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DealerRater 101 - Intro for Canadians

18 Oct 2010

DealerRater your new Ally?

DealerRater, Social Media No Comments
DealerRater Revie page

DealerRater Dealer page

Just last month my girlfriend and I made a last minute decision to drive to Manhattan for the weekend. Without months to plan the trip we needed to book a hotel quickly. After spending only one night scouring Hotels.com, Trip Advisor, Travelocity, and another dozen sites, we settled on a destination. The hotel turned out to be great and the user review sites really helped us make the right decision in choosing our crash pad for the 3-day excursion.

Enter the car dealership. When I was on the sales floor I quickly understood that referrals and word of mouth were a big part of our business. Dealers should realize that it is just as important to be aware of what potential customers are reading and writing about their dealership. If you want to do a quick test, try typing “Toronto Toyota” in a Google search and make note of the dealers that appear beside the map (7 pack in geek terms). You will see that beside the phone number, the reviews of these dealerships are showcased. Such powerful reviews are just one click away from your potential customers. Ratings can be posted directly on your Google Place page or extracted from various review sites such as DealerRater. Want to see a dealer that has hit it right out of the Rogers Center on to Front Street? Try typing “Toyota dealer MA”. The last time I checked this dealer, Acton Toyota, it had 1,019 reviews associated with their dealership listing, with the vast majority of reviews coming directly fromDealerRater. Since Google Maps is so visible, it is critical for a dealership to have their page loaded with positive reviews from their customer base.

What the heck is DealerRater? –

Founded in 2002, DealerRater® established the first car dealer review website worldwide. As a social network and user review website, DealerRater.com features more than 30,000 US and International car dealers, 190,000 user reviews and over 1,000,000 classified ads. The site attracts more than 3 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free. Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience. In addition, both consumers and car dealerships may post free auto classified ads. DealerRater’s users may request vehicle quotes and the company’s Certified Dealers receive free vehicle leads.

Source – DealerRater.com

How do I make DealerRater work for me?

With more than 250,000 people joining the DealerRater user community each month, DealerRater is quickly becoming an important online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on car dealerships. The site is equally important to today’s car dealers for a number of reasons. DealerRater helps Dealers stay in touch with customer feedback and also gives Dealers access to an ever expanding market of potential customers. In addition, the content on DealerRater’s site is jam-packed with customer reviews and classified ads, all of which appear in organic Google Search results. As a result, as a dealer you are able to expand your online presence and achieve higher search engine ranking across the Web with the help of DealerRater’s user-generated site content.

But what about negative customer reviews that may pop up from time to time? Through DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program, DealerRater offers qualified dealers the opportunity to actively monitor and respond to customer reviews and save relationships. Certified Dealers can take advantage of a two-week reconciliation period to communicate with unsatisfied customers through a privatewebsite panel before negative reviews are publicly posted. Given this key feature of DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program, as a Certified Dealer you can actively manage your online reputation and address customer feedback, enabling you to retain more customers and generate increased business.

Automotive Marketing

Dealer Panel

Another interesting feature DealerRater offers its Certified Dealers involves complete integration with the popular social networking site, Facebook. This recent addition offered by DealerRater allows a Dealer’s most recent positive user reviews to automatically feed to a custom tab on the Dealer’s Facebook Page, which is updated real time. A Dealer’s classified ads also can feed to a custom tab on the Dealer’s Facebook Page, and are updated daily. As a result, as a Certified Dealer, you can draw leads directly from your Facebook fan page.Additional Program Highlights

  • Positive Review Testimonial Feed – As a Certified Dealer, your most recent 10 positive reviews feed to your website and automatically update as new reviews are added, enabling you to gain instant website client testimonials that are labeled “Powered By DealerRater.com”.
  • Unlimited Vehicle Leads - Certified Dealers receive instant email alerts for all leads generated for their brand in their state. Leads can be fed directly into a CRM system.
  • Employee Review Pages - Certified Dealers have “MyReviews Pages” for your employees to showcase their respective reviews.
  • Unlimited Auto Classified Ads -As a Certified Dealer, you can place an unlimited number of auto classified ads on DealerRater’s website. Ads also appear on AutoSpies.com and in organic Google search results. DealerRater provides inventory upload management from your Dealer Management System to the DealerRater database. Dealers can list vehicles with multiple photos and Dealer notes to generate leads on specific vehicles in your inventory.

There are a number of user- based review sites all over the Web that dealerships can utilize. DealerRater has created a model that works for both the buyer and the seller. Stop storing those thank you cards on your desk and start getting those positive reviews in front of potential customers.

By: Ryan Thompson

Ryan is an active on-line marketer, blogger, and Canadian Account Manager for Car Chat 24

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Comments

  • One of the huge benefits of having the reviews posted in Google Places is the fact that reviews actually help to optimize your listings. The more reviews you have, good or bad, the better the placement. While there are hundreds of factors that determine relevancy, our testing has confirmed this one to be very important.
  • All of our dealer groups stores are currently dealer rater dealers. I can't begin to explain how many times this has come in handy when painting a picture of what type of dealership we are and aspire to be to our customers. After a few months of working with them, we have amassed all kinds of great reviews. Some of Them highlight the experience customers have had with a certain salesperson or manager. This is extremely powerful when a rep can talk to a customer and SHOW them their reputation. Dealerrater.com does a great job of proving you walk the walk when it comes to dealing with skeptical customers who are looking for a better place to do business.
  • If I were a Canadian dealer (actually any location) , it would be very exciting to start with a dealer with 0 reviews. I have seen many Canadian dealers with 0 reviews on their places page... nice fresh canvas.

    Stan any tips or tricks if you were starting at a dealership with 0 negative or positive reviews on any review site????
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