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Online Dealer Reviews - Are They Ready For Prime Time?

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#11
Matt,

"To illustrate, Acton Toyota’s Internet department was delivering 35 - 40 new and used vehicles per month on the day I began as their Director of Internet Business Development. Today that very same Internet department is delivering 140 - 160 new and used vehicles per month. Is this not a compelling case for usefulness to-date?"

So during this time you only changed one thing? You started using Dealerrater.com? Not to say it is not possible, but it seems hard to believe that dealerrater can make and impact to quadruple your Internet business. Please tell me if it did and if so how you did it???

Another question I have for you is why you do not have the logo and link to dealerrater on your website? Do you only hand happy customers info on posting a rating, or do you give it to anyone that stops by and test drives a car? Most of your buying customers should be happy but what about the ones not buying?

Not trying to shoot you down or anything, just want to know how you optimize this for your dealership.

Appreciate any input please...
 
#13
Hi Oscar,

Good question.

Most dealerships fail to take the initiative to request DealerRater reviews from their happy customers. Dealerships that do request DealerRater reviews from happy customers can quickly turn DealerRater into a competitive advantage.

At Acton Toyota I developed a process by which we requested DealerRater reviews from all our customers. Before long we had hundreds of reviews touting the benefits of doing business with our dealership.

Once we had built up a number of reviews and a very positive score, I inserted hyperlinks into all email correspondence to unsold prospects that directed these unsold prospects to the MA Toyota Dealer Directory page where they could read not only all the great things being said about Acton Toyota, but they could also read those not so great things being said about our competitors.

If you reside in a market where none of your competitors have leveraged DealerRater to increase market share, then I recommend you pounce on the opportunity before it's too late. The real secret is to be the first dealer in your market to accumulate a positive score based on a large number of reviews. Only once you've done that do you include the aforementioned hyperlink in your outgoing email correspondence.

Let’s face it: your competition is going to secret shop you. Don't reveal your hand until you've built up enough of a lead to sustain this competitive advantage. Do this and you’ll be amazed how much your market share will grow.
 
#14
I had a great time utilizing dealerrater until they stopped having a great time with my dealership. I found our dealership had "one" bad review floating out there. http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=30554, that was blasted to a couple of sites, but it was resolved. This happy customer now has a resolution to the situation, which is great, but i wanted to update dealerrater, and i started sending dealerrater links to my new solds to boast our experience ratings. After getting a mere four great experiences, which got us up to a 3.4 stars, I had a dealerrater rep call, they left a message, and now they never respond. Now my great experiences are also gone, weird, i thought, any thoughts anyone?
 
#16
Our new dealership has been open for almost two months now, and we have been a Dealerrater certified dealer over the last month and a half.

We feel it has given us additional credibility with respect to our online reputation, as well as a great link to send out to all of our existing prospects that have not purchased from us yet.

We just received our first lead from Dealerrater where the customer stated he had heard good things about us from a previous customer. We feel over time, that the amount of these leads will increase.

Andrew DiFeo
Hyundai of St. Augustine
 
#17
Hi Oscar,

Sure...I am happy to explain.

Originally we chose to build our repuation on DealerRater because it was founded in 2002 as the first car dealer review website worldwide. In and of itself, being first to market is a tremendous competitive advantage; which may explain why DealerRater continues to generate a ton more traffic than any of its nearest competitors.

Nowadays, Acton Toyota is fully commited to DealerRater because:

1) DealerRater.com is the name brand in dealership history reports, and

2) DealerRater.com has been instrumental in significantly increasing Acton Toyota's business.

How's that old saying go? If it isn't broken...
 
#18
How about CUSTOMER-RATER.com... this way we all can burn a customer or praise them!?

A Salesperson driven website where you can candidly write up a review on the customers... for salespeople only... this way we know where they've been, how they act up, what stupid money they want for that piece of crap they want to get rid of...what hot buttons need to be pushed...

As far as dealer ratings... we are #1 in the country for Sales satisfaction and Service (really)... so that's all I need to show my people, and what people write about me.... it's taken with a grain of salt.
 

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