Automotive News - February 4, 2008 - (Page 29) INSIGHT The online dealer FEBRUARY 4, 2008 • 29 Consumer reviews of dealerships gain clout Laura Clark Geist autonews@crain.com onsumer-written reviews of auto dealerships are becoming an Internet staple. And some dealers aren’t thrilled. “People who are unhappy and looking for a venue to vent” are the most likely authors of socalled consumer-generated media, says Bill Jacobs, who owns eight dealerships in the Chicago area. The review Web sites “need to evolve and expand before they will have much credibility within the industry.” Internet giants such as Yahoo Autos and Edmunds.com, as well as smaller providers, operate sites that encourage customers to share — anonymously — their sales and service experiences at dealerships. Some sites ask users to grade dealerships on various performance criteria. Many allow dealers to respond to critical reviews and to invite customers to post positive assessments. Several, such as Bostonbased Dealerrater.com, offer to mediate disputes between dealerships and dissatisfied customers. The sponsors say their sites offer valuable guidance to vehicle buyers. Many of them make money by selling advertising space to dealers and automakers. “The car shopping process is something that consumers go into with a bit of skepticism and timidity,” says David Schwartz, Yahoo’s local category director. “Having information on what they might experience is going to become a major differentiator between what dealerships get selected and what dealerships don’t.” no accountability. You can manipulate the whole market.” Meehan says he plans to ask satisfied customers of his dealerships to write positive reviews on the site. That’s the way the process should work, says John Isaac, president of MyDealerReport.com. He says his site gives dealers the opportunity to rebut negative customer comments — for a fee — and provides dispute resolution tools to dealers and customers. By January, he adds, Imperial Chevrolet no longer was among the site’s low-ranked dealerships. Helping hand Isaac concedes that when he launched his site in 2004, dealers were scared of the review process. “They ran from us,” says Isaac, a former new- and used-vehicle salesman. But Isaac says he has managed to persuade retailers that he wants to “mend the relationship between consumers and dealers.” “Our aim is not to take sides or insult anyone,” Isaac says. “It’s really about relationship-building. Reviews are a way of being transparent and building trust.” To maintain credibility, many of the review sites assign employees to monitor consumer postings. The review site sponsored by Edmunds.com prohibits profanity and personal attacks on dealership employees, says Lisa Ackerly, the company’s executive director of business development. The site does not allow reviewers to post the phone numbers or e-mail addresses of individual employees, she adds. “But it’s not so heavily moderated that you can’t get a review written,” Ackerly says. “If someone is upset, we don’t want to get in the way of that sentiment. But there’s an appropriate way to do it.” Dealer Jacobs says he’s not taking any chances. He says the Internet departments of his eight dealerships monitor review sites constantly and respond promptly to postings by unhappy customers. But other dealerships, especially smaller ones, say they lack the resources to keep tabs on the sites. So they may not even be aware of online attacks. Dealer Meehan jokes that from now on, “I’m going to have people put reviews on (the sites) all day.” He adds: “Maybe I’ll be in the top 10 tomorrow.” c 30 25 187 8 21 24 100 5 Dealerrater.com offers to mediate disputes between dealerships and customers. But President Chip Grueter says: “In the majority of the cases, a reviewer who is contacted by their dealership is impressed enough with the response by the dealership that they are willing to work out the problem directly.” Net worth These Web sites offer customer reviews of auto dealerships. Edmunds.com/dealerships/ drr/jump.html Local.yahoo.com MyDealerReport.com DealerRater.com CarFolks.com As a result, Root concedes, some dealerships might be tempted to try to flood a Web site with ginned-up reviews full of gushing accolades. But he says consumers tend to find that a mixture of positive and negative reviews of a dealership has the greatest credibility. Many sites use software designed to thwart organized ballot stuffing campaigns by dealerships or consumers. “If we see 10 reviews coming from the same Internet provider address, we’re going to block those or take those down,” says Yahoo’s Schwartz. The sites also police themselves by allowing users to rate reviews and determine whether they should be removed, Schwartz adds. “It’s rare to find a business with hundreds of glowing reviews,” he says. Dealer skepticism Some dealers are suspicious of the fairness and accuracy of the consumer review sites. Kevin Meehan owns Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealerships in suburban Boston. He says his stores have earned multiple factory awards for customer service. Yet in December, the Web site MyDealerReport.com ranked Meehan’s Imperial Chevrolet dealership in Milford, Mass., among its bottom 10 dealers because of negative consumer reviews. One advised: “Do not buy used from them or use there (sic) service dept.” Meehan wasn’t aware of the dealership’s low ranking until Automotive News told him about it. He says he’s incensed that the site permits anonymous attacks, instead of requiring reviewers to identify themselves. “How do we know these are real customers?” Meehan says. “There’s Peer influence Late last year, Yahoo co-sponsored a study of dealership performance with two automotive information and marketing firms, R.L. Polk & Co. and Cobalt Group Inc. Of 1,000 vehicle buyers surveyed for the study, more than one-fifth said they had changed dealerships after reading consumer reviews online. Reviews have more influence on consumers than such factors as a dealership’s location or previous customer loyalty, the study suggests. Kevin Root, vice president of applications and services at Cobalt Group, says positive reviews can be a powerful marketing took for a dealership. SO, YOU’RE A NUMBERS GUY? 30 years of automotive marketing that sells 25 years management continuity 187 dealers and dealer groups 8 manufacturers - Tier II 21 franchises - Tier III 24-hour campaign turnaround 100 percent results driven 5 minutes to realize you’ve made a great business decision Web site joins dealer reviews, social network Laura Clark Geist autonews@crain.com One of the newest Web sites to offer consumer reviews of auto dealerships does things a little differently. Instead of waiting for posts, CarFolks.com also solicits reviews. The site uses customer e-mail addresses that dealerships supply, with the customer’s permission. Unlike other sites, CarFolks permits reviews of individual employees as well as overall dealership performance. And to a greater extent than many of its competitors, CarFolks seeks to re- solve disputes between dealerships and customers. “When consumers review a dealership, they are really reviewing the individuals at the dealership,” says David Hein, cofounder of Carfolks.com, which launched last month. “We didn’t want to create a forum just for people to complain about their negative experiences.” At its launch, CarFolks had recruited 10 dealerships as registered members. For a fee of about $1,000 a month, the site contacts a dealership’s sales and service customers within 24 to 48 hours Carfolks.com’s David Hein: “We didn’t want to create a forum just for people to complain.” of a transaction. It invites customers to submit reviews of their experiences, including ratings of the employees they dealt with. Customers of registered dealerships who provide reviews are eligible for service discounts and other incentives. If a member dealership gets a negative review, CarFolks delays posting it for as long as two weeks. That gives the dealership time to try to resolve the problem. CarFolks does not plan to mediate disputes directly, says spokesman Mark Dubis. The site is preparing to accept advertising from dealerships and automakers, Hein says. CarFolks also has elements of a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace: Dealership sales and service employees can create their own pages on the site to communicate with consumers. c grahamadv.com The numbers don’t lie. Call Graham today. 800.776.7336 http://MyDealerReport.com http://Dealerrater.com http://Dealerrater.com http://Edmunds.com http://Edmunds.com http://Edmunds.com/dealerships/drr/jump.html http://Edmunds.com/dealerships/drr/jump.html http://Local.yahoo.com http://MyDealerReport.com http://Dealerrater.com http://CarFolks.com http://MyDealerReport.com http://grahamadv.com http://CarFolks.com http://CarFolks.com http://grahamadv.com
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