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.

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.