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Reputation Management

NickCybela

Boss
Jul 30, 2009
103
14
First Name
Nick
With the advent of the internet and recent rise of blogging, consumers now have the same power that brands have to have their voice heard. Reputation management is relevant to all industries, but in the competitive environment between dealerships it’s key to continued success. Dealerships must address the search results that brand them as rip-off artists, unethical, or even racist (at times). But where do you begin?

There are multimillions of blogs, niche forums, and review sites available. How can dealerships hope to manage their reputation across those and still sell cars? The key on the dealership level is to encourage positive reviews and address the negative in a timely manner. Having a social presence with a friendly face also increases customer loyalty over time and ensures they’re coming back to you over the few years of ownership.

According to Forrester, dealership sites are the #7 trusted compared to OEM's (#1), and friends and family (#2). In my mind, social is the perfect opportunity to sidle up to friends and family-- or at least the closest a dealership's going to get.

There are a few basic steps we recommend dealers take to get started.
1) Set up a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube account. Provide as much information and personality as possible. Be sure to include a face and not just your brand on the profile, and create a page for the business itself.

2) Address your negative reviews with a personal phone call and follow up on the review site.

3) Set up Google Alerts with your brand name, the names of executives and general managers. You can also do this on your competition.

4) Encourage customers to post positive reviews from their home computers (don’t do it from business computers, you’ll get flagged)

As a provider of a 100% managed social solution, I would love your (dealer) feedback... either about our solution or competition. I would appreciate feedback about other needs, unnecessary information etc.,

The things we think are important::

1) A dedicated social evangelist for you
2) Daily check on review sites
3) Automatic monitoring of 200,000+ blogs, forums, websites based off “hot” phrases
4) Reputation enforcement. Address negative and encourage positive reviews
5) Facebook, Twitter, YouTube account management with regular content
6) Blog creation and participation to develop your brand as a thought leader
7) SEO link building back towards key pages on your website
8) Social video distribution
9) Industry leading expertise about what works, and what doesn’t
10) Full analytics including advocate and dissident information based off importance to your brand. Tone across the sites and demographic data as available
 
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There are a few basic steps we recommend dealers take to get started.
1) Set up a Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube account. Provide as much information and personality as possible. Be sure to include a face and not just your brand on the profile, and create a page for the business itself.

2) Address your negative reviews with a personal phone call and follow up on the review site.

Im still a little leary of the value of a Dealership page on Facebook. I think you should have one, but if its used as a spammer for todays hot car deal you will lose "friends" fast. Well you may not lose them, but they are certainly going to click the HIDE button on their Newsfeed page real fast. You know, kind of like that friend you have that you may really like, but has an addiction for Mafia Wars or Texas Holdem and keeps popping up on your FB News feed page.

I do think you could use FB groups to target a specific audience, right now there are 335 Results for AUDI and the top group has 323,000 members, the next 65,000 members.

I do think a salesman could use facebook, create an account just for clients (ie. not your personal page, or family page, I have 3 accounts) , put the link on his business card etc. But if the salesman post a picture of a car every day they are only going to end up being "HIDDEN". There are ways to use it, but there is an art to it, and Im not quite sure what that is yet.

As far as dealer reviews go, I think people are becoming more and more internet savy every day, even my mother knows to view them with some skepticism. When I type in a specific dealers name with the word reviews one of the links that always pops up is DealerRater.com - Car Dealer Reviews, Car Dealer Directory, FREE Dealership Classified Ads. The first thing I look at is the number of reviews, then I read them. If I dont see ANY poor reviews I get a little leery, and instantly think "whos managing this profile....Cuneo?" just kidding, I didnt attach your name to it till today, but I am leery, and think most people realize that the squeaky wheel usually gets the grease when it comes to consumers commenting in forums or review sites.
What Im saying is, people are more likely to take the time to post if they have a COMPLAINT.

If there arent ANY complaints, something is fishy.

So...spice it up a bit??? just a thought.
 
I just wanted to add one thing, you mention forums. People on forums can spot the instant a marketing post steps into a thread. The first thing they do is look at your profile, look at the join date, how many posts you've made, your profile info, and what those posts contain. Im sure you realized this.
How do you handle that? do you have profiles at forums and make random posts to create a "legit profiile"?

To be honest, I understand reputation management from the rescue standpoint, to put out a fire, and see value in some of the services, but I still think the best way to manage your reputation is to provide good service.

Dealer reputations are made in the pews, at soccer games, the pta, the break and lunch rooms, and parking lots.

There are unique ways for dealers to enhance their rep, join charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity, and have links to it on their web page for just one example.

As far as managing forum posts go, that seems like a tough grind to pull off to me, people see through that pretty quick by just checking profiles.
 
I just wanted to add one thing, you mention forums. People on forums can spot the instant a marketing post steps into a thread. The first thing they do is look at your profile, look at the join date, how many posts you've made, your profile info, and what those posts contain. Im sure you realized this.
How do you handle that? do you have profiles at forums and make random posts to create a "legit profiile"?

To be honest, I understand reputation management from the rescue standpoint, to put out a fire, and see value in some of the services, but I still think the best way to manage your reputation is to provide good service.

Dealer reputations are made in the pews, at soccer games, the pta, the break and lunch rooms, and parking lots.

There are unique ways for dealers to enhance their rep, join charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity, and have links to it on their web page for just one example.

As far as managing forum posts go, that seems like a tough grind to pull off to me, people see through that pretty quick by just checking profiles.

There is a large enthusiast website for a brand we sell. Dealers are refrained from marketing themselves unless they are a sponsor. We recently had a customer detail a poor experience with our store on this site. I feel a sponsorship and an active role in the website would have allowed us to knock the bottom out of the customer's poor perception of our dealer. Has anyone had experiences with sponsoring an enthusiast/owner forum?
 
There is a large enthusiast website for a brand we sell. Dealers are refrained from marketing themselves unless they are a sponsor. We recently had a customer detail a poor experience with our store on this site. I feel a sponsorship and an active role in the website would have allowed us to knock the bottom out of the customer's poor perception of our dealer. Has anyone had experiences with sponsoring an enthusiast/owner forum?

I dont think its wise for Dealers to confront a customer on a forum, people on forums will nail you as a marketing shill real quick. I think you have to let members do it. If you know members in the forum who support your dealership, or have had good experiences at your dealership PM them. Just make sure they really are your freinds or they'll just end up posting the PM. Its a risky move.

If you go on a forum , create a user name and jump to a defensive position against a post about your dealership people are going to be all over it, and it will back fire if they know you work there, or think you work there.

So I guess what Im saying is that if you do want to do this, or do it the next time this happens you have to prepare for it and be stealth about it. ie. create a profile, and make posts for a long time just joining in the conversation so that when you do defend a post made by a customer you wont look like you work for the company when people check your profile. Sounds a little evil eh? Takes some planning and forethought. Personally I don't think its worth it. Members who know your company will defend you if they like you(your dealership).

Thats why I sometimes think its better to just let the thread die, every response only gives it more life.
What you want is for it to be off the front page as fast as possible.

edit-
(I just want to add that the reason Im chiming in so much on this forum topic is because it is actually something I have many years experience in, I was a moderator for a couple years on what was at the time one of the top 10 most visited forums. I think they have something like 120,000,000 messages right now)
 
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Has anyone had experiences with sponsoring an enthusiast/owner forum?

Yes. It can work out very well if handled right. John is correct that you have to tread cautiously because the entire forum can turn against you. If you sponsor the forum, offer events, discounted prices, and general advice (meaning: participate), then you can earn some lifelong customers. If you sponsor a forum simply to combat a complaint, you'll be crushed. Better to create an individual account and talk things out with the complainer - then say that you've enjoyed your time here and sponsor at that time. If you sponsor before the dust has settled you could be setting yourself up for a really bad start.

With any social media site, you want to start your own personal account first - learn the rules/personality of the site and then bring the business in.
 
JohnScott;2171...The first thing I look at is the number of reviews said:
Good point John. Consequently, that's why we provide best practice templates to encourage customers to review along with in-store collateral instead of trying to post them ourselves. Major brands (non-automotive) have had to pull entire product lines when they get caught gaming the system because of the backlash.

I also agree that selling on a forum without having an established presence is absolutely a waste of time. Therefore, forums are more used almost in a B2B model of developing thought leadership and moving into a friendly expert instead of encouraging people to come buy a car-- with the ultimate goal of generating leads. I think that's the hardest shift in social-- realizing you're not going to sell a car today, but instead focusing on the new metrics of engagement, reviews, reputation, and the value of a lifelong customer. As profits continue decreasing, can dealerships afford to continue finding new customers every two years? What are they doing to increase retention? While it's impossible to put a direct number to it, there are enough success stories (Jeff's got a few) about the impact it can have on direct sales.

Matt-- as long as the cost works I see that being a positive thing. But, a sponsorship without participation is wasted money. When I was head of interactive for Walser our Subaru store would sell a few cars each month through referrals on a sponsored forum. However, our used car manager would be logging in daily and participating in general and sales oriented forums to really make that happen. Alternatively, we had a new sales guy sign up and his first post was to sell a car-- which turned into a flame war and had to be quickly managed before it showed up in search. Thankfully, because we were involved and monitoring the forum we caught it and requested its removal before any lasting damage was done.
 
I also agree that selling on a forum without having an established presence is absolutely a waste of time. Therefore, forums are more used almost in a B2B model of developing thought leadership and moving into a friendly expert instead of encouraging people to come buy a car

Thankfully, because we were involved and monitoring the forum we caught it and requested its removal before any lasting damage was done.

I think the friendly expert is the way to go, lots of tech questions asked on the enthusiast sites. If a dealer can get their techs to participate that is a great way to go, people really appreciate it. If you've got a tech helping people on a site with a lot of members from your locale you will see people coming in because of their posts. The great thing is lots of techs really enjoy doing this on their own, OK maybe not lots, but they're out there. I guess the best thing to do would be to talk to your techs about if they do or not, and if none are it might be a good idea to identify techs that you think would be good at it and give them some "motivation" to participate. Not sure whats the best way to handle it, you dont want the forum to suddenly be swamped by all your techs.


As far as damage, it can be really bad, and really lasting. God help you if you tick off a
4 c h a n / B / member. Ive seen them swarm and destroy lives, literally force people to move from their homes, crash websites, lower the stock price of APPLE stock etc etc. You're more likely to come across these members on a tuner, import, or website that trends to Generation Y. At their command they can get anything to the top of Googles hot trend list.

(i purposely seperated the letters because of the very real fear that they may somehow come across this post, its like that horror movie, except you dont have to say their name 3 times in a row, once is enough :rofl:)

Rule of thumb, you never really know who you're going to tick off, and more often than not its not even the Topic creator.
 
Yes. It can work out very well if handled right. John is correct that you have to tread cautiously because the entire forum can turn against you. If you sponsor the forum, offer events, discounted prices, and general advice (meaning: participate), then you can earn some lifelong customers. If you sponsor a forum simply to combat a complaint, you'll be crushed. Better to create an individual account and talk things out with the complainer - then say that you've enjoyed your time here and sponsor at that time. If you sponsor before the dust has settled you could be setting yourself up for a really bad start.

With any social media site, you want to start your own personal account first - learn the rules/personality of the site and then bring the business in.


I think this is where FB comes in to play. I think you would be better off creating a group page for your dealership, and doing a little promoting of it on your site. You can set up a link, and all people visiting your site have to do is hit the FB button and join. You may not have 1000's of members, but you may get a few hundred who have a few hundred friends and on and on.

You could set up a notes page with tech help, post some pics, news etc.