Automotive Reputation Management Requires Patience

Are You Patient?

At the 8th Digital Dealer Conference in Orlando from April 20-22th, I will be conducting a seminar on Internet Reputation Management on April 21st at 4:30 pm. As I started to prepare my thoughts for the seminar, I wanted to encourage dealers who start an IRM process to be patient.

Even your most satisfied customers may not take the time that they promise to post a positive review online. IRM is a numbers game and there are ways to make those numbers work in your favor. Keep in mind that reviews can come from sales and service, which means that hundreds of customers a week can be asked to participate. Between sales and service, you only need 1-2% cooperation to make a big difference.

You only need a few people a week to make a difference over the course of this year. I like to set a goal that dealers should get 3-5 reviews a week so that at the end of the year you have well over 200 positive votes on sites like Google Maps, InsiderPages, DealerRater, and Yelp. With 200+ reviews, I would estimate you would be drawing over 100-200 additional calls a month to your dealership.

The key is to make it easy for your customers to post a review. One way to make it easy is to send your customers an email requesting their help in posting their experience online and provide a link to the site you want them to post. Start with the most importance place. Ask them to post a review on Google Maps for you so you just have to make sure your business listing in Google Maps is correct.

If you plan to send out emails, please make sure your emails are designed to pass through spam filters. There are a number of free tools online that can test your email message and give it a spam score. Tip: keep the number a hyperlinks in your email low so it does not trigger your message as spam.

Reputation Management Portal

PCG has been testing what we are calling Reputation Management Portals (RMP) which are placed on an easy to remember domain name like www.iloveharechevy.com or www.ilovecheckeredflag.com. The RMP has quick links to all the popular places that dealers should have positive reviews. They are customized for each dealership. We design a postcard which dealers print and give out to happy customers in the service lane or as part of the sales delivery process.

The RMP makes it easy to add the website address on business cards, email signatures or in the body of the email. The RMP reduces the long links that are often associated with a review page like Google Maps.

If you are interested in learning more about how IRM can significantly improve your online sales strategy, come to DD8 and attend my seminar or give our offices a call and speak with Jessica Guida, our IRM specialist at 732-450-8200.