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 Having a good online reputation is no joke. 

Back when I was running dealerships, the internet wasn’t what it is today. There were no review, or social media sites for people to congregate on and share experiences. When you had the occasional psychopath that came into the dealership, had a bad experience, and subsequently lost his ever-loving mind, the “blast zone” that he created was relatively contained. You had the opportunity to talk him off the ledge, get his issue solved, and turn him back into a fan, mano y mano, as it were.

Sometimes that wasn’t possible, but in those rare situations, again, the “blast zone” was small, so it wasn’t usually catastrophic – just unfortunate.

Fast forward to today. With the internet being the huge influencer that it is now, and having Google aggregating reviews, your dealership is now on stage – for better or worse. Dissatisfied customers can now go online and have a serious impact on the financial health of your business.

According to a recent Brightstar study, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. That’s a big deal, especially considering there’s no filter for crazy. 

Oh, and a fun fact: dissatisfied customers are 11 times more likely to give you a bad review than satisfied customers. So, there’s that…

Depending on how upset the customer is, and how tech savvy they are, you can have a real problem on your hands. One extreme example that comes to mind right away is that a dealer we know – who is a good dealer – had a run in about 10 years ago with someone who came into their shop with a problem while passing through town on a trip. Long story short, he accused the shop of causing a small scratch on the top of his tank, by the gas cap.  He wanted a paint job (instead of a very minor touch-up). The shop advised that they didn’t scratch it, and they wouldn’t be providing the free paint job he wanted.  They would entertain a touch up though. Now, knowing the folks involved like I do, they didn’t scratch the tank, but the customer wouldn’t settle for a touch up.

Unfortunately, the customer was an employee of a reputation management company – and unreasonable. He created a website in protest of the dealership, used some solid SEO practices, created tons of negative reviews, and best of all actually ran a Google AdWords campaign (with a small budget) for about 8 years.

Now, 10 years later, as I’m writing this article I Googled the dealership’s name and the first result is the actual dealership’s name, and the second is this clown’s site.

Online reputation management is important.

Now, not everyone has something that crazy happen – but every dealer who has been open for more than a week has some kind of unhappy customer story they can tell. 

Unfortunately, the first thing many of them do is go online to share their experience (justified or not). 

So, what do you do when you get a bad review?

First, you’re going to need to take a breather and let the emotions pass. It’s totally normal to get pissed off when somebody calls your baby ugly. Once the initial adrenaline surge is over, you’ll be in a better place to look at what was said more objectively. DO NOT fire off a quick response. Remember, on the internet the world is watching – and you want to be sure that you don’t come off looking bad. If you want to see examples of bad review responses, do a Google search of “Amy’s Bakery.” Don’t be Amy….

That said, you do have to respond. The only thing worse than having a bad review online is having a bad review online that didn’t get the courtesy of a response from the business trying to fix the problem. Crickets are a terrible response. Readers view that as you not caring.

So second, you want to take care of the issue. In most cases, there is at least some nugget of truth or place where something got sideways that could or should be addressed. So, when you’ve settled down, respond to the review in a non-combative way, and if appropriate apologize for the less than excellent experience – but most importantly, take the conversation off stage. Ask the reviewer to call you, email you, or swing by in person, so that you can resolve the issue. This accomplishes a few important things. First, you can actually resolve the issue. Second, you can do so out of the public eye. Third, you can win back a customer. Fourth, once resolved you can ask them to edit their review. You’d be surprised how many people will. Reviews that reflect initial dissatisfaction and then resolution add a great deal of credibility to you and your dealership. They show that you take customer concerns to heart.

Third, you want to bury the bad with the good. What I mean is that you want to bury bad reviews with tons of good ones. Anyone with even the smallest amount of common sense knows that nobody is perfect, and that everyone is going to get bad reviews from time to time. The important thing is that the good should far outweigh the bad, and that the bad should be handled professionally. 

Unfortunately, many dealers get the normal and customary number of bad reviews, but don’t have systems and processes in place to harvest the good reviews they need to put things in perspective. If you fall into that category, and find it a struggle to harvest good reviews regularly, we have a fix for that. Give us a call and let us show you how we’ve helped hundreds of dealers all across the country.

Talk soon 

Brad