“This is like crack for car dealers”

That’s what Robert Rogers of Parks Motor Sales in Columbia, TN told me as his texts were blowing up with new 5-star Google My Business reviews during a recent training class at his store.

Dealers get excited about reviews because they understand that the car buying experience begins long before a car buyer fills out a lead form, visits our website, or sets foot on the showroom floor.  It begins the first time your dealership’s name pops up on their radar screen. Often as they are reading dealer reviews.

• 9 out of 10 consumer research online reviews prior to purchase
• 8 out of 10 trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• Car buyers are 90% more likely to visit your website if you have positive reviews.
• They’re 5.3 times more likely to physically visit your dealership if you do.
• Web pages that include customer reviews are 3.5x as likely to create a conversion

“We place a huge amount of importance on online reviews,” says Michael Porro from Honda World in Louisville, KY. “And the proof is in the results. We’ve been the DealerRater Dealer of the year, 8 years running.”

“Word of mouth is the best advertising source, and it’s the least expensive.” 

A healthy collection of online reviews for your store and your team allows you to create a healthy dose of pre-trust so when you’re communicating with customers, over email, over text, over the phone, they already like you a little, they already trust you a little, because they’ve seen reviews from other people who already like and trust you. You must be ok.

The most surprising thing is people trust online reviews from strangers just as much as they trust personal recommendations from friends and family.

The more the better.

If there’s any secret to getting more reviews for your dealership, it’s this: Ask and you get; don’t and you won’t.

There are tools, and technologies, and third-party vendors that can streamline your dealership’s review collection and distribution process to help ensure your great reviews end up at the right place in front of the right person at the right time. From your website to inventory sites, from Google to Facebook, glowing 5-star reviews spread across the internet turn shoppers into buyers.

Dealer Marketing Expert panelist Colin Carrasquillo of Nielsen Automotive Group in New Jersey says that salespeople and dealerships without access to third-party platforms should “put an email and/or texting strategy in place where they can send links to a customer for the sites that they would like reviews on, and kindly ask the individual for the review; good, bad or just straight up ugly.”

The dealership needs to make it easy for the consumer to leave a review and just as easy for the team members to ask

At Kelly Automotive Group, “Every department focuses on receiving 5 Star reviews. If you think it’s important now, it’s only going to be more prevalent in the future,” says CEO Chris Saraceno

It’s important enough that dealers are adding review generation to job descriptions and to pay plans.

“We have reviews included in every customer contact bonus plan,” says Chris Saraceno.

Matt Raymond from Team Automotive in North Carolina added that they “pay the person in the company with the most reviews at the end of the quarter 500 dollars.”  Team Automotive is also rolling out a new QR code that makes it even simpler and easier for car buyers to leave a review at delivery.

Your employees can tell when you’re just giving lip service to an idea, but when getting more online reviews affects their paycheck, they notice. When you actually provide the tools, the technology, and the training to help them collect more online reviews, they notice.

“You have to educate all of your associates on the importance and the benefits to them on asking 100% of our Clients 100% of the time for the review,” says Michael Porro. “You must build it into your culture.”

Culture matters. If you want people to say nice things about you, you have to give them an experience worth talking about

A lot of folks talk about branding without much idea of what branding actually is. Your store’s brand, your team members’ personal brands, have almost nothing to do with what colors you use in your logo and almost everything to do with the idea of you that exists in the car buyer’s mind. 

Your online reviews are a pretty good indicator of what your true brand is. What your reputation really is. How people feel about the experience of doing business with you. 

Top dealers use their online reviews to monitor their reputation in the community and to improve their customers’ experience.

"How do we set positively set ourselves apart from the competition?" asks Colin Carrasquillo.

“The answer is that we must provide an exceptional customer experience, and that exceptional customer experience can be promoted/demonstrated by the great reviews the dealer receives or the ways a resolution is provided to a negative review.”

“Reviews and your dealership's reputation is everything.” 

“We greatly rely on our online reviews,” says Eric Hall at Classic Chevrolet in Texas.  “Not only for validation that we are doing things the way customers expect, but also help us when we miss the mark.”

“We text and email all service and sales customers with a short 1-5 star questioner.  If it is 1-3 stars it goes directly to a manager so we can address the customer’s concerns.”

Your dealership can get more 5-star reviews that drive visits to your websites, texts to your BDC, and visitors to your front door if you simply ask more often, make it easy to play along, and treat every customer like 5-star royalty.

Terry Lancaster is an automotive marketing strategist, trainer, copywriter, storyteller, and the #1 best-selling author of How To Sell More Cars.

I’ve helped thousands of dealerships sell millions of cars by putting the right words in the right order to tell the right story. How can I help you tell yours?

The How To Sell More Cars marketing and training program moves the needle that day, and I help your store create social media, videos, employee & customer spotlight profiles, blog posts, radio & TV commercials, direct mail, and the occasional dirty limerick slash bathroom stall graffiti:

For a good time call 615-804-0311.