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

I was driven to a website called Car Dealer Check (CarDealerCheck.com) by a Twitter comment on an unrelated topic and when I landed on the page for a Nissan Dealer in Florida, I was taken back by how many paid ads were running on this dealership listing page.  Take a look at the page that I found for Sutherlin Nissan of Fort Meyers below:

The page is organically optimized for the dealership name, as shown be the META tags for this page:

And I highlighted the paid ad sections (in pink) that lead consumers away from this dealer’s review page to provide leads for related automotive services and their local competitors.  There is nothing illegal about what Car Dealer Check is doing since they are not using the dealers name in the main URL and only in the page tagging.

This however, is just another confirmation that companies are using the guise of consumer reviews to produce Page One organic results that leak brand equity away from car dealers.  If someone was looking for information about this dealer, you can see by the pink box how many “land-mines” are in key areas to generate revenue for the website owner.

CarDealerCheck Triggers Negative POD Score Points

If you are paying CarDealerCheck.com for their service, they may be willing to take off the paid ads from your listing page.  If you are not using CarDealerCheck.com I would request that your dealership name be removed from their database.  There is no law that says that they have to comply but I would ask out of professional coutesy.

Attacks on a dealer’s brand name is the reason why POD Score™ was introduced.  Dealer’s need to understand that their brand name is under attack and that they need a Page One Defense (POD). Dealers need to make sure that sites like this do not easily divert their in-market customers to their competitors.

Advice to dealers: This website, if it is running Google Adsense on your review page, should not be on Page One for a search on your dealership name.

One of the most innovative dealer review platforms is provided by PrestoReviews.com and this is the platform PCG includes in our Automotive Internet Reputation Management (IRM) package and training for car dealers.

The platform allows your customers to post reviews on your custom review site while they are in the dealership. Strong advocates of the PrestoReviews platform get over 90% participation rates from their customers.

The reviews on the dealers custom local website are rolled up into the national PrestoReviews website similar how DealerRater.com displays reviews for all dealers on one website. The advantages of the PrestoReviews platform are many but a two main points are the program helps to increase your POD Score and also makes it easier for your customers (service and sales) to post reviews when inside the dealership.

Car Dealer Reviews

This week, Google Maps started to include PrestoReviews dealer websites on Google Places. I have a screen shot below which shows the inclusion of the custom site built for Infiniti of Lisle. Right now the star counts are not being rolled-up but it won’t be long until that integration takes place.

This turn of events further reinforces the need to have a multi-platform IRM strategy that can include more than one review site as your primary focus. All car dealers should have a process that includes encouraging customers to post on ANY review website that is rolled up on your Google Places listing.

For most car dealers I would recommend that they invest in both DealerRater and PrestoReviews since both have their advantages that will deliver a strong ROI for the dealership.