Why Are Reviews Important for Your Auto Dealership in 2021?
Auto Dealerships succeed or fail based on customer satisfaction, and ultimately their reputation. With 88% of consumers trusting online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, today’s online reviews are the modern incarnation of word of mouth. Did the customer like the salesperson? Did they feel they were treated fairly throughout the buying process? Are they satisfied with their purchase? If these aspects are detailed in positive reviews, it’s is likely other customers will come running to your door. Adversely, unanswered negative reviews can drastically slow your business down.
How Do You Generate Reviews?
Many customers skip reviewing a business, simply because the task is too complex, or because they are not asked. Our system allows you to send your customer a text at the point of sale. This is a critical time to ask for a review since the customer’s experience is fresh in their mind. Positive experiences are directed to any four of your review sites, where the happy customer can detail their experience with you. Negative responses are sent directly to you via email – this is an important step in minimizing the number of negative reviews on public sites. Having the negative feedback sent directly to you also gives you the opportunity to address the customer directly and resolve the problem before it is in the limelight.
Why Is Reputation Management Important for your Dealership?
Keeping a pulse on your online reputation is imperative to knowing where you stand in your market. It is critical that you know what people are saying about you, your staff and their experience on your company profiles. Review sites can provide a wealth of knowledge and insight on everything from your best salespeople are, to your quality of service, to your marketing efforts. However, it can be difficult to manually check each day on these sites, especially when you are focused on closing deals.
Our suite offers a tracking tool that will automatically notify you via email when you get a review – positive or negative. Our easy-to-use dashboard shows your current star ratings, and details how many reviews you’ve gotten and on which review sites all in real time. You can also keep track of how many texts were sent out to customers prompting reviews – giving you a good idea of how much your employees are pushing reviews for your business.
When to Respond to Customer Reviews
It is not always necessary to respond to every positive review, but responding to positive feedback is a wonderful way to thank your customers for their business and acknowledge the time they spent detailing their positive experience with you.
It is absolutely imperative that all negative reviews are responded to in a timely, and effective manner. Often times, when a problem is addressed directly, seemingly negative customer interaction is then turned into a positive experience. The consumer appreciates being heard and addressed directly with a constructive solution to their issue. Moreover, many prospective consumers seek out bad reviews to see how the business handled the situation. This gives the consumer insight into how they will be treated. If your review sites are filled with thoughtful, professional, and timely responses, it shows how high of a priority customer service at your business.
Often times, it is difficult to construct the correct response in a short amount of time. The SimplyReview.Us Response Wizard is a wonderful tool for taking the guesswork out of how to respond to customers. In under two minutes, you can post a personalized, professional response.
How Does an Auto Dealership Keep Track of Reviews?
Keeping on top of what customers are saying about you online can be a challenge. How do you monitor all these review websites and protect your reputation? You want to put yourself in a position to control, as much as possible, how you are perceived in all these “sharing” sites.
Online reviews and ratings have a huge effect on your auto dealership. This new “word of mouth” cannot be ignored; instead, you must harness and use it to nurture and grow your business and expand your happy client base.