Picture this: You’ve just finished dinner at a new restaurant with your friends. The food was delicious, service impeccable. As you’re walking out, you pass by the owner of the restaurant and share an enthusiastic “Thank you!”.  But instead of smiling warmly and thanking you in return for your business, the owner just stares blankly back at you, not responding, and watches silently as you walk out the door.  

Hmm. Kind of a disappointing and awkward way to end an otherwise great experience, huh?  

Now imagine the same situation playing out digitally at your dealership. A customer has just made the second largest purchase of their life, and they’re riding high after a great customer experience at your store. They make the effort to go online, and spend time writing a glowing review of your dealership. And then…crickets. No response from your dealership. No “thanks for those kind words” or “thank you for your business.” An opportunity to turn a happy customer into a loyal customer slips away. If you’re not responding to reviews, this is the best case scenario.

The stakes are much higher when your dealership inevitably receives poor feedback from a customer. And believe me, this will happen - no one and no business is perfect. But if you don’t take the time to respond to this customer’s concerns with an acknowledgment, apology and action steps to resolve, you risk not only losing a customer (and missing out on their referrals) but also negatively impacting the perception of potential customers that are shopping for the right dealership to work with. Customers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect that a dealership they’re about to spend a lot of money with knows how to make it right when they fall short.

The supporting data is overwhelming. According to BrightLocal’s 2019 Local Consumer Review Survey, a commanding 97% of customers read businesses’ responses to reviews. That’s pretty much everyone. But this is the kicker: 71% of customers are more likely to use a business that’s responding to reviews. The punchline? Responding matters, and it matters big-time. If you’re not responding to reviews, particularly bad ones, prepare for potential customers to pass you by.  

And let’s not ignore the many health benefits of a comprehensive review response strategy. Not only do well-crafted responses help attract potential customers, they also are literally an invitation for you to contribute SEO-rich content that benefits your local search results. Google has not been shy about promoting the fact that reviews and responses are top factors in local search rankings.

Dealers are getting better at responding to reviews, but still have a long way to go. On the DealerRater platform, only 43% of the nearly 1.2 million reviews submitted by consumers in 2019 were responded to. This is up from 38% in 2018 and 33% in 2017, so at least the trend is in the right direction.

The major review platforms - DealerRater, Cars.com, Google and Facebook all provide the ability for dealerships to respond publicly to consumer reviews free of charge. Take advantage of them. Engage with your customers after the sale or service visit, and adopt a comprehensive response strategy in 2020 for all reviews, not just negative ones. It’s one best practice you can’t afford to ignore any more.

Understanding the factors that influence a customer’s purchase decision is such a thorny issue that our industry devotes an entire conference focused solely on analytics and attribution. Dealerships continue to invest in tools that provide only a partial view of how and why a customer purchased a vehicle. To get a more complete picture of true purchase attribution, I suggest that dealerships take a closer look at a source that provides complete transparency: customer reviews.  

The Limits of Attribution

Throughout my career, I’ve talked with a lot of dealers about the tools they use to attribute customer behavior. It’s not a surprise that many listen solely to CRM data and whatever they can learn from Google Analytics. But we all know the limitations of these tools. They both provide a limited perspective, and CRM data is vulnerable to error (e.g., a salesperson inputs data incorrectly or incompletely). Tracking last-click attribution is especially challenging at a time when shoppers visit about 24 touchpoints as part of their decision-making process[i]– and show up on the lot without even sending a lead on the phone, web, or otherwise. 

Listen to Your Customers

Here’s what dealerships should be doing to create a more complete picture of shopper behavior: mine the data that customers share with you in the form of reviews. About eight out of 10 shoppers use online car reviews and car dealership reviews[ii]. Smart dealers solicit reviews, listen to them, and manage them like valuable assets – not only because reviews literally represent the voice of the customer, they also track customer behavior. 

Think about it for a moment. Each time a customer takes time to talk about their experience with your salesperson, they’re providing valuable data on why they made a purchase. They’re giving you documented feedback on the performance of your dealership down to the level of the salesperson they’re interacting with. And since the purchase of a car still involves a handshake between a shopper and a salesperson, reviews are the purest and most valuable form of CRM data any dealer could hope to have. 

Reviews also tell you something about the entire customer experience beyond the product they bought. A great product is merely the price of entry today. Customer experience is where relationships are created or lost. In fact, the ability to provide a great end-to-end experience is the single-biggest reason that customers write five-star reviews of dealerships.[iii]

Your Lifeblood

Reviews are the lifeblood of every business ranging from home service to healthcare. Angie’s List and TripAdvisor have built entire businesses based on the value of customer reviews. Why? The answer goes beyond the fact that reviews provide feedback on the businesses that participate in those marketplaces. Reviews provide a snapshot of the behavior of each customer. For example:

• •    What problem did the customer want to solve or need did they want to meet?

  •    How and why did they choose the business they chose?

  •    What was the outcome?

• Customer reviews, when engineered correctly, answer all those questions and more.

If you are a dealership that really want to understand shopper behavior, I suggest that you:

•    Go beyond your CRM data to get a fuller picture of customer behavior. 

•    Start thinking about success differently. Lead data matters. But overall business performance matters more. Focus on growth-related statistics and track indicators such as customer reviews accordingly. A lead represents a potential transaction. Happy customers are the building blocks of business growth. 

•    Manage customer reviews. Have a program in place for soliciting, tracking, responding to, and learning from customer reviews. Use tools that facilitate the creation and management of reviews. Assign someone in your dealership the job of managing reviews year-round, and reward that position well. 

The starting point for treating reviews like attribution data is to ask your customers to review you. When you ask consumers for information about themselves, they’ll become suspicious. But when you ask them to give their opinion, they will respond. So start asking. And start learning. 

Salespeople sell cars. But brand ambassadors make your customers so happy that they tell other people about you and return to do business with you time and again. It’s obvious which type of person a dealership would prefer to have on staff. And more than ever, dealerships possess the tools required to cultivate brand ambassadors.

What Exactly Is a Brand Ambassador?

I think we all know a brand ambassador when we meet them. They’re the ones on the lot who take a personal interest in their customers and advocate for them. They know their customers’ wants and needs for a car, but they also knowtheir customers – their opinion of the latest Avengersmovie, where their kids go to college, what their commute to work is like, and so on. 

Brand ambassadors advise their customers on the right car to match their lifestyles and steer them away from a not-so-great fit even if doing so means selling a less expensive car. And their passion for customer service translates to their digital presence. Great brand ambassadors consistently earn five-star reviews and help their dealership get great reviews, too. 

Why Brand Ambassadors Matter

To win in the era of digital retailing, dealerships need to develop more ambassadors. Cars are still bought and sold one at a time between two people, and people increasingly influence shoppers’ perceptions of a dealership. Consider a few facts:

• 97 percent of car buyers prefer to select a salesperson before arriving on the dealership’s lot.[i]

• More than 41 percent of five-star reviews single out the ability of a dealership’s employees to provide a great customer experience.[ii]

• On the other hand, consumers indicate that one of the largest drivers of negative reviews consist of subpar staff.

Dealerships that cultivate brand ambassadors – meaning they train everyone on the lot to uplift customers with customer service, not sales – wield a strong advantage in the age of digital word-of-mouth marketing. In the era of the empowered consumer, happy customers can be compelling brand advocates, or people who tell others about your dealership. Brand advocates post five-star reviews on your website, happily pose for photos with their new car, and share their experiences on their socials. They put Facebook, Instagram, and all their other preferred socials to work for you – and as happily as an enthusiastic fan would. (In fact, my company, DealerRater, was founded by someone who wanted to be an advocate for his dealership back in 2002. There was no platform to do so. And so our founder, Chip Grueter, built DealerRater.)

The Key to Cultivating Brand Ambassadors

You cannot cultivate brand ambassadors unless you first insist on centering your entire experience on the customer, which is what retailers such as Amazon and Nordstrom do, resulting in consistently strong customer reviews. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently discussed why the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Amazon Number 1 for eight years in a row.[iii]In his most recent letter to shareholders, Bezos discussed developing a culture of high standards. He wrote:

“Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits . . . People are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention. More subtle: a culture of high standards is protective of all the ‘invisible’ but crucial work that goes on in every company. I’m talking about the work that no one sees. The work that gets done when no one is watching. In a high standards culture, doing that work well is its own reward – it’s part of what it means to be a professional.”

Bezos points out something crucial: brand ambassadors look to make the customer experience better even when no one is looking. They are not simply trying to look good on the surface. They go over and beyond. 

Three Steps to Take

Based on my experience, I suggest dealerships take these steps to cultivate brand ambassadors:

• Put in place a system for collecting reviews. As I noted in a blog post, “How to Get Started Managing Online Reviews,” your customer review collection approach should be comprehensive, identifying all the places where your customers talk about you, and monitoring what customers say. You can’t get better unless you have someone on your team actively mining reviews for customer feedback and identifying stumbling blocks to taking your customer service to the “brand ambassadorship” level.

• Leverage reviews for celebration and accountability. People who want to become brand ambassadors don’t shy away from constructive feedback. It’s the job of the dealership to provide that feedback regularly, while at the same time, celebrating great reviews with your team of what success looks like. For example, highlighting individual success stories in team meetings rewards and encourages the customer-centric behavior you want to see regularly.

• Empower staff to build their brands.For example, posting individual profiles on your website – ideally including customer reviews – is essential. Your brand ambassadors should be encouraged to humanize your dealership by providing details about themselves that make your business more approachable and real, such as the personal hobbies of each team member, their photos, and whether they speak a foreign language. 

Fortunately tools such as DealerRater make the process of building reviews and employee profiles easier. DealerRater automates and amplifies the collection and publishing of reviews, resulting in your dealership making your brand ambassadors more visible and approachable. (You can learn more about our approach on our website.)

Cultivating brand ambassadors will ultimately create the network of brand advocates that lead to more sales and stronger customer relationships. Investing in your salespeople will also improve your retention. Our own data shows that dealerships employing DealerRater Certified Salespeople enjoy lower turnover rates than the average reported by the National Automobile Dealers Association.[iv]Happier, more motivated employees are your best ambassadors. Invest in them and enjoy the strong returns.

Why do some customers write glowing, five-star reviews of dealerships while other customers trash dealerships? This is a significant question – after all, eight out of 10 shoppers use online car reviews and car dealership reviews to inform their purchase[i]. At DealerRater, we decided to find answers. We found that end-to-end service and people make or break your brand.

We examined reviews of dealerships and salespeople that customers wrote on DealerRater and Cars.com in 2017 – 1.4 million reviews in all.[ii] We found some common themes in both positive and negative reviews by examining the most common words and phrases that crop up in such reviews. Here are two major takeaways:

1 A VIP experience creates customer relationships

The ability to provide both a great buying and service experience is the single-most important factor influencing positive dealership reviews. More than 47,000 phrases, or 41 percent of positive content, single out a great experience from purchase to service.

Customers have high standards: the words “great customer experience” or “excellent customer service” occurred most often in positive dealership reviews, followed by variations of “best” or “great buying experience.”

On the other hand, bad service and maintenance dominate the themes that appear in negative reviews. What do bad service and maintenance look like?:

• Slowness. The phrases “oil change” and “tire rotation” appeared often in bad reviews, as did the phrases “2 hours oil change” and “3 hours oil change.” In fact, complaints about slow service appeared so often that they merited their own category. When we took a closer look at the data, we uncovered a root problem: people expect procedures such as oil changes and tire rotations to be fairly easy and quick – and when dealerships take longer than expected, customers write negative reviews. Dealers need to take a closer look at the expectations they are setting and manage their service pipeline more effectively. Let customers know ahead of time that if they’re dropping off their cars on an especially busy day, their service may take longer than normal.

• Surprises. Many of the problems in the maintenance category relate to check engine or tire pressure lights coming on, most certainly with used cars. An engine light coming on, in and of itself, does not inspire a negative review. The problem happens when dealers don’t address these surprises. The best way for dealerships to avoid these problems occurring is to ensure that their inventory is properly prepped and free of defects, or else the dealership needs to manage expectations if a car has known issues. If a surprise happens after a customer drives off the lot, obviously dealerships need to understand how upset a customer is going to be and be prepared to address the issue immediately – or offer alternatives such as loaner cars if the issue takes time to fix.

• Not minding the details. We noticed a tendency for complaints about temporary tags to appear in negative reviews. The complaints typically came down to sloppy management of temporary tags, such as issuing tags that had expired or making a customer wait for them. Dealers who don’t manage these crucial details well will likely reveal other signs of sloppiness such as dropping the ball with scheduling maintenance or neglecting to return phone calls in a timely manner. Good service means thorough service. Bad service means lapses in attention to detail.

2 Your people are your brand

A helpful, responsive staff throughout the entire purchase and service process is key to making customers happy. More than 21,000 phrases, or 19 percent of positive content, singled out people, especially for being friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful.

• Phrases associated with being helpful appear thousands of times in the best (five-star) reviews. Customers perceive a dealership to be especially helpful when its people helped customers with research.

• Tone matters. Specific references to friendly, courteous, and professional staff appeared about 10,000 times. We found nearly 1,000 references specifically to a dealership’s people having a sense of humor.

On the other hand, unresponsive staff loom very large in negative reviews. We found frequent instances of phrases such as “won’t return phone calls” and “never called back” in negative reviews. To be sure, being busy is often a sign of success. But to stay successful in the era of the on-demand economy, dealerships need to be more responsive than ever. Especially in the always-on mobile age, customers expect near-instant responses.

In addition, perceptions of the finance department influenced negative reviews, with customers expressing confusion and distrust of the person managing the terms of their financing. Here is an opportunity for finance professionals to improve their standing by offering clarity around how financing works and which options are best for the consumer, just as salespeople need to explain the “why” behind pricing. At a time when online financing is becoming an option to customers, your finance team needs to work more like a customer service team to build customer goodwill.

The message is clear: dealerships win when they train everyone on the lot, from the salesperson to the receptionist, to act like a customer service ambassador.

No matter how complicated car-purchasing becomes, one simple truth endures: the path to purchase ends with a person working with another person. So I am excited to announce that Cars.com has just rolled out the Salesperson Connector on their vehicle details pages (VDPs), which features salespeople profiles drawn from the DealerRater network.

As noted in a recent press release, Cars.com has now made it possible for shoppers to select salespeople directly through the Cars.com VDP before they walk on a lot. As a result, shoppers enjoy a more personalized experience with the dealer, and dealers are connected with in-market shoppers who are motivated to buy.

As I mention in the Cars.com press release, 97 percent of car shoppers prefer to choose a salesperson before they select a dealership.[1] Salespeople are becoming more important because purchasing an automobile has become more complicated, thanks to the plethora of features and pricing options available from OEMs and dealerships. Effective salespeople do much more than sell cars – they build relationships by acting as trusted resources. Car shoppers are acknowledging the increasingly crucial role of the salesperson by rating them on sites such as DealerRater.

At the same time, car shoppers demand transparency about every aspect of the automobile purchase – an expectation that has been shaped by their experiences online in industries ranging from home purchasing to ride sharing. We know that having access to reviews and information about specific salespeople at dealerships builds trust with shoppers before they set foot on the lot, which is why earlier in 2017 we introduced our DealerRater Connections product to connect consumers with salespeople through dealer reviews.

And now, Cars.com is showcasing top-reviewed salespeople from the DealerRater platform directly on the dealerships’ inventory pages through Cars.com’s Salesperson Connector feature.  Consequently, shoppers enjoy an improved shopping experience with proven salespeople who are dedicated to building their professions in the automotive industry (81 percent of DealerRater Certified Salespeople are retained by the dealership annually[2]). And dealers can reward their best salespeople by featuring them on the VDP. Specifically, I see three key outcomes from importing DealerRater salespeople profiles into the Cars.com VDP:

• More salespeople can create connections with consumers in that “last mile” before vehicle purchase. The consumer will feel empowered and informed knowing before they visit the lot that they are meeting with a top-quality salesperson.
• Dealerships can highlight their top salespeople where consumers are shopping all over the digital world beyond the dealership’s own website – thus simplifying the shopping process by publishing information consumers want in one convenient place.
• By awarding priority placement on the lead form to top-reviewed employees, the dealership encourages its staff to provide high-quality customer service. The better reviewed the salesperson is, the more likely they are to be selected by a prospect. 

All salespeople of dealerships who are DealerRater Connections customers are eligible to have their profiles featured in the Cars.com VDP through Salesperson Connector (unless the salesperson has opted out of the process). The VDPs will give priority to dealership employees who have attained Certified status on DealerRater, then the highest individual average rating, then those with the most reviews occurring within the past 30 days, and then the highest number of lifetime reviews. Shoppers need not select a salesperson to submit a lead on Cars.com.

Early tests have yielded enthusiastic results, which is why Cars.com has rolled out the Salesperson Connector nationally.  When a business humanizes its brand by highlighting its people and their expertise, consumers respond favorably. Thanks to the enhanced VDPs, dealers now have an opportunity to highlight their sales team and to secure more high-quality leads. And the auto shopper gets what he or she wants: personalization and empowerment.

We’ve been in the business of reviews for quite some time now – 15 years to be exact.  As DealerRater has grown, so has the power and influence of reviews to the success of dealerships.  Today, consumers use reviews for half or more of new purchases.¹  Reviews truly have become the new word of mouth.  Friends and family once had the exclusive power to influence purchase decisions, but today anyone with internet access can leave a review of their car shopping experience and influence the purchase decisions of millions of other car shoppers.  The power to influence has truly shifted.

When it comes to reviews, it’s important to remember the four ‘P’s of online car shopping: Product, Price, Place, and Person.  The car buying journey starts with shoppers researching cars that interest them – the product.  When they’ve narrowed down their options, price is a big factor in determining their next steps and available options that inevitably leads them to researching the place – which dealership is right for them?.  Finally, when they’ve settled on which dealership to visit, the person they choose to work with has a huge impact on the sales process.  Providing a great customer experience is what should set your team apart from the competition.  Pair a great experience with a personal request to write a review of their experience when they get home and you’re one or two steps ahead of the game. 

Reviews are incredibly powerful and provide a huge opportunity for you to succeed in the online marketplace.  Our job is to provide a transparent forum that showcases your commitment to quality customer service and connects in-market consumers with the right person at your dealership.

Those dealers who are most successful with online reviews are the ones that actively solicit and manage them.  There are fundamentals that should be followed to leverage reviews to the dealership’s benefit.  Reviews are essential in shaping the customer journey, and dealers need to actively participate in the review process by soliciting them.  In fact, a majority of consumers feel that online reviews are helpful, and almost half would avoid a purchase without them.¹  In other words, if you don’t yet have any reviews of your dealership, nearly half of your prospects are quickly crossing you off their shopping list.

Dealers should take ownership of the review process by always asking customers for reviews.  Ask frequently, and perhaps even share a photo of them in their new car to post with their review.  Train your sales staff to always ask for a review post-purchase and make sure they understand that great reviews helps build their own personal brand.  Remind your customers that sharing the story of their dealership experience is valuable to your business.

Once you’ve earned reviews, you must manage them.  Reviews cast a wide net online, which allows a dealership to be seen anytime, anywhere.  Review sites like DealerRater amplify the impact by syndicating your dealership’s reviews across multiple third-party sites frequented by car shoppers, exponentially increasing the value of all those reviews you’ve worked hard to earn.  But, the quantity of reviews doesn’t matter if you don’t take time to understand what customers are saying about you.  Read every review your dealership receives; celebrate the positive and immediately address the negative.  And monitor what customers are saying about your competitors – transparency with online reviews goes both ways.

As the largest dealership review platform in the industry, we’ve had conversations with thousands of businesses over the years and done extensive consumer research on the role that reviews play in the car shopping journey.  And we’ve condensed all the valuable insights we’ve gleaned over the years into a definitive guide to help you win the reviews game.  We encourage you to download the guide, identify some tips to put into action today and then partner with us on your journey.  Click here to download our guide. 

[1] Car Shoppers Are Judging You.  Cars.com White Paper.  February 2017.