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. 

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.