You may have seen this button on a Google Places page when you attempted to write a review for a business while you were not logged into your Google account.

Up until recently, if you didn’t have a Google account you could not post a review on Google Places.  Inside sources are saying that this is going to change!  Read current policy.

For business owners, the current policy meant that only about 25% of their happy customers could post an in-store review if they were asked to share their positive experience online.  The Google Places App simplifies review collection right at the point of experience for Google account holders but it left many people unable to participate.

In the automotive industry, Google Places is the #1 free source of referral traffic for car dealers.  Our busiest automotive clients have Google Places listings with over 40,000 impressions a month with the average around 15,000 impressions a month.

Properly configured and merchandized Google Places pages drive thousands of clicks per month to the dealer’s primary website.  Google Places is an important part of a digital marketing strategy; it is the yellow pages meets consumer reports.

Change In Review Posting Policy

A respected industry source has started telling clients that Google will drop the gmail account requirement and allow anyone to post a review.  This change, according to this source, will be happening over the next week.

What does this mean for Google Places?  What does this mean for third party review platforms? In the automotive industry there are popular platforms that include Dealerrater.com, PrestoReviews.com, and CarDealerCheck.com so what will this change mean for them?

I will have a follow-up article on how this change, when confirmed, will impact 3rd party review platforms.

When this change is confirmed,  it will be a great opportunity for business owners and especially car dealers who have strong customer service processes and have implemented iPads in their store for review collection.

Of course, you don’t need an iPad to post a review, any device can be used for Google Places; this was confirmed recently by Scott Falcone with an email from the Google Places team.

Don’t Put Your Review Eggs In One Basket

When Google changes their review posting policy to allow non gmail accounts, I still recommend that business owners spread out their posts to the review website that are dominant in their market on Google Page One.

I especially want business owners to identify existing YELP users because Apple’s Siri assistant uses Yelp.com reviews in listing local businesses.  If you have not tested this feature, ask Siri on your Apple 4s this question: “Chevrolet Dealers” and you can see the output Siri gave me in New Jersey.

I also recommend business owners use review platforms that allow the business to own their review content.  These platforms allow business owners to syndicate reviews on their blogs, websites, and even to create custom profile pages for the sales professionals.

A solid reputation marketing strategy must acknowledge that many review sites can impact buyers during the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and thus you can’t just focus on Google Places.

However, if this change in policy is confirmed this week, this will be a big boost for Google Places relevance.  It will also allow Google to better monetize the Google Adwords Express program which allows business owners to run ads with their current review counts, as shown below for Norman Jeep Chrysler Dodge in Oklahoma City.

These special Adwords Express ads really stand out from the normal Adwords ads and they have some very interesting ROI, which I will cover at the 2012 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Las Vegas, Feb 1-3rd.

So I’ll keep you posted when we can get an official response this week to this insider tip.

Brian

 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

This is Part Two of a Four Part series on developing a Reputation Marketing Strategy for your dealership.  If you would like to read the previous article, click here for Part One.

Creating a Reputation Marketing Strategy requires that you have a process in place to survey customer satisfaction and a process that engages the customer based on their feedback.

By creating a culture that values customer service and transparency, dealers will be rewarded by consumers who control the sales process.

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Everyone

Every customer that enters a dealership should be asked about their “experience” before they leave the store. If a customer leaves the dealership without being surveyed, dealers run the risk that the empowered consumer will be very critical to their online communities and on highly visible public forums like Google Places, Yelp, or specific automotive platforms like DealerRater.com and Edmunds.com

Review collection processes and word tracts should be customized for each dealership based on marketing strategies and investments in technology.  Dealers that invest in tablet computers like the iPad can leverage user-friendly mobile applications to simplify the review collection process.

The most efficient way to collect a review is when the customer is in the dealership.  Once the customer leaves, their motivation to stop their normal activities to go online a post a review are greatly diminished.

I discourage dealers from sending email “reminders” or to make calls to their customers asking for a review. This may impact the OEM CSI phone and email survey processes. Customers may get confused and  feel that they have already submitted a review to the detriment of CSI scoring.

In-Store Review Collection Workflow

A high percentage of customers will participate with an in-store review process if the engagement questions are handled properly.  During the verbal customer satisfaction survey, the dealership staff can identify which review platform is best matched for each customer.

Once surveyed inside the dealership, customers should be able to post to at least one review platform inside the dealership, as indicated in the InfoGraphic below.

If the customer did not have a positive experience, the issues should be resolved immediately.  Keep in mind that consumers have tremendous power to influence the next car shopper during the Zero Moment of Truth.

If a customer does not want to write a review in the store, you can send them home with a reminder postcard which identifies a website where they can post a review(s).  DealerRater.com was an early pioneer of the postcard reminder process to encourage customers to post reviews from home.

Working With Existing Account Holders

In the workflow above, dealers will be looking to leverage customers with Yelp, Google, Bing, or Yahoo accounts.  If a customer does not have any of these accounts, there are ways to capture a review.  Dealers will find that at least 30% of their customers will have one of the accounts listed in the InfoGraphic.

If a dealer identifies customers that have existing accounts, they will most likely have the most reviews in their local market.  Creating new accounts on behalf of your customers inside the store is discouraged.  There are many reasons for this warning, but for now you will have to trust my advice.

In-Store Review Platforms Create Powerful Content

For those customers that don’t have any of these accounts, I strongly suggest that dealers implement an in-store review collection platform.  This will allow dealers to collection 100% of your satisfied customers.  There are a number of choices on the market, each with their strengths and weaknesses.

I will be discussing in-store review platforms in greater detail in Part Four of this series.

The benefits of the in-store review platforms is that the dealership will own the review content.  These platforms allow progressive dealers to syndicate their reviews on blogs, websites, and also to create unique marketing strategies based on their customer reviews.

What About Duplicate IP Addresses?

Dealers must be careful of posting reviews inside the dealership using their WiFi or hard-wired Internet connections.  Without starting a technical discussion on IP addresses, your in-store Internet connections may reflect a physical address not located near your store.

Case in point, I am writing this article in Florence, yet my IP address at this cafe is being identified as Genoa Italy which is HOURS away from this location.

Many review platforms track IP addresses and reviews can be flagged as spam if they all come from same IP address or an address that does not match the physical location of the business.

Using 3G/4G technology on tablets running mobile apps will eliminate this problem because the GPS systems in mobile devices show that the review is coming from a device at the dealership location.   Contrary to popular belief, this is good in a mobile world.

Dealers can download mobile free review applications from Google, Yelp, MerchantCircle.com or platform independent review apps from cDemo.com.

Google Places encourages reviews to be placed in the store, restaurant, or dealership using their mobile application.  This has been confirmed by the Google Automotive team; consumers can post a review using the Google Places App using their existing Google account inside the dealership.

As smartphone market share increases, mobile devices will be the primary technology used for posting online reviews because they allow consumers to share the “emotion” of their experience at the point of contact.

Starting Your In-Store Review Collection Process

The workflow presented in the InfoGraphic above can serve most dealers desiring to build their Internet reputation scores.  Dealers will need to invest in mobile tablets and decide where to insert the survey and review collection in the sales process.

In Part Three, I will discuss how dealers are implementing in-store processes.  Dealer solutions will vary so I will document three different in-store processes to choose from.  After reading Part Three, there should be no reason why anyone would delay starting a review collection process inside their dealership.

 

This is the end of Part 2 of the series on developing a Reputation Marketing Strategy.  If you enjoyed the article, please share it with your friends, click on the +1 button, and Tweet it out!

Brian

 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

This is Part One of a Four Part series on developing a Reputation Marketing Strategy for your dealership.

The foundation for any successful reputation-marketing program is a commitment to serve consumers with passion, transparency, and integrity.   Dealers have been trained by OEM’s to focus on CSI scores for years.  Online reviews are the digital equivalent and become the Dealership Reputation Score (DRS), which include more than just customers.

 

Every person who contacts a dealership at the First Moment of Truth (FMOT) has the power to enhance or diminish a dealer’s reputation. Online reviews for car dealers are typically seen by thousands of potential customers every month during the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT).

 

For example, a BMW in New Jersey receives over 40,0000 impressions a month on their Google Places business listing which includes their Google user reviews.  Now add impressions on websites that include Yelp, DealerRater, and Edmunds and you can see why online reviews are influential when consumers research cars and dealerships online.

 

A dealership building a strong online reputation must have clear sales and customer service standards for their employees to read and put into practice.  Training and accountability measures will ensure that consumers have a consistent experience during all contact points.

 

Starting a Reputation Marketing Program begins with asking every customer about their experience at the dealership before they leave the building.  The casual scripted survey will allow dealers to identify potential problems before they escalate to a negative online review.

 

Asking satisfied customers if they would be willing to post a review online when done properly is never pushy or contrived.  Consumers are well aware of the importance of online reviews, mostly because of the influence of websites like Amazon.com and TripAdvisor.com.

 

Millions of dollars on ecommerce transactions each day are influenced during the Zero Moment of Truth based on previous customer reviews placed next to products, hotels, and restaurants.  Car dealers are being viewed through the same lens yet few dealers have taken online reviews seriously.

We surveyed 150 dealers in a state recently, as part of our national survey that we will release at DMSC 2012, and found some startling  statistics.  The data showed me that dealers have not taken the impact of reviews during the Zero Moment of Truth seriously.

Have A Strategy For Different Reviews Platforms

Online reviews are the fuel for accelerating a dealers’ reputation however review websites each have their own strategic value, visibility, and submission processes.  With this in mind, a successful reputation-marketing program must have a comprehensive strategy with a workflow that is based on the overall online strategy for the business.
Reputation marketing processes must also be flexible since changes in the marketplace are inevitable. When Apple introduced the world to Siri in October 2011, it also made waves in world of online review platforms.

When Siri is asked this question “List Honda Dealers” the phone will list them and show their Yelp reviews.

What do you think will happen when your dealership has 20 Reviews on this list and the competitors have none?

Apple’s choice elevated the important of Yelp.com to business owner’s overnight.

With smartphone web traffic on the rise, Yelp must now be part of any review collection process.

 

The challenge with Yelp for car dealers is that their user community and editors don’t like One-Yelpers; a consumer who creates an account just to post one review for a business.

For car dealers, this means that customers that are active on Yelp are extremely valuable.

Their reviews will be included in the store’s review count so the collection process must ask if the customer is a Yelper.

This is the end of Part 1 of the series on developing a Reputation Marketing Strategy.  If you enjoyed the article, please share it with your friends, click on the +1 button, and Tweet it out!

Brian

 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch