What matters most to your car shoppers? Is it price? Depth of inventory? Maybe – but the Internet has nearly commoditized the auto business. Savvy customers will be able to find the car they want at the lowest price within a few seconds of searching. So where is the competitive edge that draws a buyer to one dealership but not another?

To find the answer, let’s try and think of how a shopper might search for a place to buy their next vehicle. Consumer psychology and common sense tells us that we are more likely to trust the reviews of other customers over a dealership’s Google ads, search result ranking, or any other marketing metric that we tend to emphasize. If I were looking for a great price on a Camry in Dallas, I might search “best toyota dealership texas.” And any search query containing “best” or similar comparative adjectives in it is almost invariably going to display a user rating site like Yelp or DealerRater.

Our evaluation of others’ experiences makes intuitive sense with any high-value purchase or costly service. For example, I recently needed to choose a new dentist. I initially considered using the one closest to my home, for convenience’s sake. However, a high volume of negative consumer reviews changed my mind, and I drove a little farther for a dentist that was highly recommended.

When faced with a choice between two roofing companies to repair a faulty chimney, I didn’t select the one with the most experience, or the one that appeared first in Google results, or even the one with the lowest price. I chose the one that other people with the same problem recommended. I cared about results, about what I knew would get the job done.

And why not trust user reviews? Unlike corporate marketing messages, these previous buyers have nothing to gain by leaving their opinion. They are unbiased, impartial, and – as far as I know – honest. Your shoppers are making the same judgments about your dealership. The simple sentence (and actual review), “AVOID dealership x AT ALL COSTS, THEY ARE LIARS” will do more to your online marketing than any email campaign or advertising effort.

How can you avoid this pitfall? The trick is to get your happy and satisfied customers talking. And Google and Yelp are making it harder for people to leave anonymous reviews. They’ll need accounts with those sites, and their submissions are valuated based on the amount and quality of reviews they’ve left before. But a positive review from a trusted Yelp user is a jackpot for your dealership.

Ask your customers to leave their feedback online. Perhaps you have a computer terminal in your store that customers can leave their opinions on. Consider hosting a service promotion for your buyers that leave reviews. This kind of crowd-marketing is becoming the predominant force behind major purchases – so building up your reviewer rating now will pay big dividends in the long run.

Subscribe to the ActivEngage blog now for marketing and auto dealer news updates!

What matters most to your car shoppers? Is it price? Depth of inventory? Maybe – but the Internet has nearly commoditized the auto business. Savvy customers will be able to find the car they want at the lowest price within a few seconds of searching. So where is the competitive edge that draws a buyer to one dealership but not another?

To find the answer, let’s try and think of how a shopper might search for a place to buy their next vehicle. Consumer psychology and common sense tells us that we are more likely to trust the reviews of other customers over a dealership’s Google ads, search result ranking, or any other marketing metric that we tend to emphasize. If I were looking for a great price on a Camry in Dallas, I might search “best toyota dealership texas.” And any search query containing “best” or similar comparative adjectives in it is almost invariably going to display a user rating site like Yelp or DealerRater.

Our evaluation of others’ experiences makes intuitive sense with any high-value purchase or costly service. For example, I recently needed to choose a new dentist. I initially considered using the one closest to my home, for convenience’s sake. However, a high volume of negative consumer reviews changed my mind, and I drove a little farther for a dentist that was highly recommended.

When faced with a choice between two roofing companies to repair a faulty chimney, I didn’t select the one with the most experience, or the one that appeared first in Google results, or even the one with the lowest price. I chose the one that other people with the same problem recommended. I cared about results, about what I knew would get the job done.

And why not trust user reviews? Unlike corporate marketing messages, these previous buyers have nothing to gain by leaving their opinion. They are unbiased, impartial, and – as far as I know – honest. Your shoppers are making the same judgments about your dealership. The simple sentence (and actual review), “AVOID dealership x AT ALL COSTS, THEY ARE LIARS” will do more to your online marketing than any email campaign or advertising effort.

How can you avoid this pitfall? The trick is to get your happy and satisfied customers talking. And Google and Yelp are making it harder for people to leave anonymous reviews. They’ll need accounts with those sites, and their submissions are valuated based on the amount and quality of reviews they’ve left before. But a positive review from a trusted Yelp user is a jackpot for your dealership.

Ask your customers to leave their feedback online. Perhaps you have a computer terminal in your store that customers can leave their opinions on. Consider hosting a service promotion for your buyers that leave reviews. This kind of crowd-marketing is becoming the predominant force behind major purchases – so building up your reviewer rating now will pay big dividends in the long run.

Subscribe to the ActivEngage blog now for marketing and auto dealer news updates!

Today we’ve decided to feature a great blog by Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, about why you should pay your employees to use social media on company time. Sounds crazy? Maybe. But according to Holmes, social media is not a threat to your productivity or your bottom line. See for yourself:

In my time at HootSuite, I’ve seen a sea change in the way that businesses approach employees’ social media use. Not long ago, few things were more taboo than chatting or tweeting on the job. Lots of organizations even cracked down on what employees posted on personal Facebook pages in their free time.

This seems fundamentally backward to me. Depriving employees of social media is—at the end of the day—just bad business. Recently, some big companies have gotten this message.

Nearly three-quarters of all Fortune 500 companies are now active on Twitter. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 80 percent of executives now believe their brands get more sales using social media. These companies have embraced social media in the workplace and haven’t looked back.

This makes good business sense for a lot of reasons. Social media’s power as a marketing tool is already well understood. But I want to focus on something a little bit different: how social media can change the culture within a company and boost the bottom line in unexpected ways. 

1. It helps you hire better people.
At HootSuite, which now has more than 200 employees, everything starts with how we hire. Our HR department tweets job openings from a dedicated HR Twitter account. Applicants tweet us back—The entire process is public, transparent and out there for everyone to see. This fosters community among job hunters and staff right from the start,  and we get to know candidates on a more personal level. Sometimes, this can be very revealing.

Earlier this year, we did a phone interview with a promising applicant for our development team. Afterwards, we discovered this tweet in his stream: “going to a phone interview with @hootsuite and I am drunk after a few hours in the ?#congress2012? beer tent.”  A personal side of this fine young candidate we would never have known was revealed in living color. If you’re wondering, he didn’t get the job.

2. Social media breaks down old hierarchies in the workplace.  

Social media has also been an equalizer in our company—closing the gap between management and entry level. Around 75 percent of our new hires are internal referrals, which blows away the industry average for high tech in our region, and this is due to the dialogue we have with our own employees on social. Anyone—including new hires and interns—can tweet me or our other department heads at any time. Twitter, with its brevity and informality, makes it possible for me to engage with hundreds of my employees, in a way that would be inconceivable on email or in person.
And I’m proud to say that HootSuite employees are tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming and updating their LinkedIn accounts pretty much 24/7, both inside and outside the office. Importantly, these aren’t official company accounts; they’re employees’ personal networks. When we celebrate a milestone like racking up another million users or a birthday or one of our monthly Parliament parties, thumbs are blazing and camera phones are flashing away.

3. It empowers employees to become brand evangelists.

The bottom-line benefits of this kind of social engagement are huge. At the end of the day, some of the most powerful advocates any brand has are its very own employees (I’m assuming here that you’re part of a company people like to work for—If not, then it’s time for some serious soul-searching).

We’ve seen this firsthand at HootSuite. There’s absolutely no requirement that our employees chat us up on Twitter or LinkedIn. But they share their experiences all the time on social networks and they blog about their work here—reaching an influential audience of colleagues, peers and potential clients both inside and outside the industry.

We’ve recently developed an internal social network called Conversations that lets employees post back and forth on central forums and amplify appropriate messages on Twitter with a single click. Importantly, all of this is a two-way street: Employees are able to build their individual brand and following while cultivating the company brand at the same time.

As a company, you can either hammer your user base with official company content (yawn)…or you can leverage your employees as empowered evangelists to reach people on their own turf and on their own terms. If you have 200 employees, and they each have 500 followers, then altogether you have a collective reach of 100,000 people.  

In this context, social media is hardly a threat. It’s a way to seek out better hires, improve internal communication and turn employees into brand ambassadors. And I’m not the only one who sees these benefits. A recent McKinsey report estimated that more effective use of social technologies in many of these same ways could unlock $1.3 trillion in value for businesses.

_
What do you guys think of this? How prominent should social media in the office be? Subscribe to our newsletter for more updates on marketing, social media, and auto dealer news!

Today we’ve decided to feature a great blog by Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, about why you should pay your employees to use social media on company time. Sounds crazy? Maybe. But according to Holmes, social media is not a threat to your productivity or your bottom line. See for yourself:

In my time at HootSuite, I’ve seen a sea change in the way that businesses approach employees’ social media use. Not long ago, few things were more taboo than chatting or tweeting on the job. Lots of organizations even cracked down on what employees posted on personal Facebook pages in their free time.

This seems fundamentally backward to me. Depriving employees of social media is—at the end of the day—just bad business. Recently, some big companies have gotten this message.

Nearly three-quarters of all Fortune 500 companies are now active on Twitter. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 80 percent of executives now believe their brands get more sales using social media. These companies have embraced social media in the workplace and haven’t looked back.

This makes good business sense for a lot of reasons. Social media’s power as a marketing tool is already well understood. But I want to focus on something a little bit different: how social media can change the culture within a company and boost the bottom line in unexpected ways. 

1. It helps you hire better people.
At HootSuite, which now has more than 200 employees, everything starts with how we hire. Our HR department tweets job openings from a dedicated HR Twitter account. Applicants tweet us back—The entire process is public, transparent and out there for everyone to see. This fosters community among job hunters and staff right from the start,  and we get to know candidates on a more personal level. Sometimes, this can be very revealing.

Earlier this year, we did a phone interview with a promising applicant for our development team. Afterwards, we discovered this tweet in his stream: “going to a phone interview with @hootsuite and I am drunk after a few hours in the ?#congress2012? beer tent.”  A personal side of this fine young candidate we would never have known was revealed in living color. If you’re wondering, he didn’t get the job.

2. Social media breaks down old hierarchies in the workplace.  

Social media has also been an equalizer in our company—closing the gap between management and entry level. Around 75 percent of our new hires are internal referrals, which blows away the industry average for high tech in our region, and this is due to the dialogue we have with our own employees on social. Anyone—including new hires and interns—can tweet me or our other department heads at any time. Twitter, with its brevity and informality, makes it possible for me to engage with hundreds of my employees, in a way that would be inconceivable on email or in person.
And I’m proud to say that HootSuite employees are tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming and updating their LinkedIn accounts pretty much 24/7, both inside and outside the office. Importantly, these aren’t official company accounts; they’re employees’ personal networks. When we celebrate a milestone like racking up another million users or a birthday or one of our monthly Parliament parties, thumbs are blazing and camera phones are flashing away.

3. It empowers employees to become brand evangelists.

The bottom-line benefits of this kind of social engagement are huge. At the end of the day, some of the most powerful advocates any brand has are its very own employees (I’m assuming here that you’re part of a company people like to work for—If not, then it’s time for some serious soul-searching).

We’ve seen this firsthand at HootSuite. There’s absolutely no requirement that our employees chat us up on Twitter or LinkedIn. But they share their experiences all the time on social networks and they blog about their work here—reaching an influential audience of colleagues, peers and potential clients both inside and outside the industry.

We’ve recently developed an internal social network called Conversations that lets employees post back and forth on central forums and amplify appropriate messages on Twitter with a single click. Importantly, all of this is a two-way street: Employees are able to build their individual brand and following while cultivating the company brand at the same time.

As a company, you can either hammer your user base with official company content (yawn)…or you can leverage your employees as empowered evangelists to reach people on their own turf and on their own terms. If you have 200 employees, and they each have 500 followers, then altogether you have a collective reach of 100,000 people.  

In this context, social media is hardly a threat. It’s a way to seek out better hires, improve internal communication and turn employees into brand ambassadors. And I’m not the only one who sees these benefits. A recent McKinsey report estimated that more effective use of social technologies in many of these same ways could unlock $1.3 trillion in value for businesses.

_
What do you guys think of this? How prominent should social media in the office be? Subscribe to our newsletter for more updates on marketing, social media, and auto dealer news!

In ActivEngage’s 5 years of operation, we’ve collected a whole lot of data about the buying habits of online shoppers. We use this data to keep our eyes on the big picture, and we’ve noticed a startling trend: More web shoppers are active early in the morning. What does this trend mean for you and your dealership?

ActivEngage has identified an increase in morning shoppers from the hours of 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (EST). Perhaps, during these busy holiday months, shoppers only have time to research their next vehicle before work. Or maybe these buyers are simply having new car dreams. Whatever the reason for this increase, ActivEngage has got you covered – and you didn’t even have to ask.

We’ve decided to extend our office chatting hours to accommodate this upswing of web activity in the morning. Now all of our managed chat clients can have full service chat from 8:00 AM to midnight (EST) – an extra hour of chatting! This additional chat time ensures that we’ll be there for those early morning shoppers, and will help us better service our West Coast clients.

There’s never been a better time to be an ActivEngage dealer! As the shopping season rapidly approaches, we’re proud to continually improve our service and offer our dealer partners the quality conversations that their websites deserve. With this additional chat functionality, we predict that our dealer partners will see more leads than ever before from ActivEngage, the most trusted name in live chat.

Curious about your early morning traffic? Want to schedule your free demo? Give us a call at 800-441-7779 option 1, or check out our free eBook, The Live Chat Buyer’s Guide. And as always, subscribe to the ActivEngage blog for daily marketing updates and breaking news for auto dealers!

In ActivEngage’s 5 years of operation, we’ve collected a whole lot of data about the buying habits of online shoppers. We use this data to keep our eyes on the big picture, and we’ve noticed a startling trend: More web shoppers are active early in the morning. What does this trend mean for you and your dealership?

ActivEngage has identified an increase in morning shoppers from the hours of 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (EST). Perhaps, during these busy holiday months, shoppers only have time to research their next vehicle before work. Or maybe these buyers are simply having new car dreams. Whatever the reason for this increase, ActivEngage has got you covered – and you didn’t even have to ask.

We’ve decided to extend our office chatting hours to accommodate this upswing of web activity in the morning. Now all of our managed chat clients can have full service chat from 8:00 AM to midnight (EST) – an extra hour of chatting! This additional chat time ensures that we’ll be there for those early morning shoppers, and will help us better service our West Coast clients.

There’s never been a better time to be an ActivEngage dealer! As the shopping season rapidly approaches, we’re proud to continually improve our service and offer our dealer partners the quality conversations that their websites deserve. With this additional chat functionality, we predict that our dealer partners will see more leads than ever before from ActivEngage, the most trusted name in live chat.

Curious about your early morning traffic? Want to schedule your free demo? Give us a call at 800-441-7779 option 1, or check out our free eBook, The Live Chat Buyer’s Guide. And as always, subscribe to the ActivEngage blog for daily marketing updates and breaking news for auto dealers!

Still haunted by the ghost of the 14 million vehicles recalled for faulty floor mats and brake pedals, Japanese automaker Toyota Motors announced today that it would be recalling another 3 million cars – including 67,000 Prius models – due to a defect in the steering column.

According to Toyota, the problem originates in a steering shaft extension which, if turned hard to the right or left at low speeds, may wear away the splines of the steering column. This could potentially cause drivers to lose control of the vehicle, though no related accidents have been reported yet. Toyota says that even in such circumstances, the vehicle will remain safe to drive.

In a second, entirely separate issue, Toyota has recalled an additional 350,000 Priuses (Prii?) for a faulty water pump which may cause the system’s electric motor to short out on the road. AToyota statement reads that “in limited instances, the electric power supply circuit fuse may open, causing the hybrid system to stop while the vehicle is being driven.”

This recall might be another blow to Toyota’s once-pristine reputation for quality. This news follows a month after a recall of 7.4 million cars worldwide for defective power window switches that were a fire hazard. – the biggest recall since Ford pulled 8 million vehicles off the road in ‘96.

The issue affects Prius and Toyota models from 2004 – 2009. Repairs will be carried out free of charge, and owners will be contacted if their vehicle is affected. To our Toyota dealerships – expect to field questions from customers about these recalls. Live chat can be a great way to do this. In 2010, ActivEngage launched a program to help dealers communicate recall information from their website. You can email us or call us at 800-441-7779 for more information.

You can follow the ActivEngage blog for daily marketing updates and auto dealer news!

Still haunted by the ghost of the 14 million vehicles recalled for faulty floor mats and brake pedals, Japanese automaker Toyota Motors announced today that it would be recalling another 3 million cars – including 67,000 Prius models – due to a defect in the steering column.

According to Toyota, the problem originates in a steering shaft extension which, if turned hard to the right or left at low speeds, may wear away the splines of the steering column. This could potentially cause drivers to lose control of the vehicle, though no related accidents have been reported yet. Toyota says that even in such circumstances, the vehicle will remain safe to drive.

In a second, entirely separate issue, Toyota has recalled an additional 350,000 Priuses (Prii?) for a faulty water pump which may cause the system’s electric motor to short out on the road. AToyota statement reads that “in limited instances, the electric power supply circuit fuse may open, causing the hybrid system to stop while the vehicle is being driven.”

This recall might be another blow to Toyota’s once-pristine reputation for quality. This news follows a month after a recall of 7.4 million cars worldwide for defective power window switches that were a fire hazard. – the biggest recall since Ford pulled 8 million vehicles off the road in ‘96.

The issue affects Prius and Toyota models from 2004 – 2009. Repairs will be carried out free of charge, and owners will be contacted if their vehicle is affected. To our Toyota dealerships – expect to field questions from customers about these recalls. Live chat can be a great way to do this. In 2010, ActivEngage launched a program to help dealers communicate recall information from their website. You can email us or call us at 800-441-7779 for more information.

You can follow the ActivEngage blog for daily marketing updates and auto dealer news!

The most trusted name in live chat brings the top ten blogs and auto news stories right to you! We monitor industry trends, current events, and the auto dealer community every week to bring you the top ten blogs and automotive stories from around the globe. In this weekly edition – Einstein belongs to the world, Google visits the Grand Canyon, and the fastest highway in America opens!

The Hierarchy Of Social Media Pages And Profiles

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ – will someone please order all these social networks by importance so I know how to manage my time? Fortunately, that’s exactly what J.D. Rucker did.

Google Visits The Grand Canyon – And Changes The World

Google takes its Maps program one step into the future – and plans to illuminate the entire world with its Street Level initiative. If Google’s Trekker camera can survive the journey into the Grand Canyon, the team says it can go anywhere.

NYPD Officer Planned To Slow Cook Women

A man that was sworn to protect the citizens of NYC had devious plans with a cohort to kidnap and eat women.

At 85 MPH, The Fastest Highway In The U.S. Opens

A 40-mile tollway opened between San Antonio, TX, and Austin – and the speed-limit is the highest in America at 85 MPH. Riding this Autobahn isn’t cheap – the tollway is $6 one way, and there have already been reports of fatal crashes and rollovers.

Mitsubishi Boss Calls French Minister A Retard

Here’s why: as reported by the French newspaper La Provence by way of The Telegraph:

“This mental case, this retard, increases ecological taxes, reduces the speed motorists can go on Paris’ ring road and ruins the life of motorists from all social origins all suffer as a result of him. He is stupid and understands nothing, you can quote me on that.”

The Digital Lot

Keith Shetterly’s newest eBook is available in November and he writes, “I’ve been learning, helping dealers, and writing about this situation for many years now, and, to dealers and to my peers in automotive retail, this is my compilation–dedicated to you!–of all that I have learned and know about successfully running..the Digital Lot!”

Man In China Sues Wife Over Ugly Baby
A man in China sues his now estranged wife for $120k because she gave birth to an ugly baby—and WON!

GM Lawsuit Over Einstein Image Is Dismissed
Great news everyone! Since Einstein has been dead now for over 60 years, his image is now public property! How will you celebrate this news?

East Coast Keeps A Watchful Eye On Hurricane Sandy

Current forecasts show the Category 2 Hurricane Sandy heading directly for New York City. As the Big Apple prepares for high winds and possible flooding, we at ActivEngage hope that the weather predictions are wrong (as they so often are).

Customer Loyalty Begins In The Service Drive

Positive service reviews and social posts can create a line in your service drive and keep your bays full. Fix a blown tire the morning of a vacation, or provide a last minute oil change at closing time, and you’ve gained a fan for life. The need to deliver exceptional service isn’t just aspirational, it’s essential to your bottom line.
_
Did we miss anything important? Like our top ten blogs this week? Leave us a comment below! Or if you really can’t wait for your automotive fix, follow @activengage on Twitter for daily updates on auto industry news!

The most trusted name in live chat brings the top ten blogs and auto news stories right to you! We monitor industry trends, current events, and the auto dealer community every week to bring you the top ten blogs and automotive stories from around the globe. In this weekly edition – Einstein belongs to the world, Google visits the Grand Canyon, and the fastest highway in America opens!

The Hierarchy Of Social Media Pages And Profiles

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ – will someone please order all these social networks by importance so I know how to manage my time? Fortunately, that’s exactly what J.D. Rucker did.

Google Visits The Grand Canyon – And Changes The World

Google takes its Maps program one step into the future – and plans to illuminate the entire world with its Street Level initiative. If Google’s Trekker camera can survive the journey into the Grand Canyon, the team says it can go anywhere.

NYPD Officer Planned To Slow Cook Women

A man that was sworn to protect the citizens of NYC had devious plans with a cohort to kidnap and eat women.

At 85 MPH, The Fastest Highway In The U.S. Opens

A 40-mile tollway opened between San Antonio, TX, and Austin – and the speed-limit is the highest in America at 85 MPH. Riding this Autobahn isn’t cheap – the tollway is $6 one way, and there have already been reports of fatal crashes and rollovers.

Mitsubishi Boss Calls French Minister A Retard

Here’s why: as reported by the French newspaper La Provence by way of The Telegraph:

“This mental case, this retard, increases ecological taxes, reduces the speed motorists can go on Paris’ ring road and ruins the life of motorists from all social origins all suffer as a result of him. He is stupid and understands nothing, you can quote me on that.”

The Digital Lot

Keith Shetterly’s newest eBook is available in November and he writes, “I’ve been learning, helping dealers, and writing about this situation for many years now, and, to dealers and to my peers in automotive retail, this is my compilation–dedicated to you!–of all that I have learned and know about successfully running..the Digital Lot!”

Man In China Sues Wife Over Ugly Baby
A man in China sues his now estranged wife for $120k because she gave birth to an ugly baby—and WON!

GM Lawsuit Over Einstein Image Is Dismissed
Great news everyone! Since Einstein has been dead now for over 60 years, his image is now public property! How will you celebrate this news?

East Coast Keeps A Watchful Eye On Hurricane Sandy

Current forecasts show the Category 2 Hurricane Sandy heading directly for New York City. As the Big Apple prepares for high winds and possible flooding, we at ActivEngage hope that the weather predictions are wrong (as they so often are).

Customer Loyalty Begins In The Service Drive

Positive service reviews and social posts can create a line in your service drive and keep your bays full. Fix a blown tire the morning of a vacation, or provide a last minute oil change at closing time, and you’ve gained a fan for life. The need to deliver exceptional service isn’t just aspirational, it’s essential to your bottom line.
_
Did we miss anything important? Like our top ten blogs this week? Leave us a comment below! Or if you really can’t wait for your automotive fix, follow @activengage on Twitter for daily updates on auto industry news!