Over the past few weeks we have given you a few “Tips and Tricks On How to Respond to Online Reviews” and “The Cost of a Negative Review.” In this blog post we are going to cover a few ways that you can implement a strategy on getting more online reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more potential vehicles you will be able to sell. There are many reasons why dealerships do not get a high volume of total reviews. Sure, you get plenty of negative ones when a customer has a bad experience and is sure to let you know about it. But what about all of those other customers that purchase vehicles from you each month and have a great experience? Why aren’t they leaving reviews? There are several things that need to be done in order to start this process. That brings us to our first step:
Step 1: Commit to a Strategy
There are many ways to gather reviews, but not all of the ways are going to work for your dealership. What might work for one dealership might not work for yours. If you decide to hire a vendor, commit to working with them. It is a waste of your dealership’s funds to hire someone and not commit participation long enough to see some true results. But when you do commit to your new strategy, you will reap the online and in-store rewards. At ECarSource we work with your dealership to find out what strategy works best for your dealership. Whether it be through an email campaign, marketing materials, social campaigns, gathering reviews in your dealership, or a combination of these, we are here to increase your online reputation and bring more potential customers into your dealership.
Step 2: Get Your Team Involved.
If your strategy includes handing out marketing materials, or by getting reviews from inside the dealership itself, you’ll need to have all your team members involved. Your entire team will be the ones at the forefront of implementing this process and will be the main power behind driving up your online reputation scores and achieving overall digital success. Also, it is not just the sales people, get your receptionist, delivery specialist, and service team involved too! Each and every customer throughout all your departments is an opportunity to turn a positive experience into a 5 star online review. A great way to ensure employee participation is to make it a part of their pay plan or to offer “spiffs” for every positive review that gets posted to a review site by one of their customers. At the end of each month, ECarSource provides an easy to read report that tells you how many new positive reviews were generated and also which of your team members are going the extra mile with their customers to get those reviews online for your dealership!
Step 3: Get Your Customers Excited!
All dealerships know that if a customer is upset with their experience, they are more than likely going to tell all of their friends and family. Unhappy customers are more apt to post their negative comments online almost immediately after their interaction with your store. Happy customers however, often do not remember or think about going online and posting a positive review for your dealership. For example, if your dealership is selling 200+ vehicles a month, but only capturing online customer reviews on 10% or less of these transactions, they are missing at least 50+ potential 5 Star reviews from the rest of these happy customers who all purchased vehicles from your store. By making our review capturing process fast and easy, you can quickly turn this situation around. If your customer has a great experience and your team mentions how valuable and easy posting online reviews are, your customers will be more inclined to provide positive feedback right then and there. Another great way to get your customers excited – provide an incentive for online reviews! Customers nowadays value their time greatly and by offering an incentive for their time you will see a higher participation. These giveaways can range from higher end items, like an iPad or a television, but can also be smaller incentives, such as a free car wash or oil change. ECarSource manages this giveaway process from start to finish. We even film the great giveaway moment with your customer to be used for marketing on your Website and Social Media sites!
Three easy steps, that is all it takes to increase your dealership’s online ratings. At ECarSource we provide you with easy, simple ways to gather more online reviews. We can even monitor and respond to all of these reviews for you, so you can just relax and let ECarSource drive you higher towards a 5 star reputation. Contact us today for your free reputation analysis! 1-855-568-4897 or sales@ecarsource.com
Win the Click! Win with Digital! Win with eCarSource!
Pretty Smart Digital – Prettysmartdigital
Digital Domination – Digital Dominance