Recently, a sales person for a third party reputation management vendor reached out to me to tell me how I could use their services to help my clients increase their online reputation. We’ve all seen the stats and charts, we all know that building and maintaining a positive online image is crucial in today’s competitive market. This is a call to every dealer, every vendor, and every person who is involved with “reputation management.” STOP!
Monitoring reputation, simply put, does NOTHING! Managing reputation, simply put, does EVEN LESS! Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to respond to negative feedback you receive on various 3rd party review sites (also, you don’t need to respond to every positive review), but there’s more to the reputation game than that. In fact, let’s commit right now to never using the phrase “reputation management,” or “reputation monitoring” ever again. Let’s change the language, change the way we do it, and above all change the effectiveness. How about Reputation Enhancement? How can we as dealers, managers, vendors, and consultants take a more unique approach to raising a positive online image?
First and foremost reputation enhancement begins on the showroom floor and at the service advisory desks. If your staff isn’t providing a top notch customer service experience to begin with, there is no postcard, email, poster, filtering system, post response or Facebook post that can save you. So first and foremost, it is imperative that your staff is providing a stellar customer service experience from the moment someone walks in, to the moment they walk out, no matter what. So before you begin to cultivate a positive online image, make sure your staff is providing the best possible customer experience possible, if not, it’s time to devise a plan to do so (click here).
The next step will give you the ability to understand just how well your floor staff is operating and will give you an in depth look into where the challenges may lie. But, if you know that your floor staff needs to overcome obstacles to begin with, first work that out otherwise, you’re creating a bigger headache than before. Simply put, ASK FOR THE REVIEW. Make it part of the delivery process by leaving a postcard inside the vehicle. As the salesperson is performing their delivery walk around with the new customer as the customer is picking up their vehicle in service, have the client advisor pick up the postcard and show it to the customer, ask them to leave a review of their experience. make sure the client advisor informs the customer that not only will it help them to know where they are doing a good job and where they need improvement, but it will let other possible customers know that they had a great experience and why they should do business with your dealership.
Keep track of who leaves a review and make a note of it in your CRM. If, for instance, a customer picks up their new vehicle and does not leave a review, make a note in your CRM to have the service advisor ask for a review upon picking up the vehicle after its first service. But what if they still don’t leave a review after their first service? Well, there are several different things to do. You could wait a few weeks and send off an automatic follow up email. If your CRM has the ability to text customers why not text them with a video link to a manager thanking them for their business and at the end, once again asking for a review.
One last way is to pull out a hand held video camera or smartphone and ask the client if they wouldn’t mind sharing their experience on camera for all to hear and see (keep a stack of release forms around for legal reasons). The great thing about video, as everyone already knows, is that it’s both engaging and easily shared. So now that you’ve amassed plenty of reviews what do you do with them?
Show it off wherever possible. Put some simple 1 minute long videos together showing screenshots of 5 star reviews, or compilations of live customer reviews. Print your best reviews and hang them around the dealership showroom and service area. Provide each client advisor (sales and service) with some sort of “scrapbook,” and have them collect any and all positive reviews that mention them in it and include them in the book. Have them leave the book on their desk for the customer to look through if they please.
Obviously, the possibilities for enhancing your dealerships positive online image are endless, but these few ideas should get you on the right track as well as get the creative gears turning to come up with other ways.