds of things credit for. I have to commend DealerRater for helping to start the industry trend of pushing reputation management, but that is just one of thousands of websites.

Eventually I think we'll see a big player (Google is doing this to some degree) combining all reviews into one place. However, it might still be some time before we see anything like this. In the meantime, you've got to work on your SEO results in order to attempt to control these sites for at least your search engine results. It is just impossible to get your happy customers to write positive reviews on every review site.

 

[Steve Barrett]

Alex wrote:
"It is just impossible to get your happy customers to write positive reviews on every review site."

_____________________________________________

It's not that tough Alex. I am running an online review promotion for my company that is having pretty decent results. We are offering the chance to win a plasma HDTV for every review of our company (good or bad) submitted to any review site by our customers. The more site submissions the customer posts them on, the more chances they have of winning. All they have to do is e-mail me the link to their submission and their name goes into the drawing.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Steve - how many review sites are there? I can think of 30 that just belong to local radio stations, TV networks, and newspapers in my market. Then you've got every phone book company, Google, Yahoo, Edmunds, and so many others. I'm not even going to get into the niche forums.

You call that possible? I can't even keep up with how many different sites there are.

I like your idea though.

 

[Steve Barrett]

I did a handout/mailer that suggested some top sites: Google Maps, Local.com, Citysearch, Yahoo Local, Yellowpages.com, etc.

The beauty of it is that the customer can get an additional chance to win for every submission. Most just went to the seven sites that I suggested, others got more adventurous. It just depended on how much time the customer wanted to spend finding sites to submit to. Some only did a couple, others sent reviews to more.

 

[Steve Barrett]

I provided our customers with a list of many of the top review sites. They could submit a review to as many as they wished....adding a chance to win for each submission. The more submissions, the better the chance of winning. Some did several sites, some only a few. But after 25 years in business and thousands of customers, I was a little frustrated in the lack of feedback out there for us. This definitely helped

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Steve, not sure of all the details but the FTC did release new regulations for review sites and obtaining reviews. Not sure if offering the chances to "win" something would fall under the new laws but I would double check to be sure.

 

[Patrick (blog)]

Good timing with this article. I just stumbled upon Foursquare a couple weeks ago; this app can also be actively used by sales management & staff. I myself am the "mayor" of my dealership and left a tip instructing guests to ask for me. As the popularity grows, I imagine it could be useful for attracting prospects.

 

[Mike Elmore (blog)]

Great article Jeff, the timing couldn't be better, Thanks for the heads up!

 

[gosollc]

I think Jeff's article brings a good point and stands true with most of the current advancements on the web and social media. In short, like other industries, these applications create transparency and more efficient channels for customers to share their experiences.

I agree with Steve about getting customers to post positive experiences and "it’s not that tough." It just takes a little effort.

Social Media in general is based on this premise and dealers must realize that their customer service efforts must be improved now more than ever and that positive customer testimonials play a vital role in all of this. I can assure you of one thing, it's a lot easier to get positive experiences out there than to get rid of the negative experiences that tend to linger forever. That's right forever. Chances are lots of this content will remain on the web for years, maybe even decades and your brand reputation strategy is going to be key in the 2010 and the years to come.

Great article Jeff.

Adam Boalt
GOSO.com