People are talking about your dealership right now.

You may have been reading about dealerships being attacked online and more blog posts leveling charges against stores and their treatment of customers. An industry publication just wrote about two dealerships that bore the brunt of upset customers. One customer posted a note on a blog saying a Mid-West dealership wouldn’t sell him a car for the winning bid price on eBay Motors. Before the dealer could respond to accommodate the customer there were over one hundred pages of blog posts and most of them were directed against the dealership.

 In New Jersey the daughter of a customer stormed into the store with her video camera rolling and lambasted the manager for delivering a vehicle to her mother and then asking for the car back since the mother was not approved for the loan. She posted the video on YouTube and it was viewed over 122,000 times.  This dealer didn’t do anything wrong. He spotted the car and when no lender could approve the transaction, he asked the customer to bring back the vehicle. In both cases damage was done to the dealer’s reputation.

Are dealers treating customers worse today than in the past?  Absolutely not!  Industry research indicates that customer satisfaction continues to increase. The problem is the Internet makes it very easy for consumers to vent their frustrations against dealers.  For less than $30 a consumer can register a domain and host a website attacking a dealership. To see an example of one of these website attacks go to:  http://myrtlebeachvw.com. This unhappy customer had a warranty claim denied and posted this attack site.

One dealership I was working with in Virginia was being frustrated by a few negative search engine results that were coming up above his dealerships listings.  He was trying everything to make them go away.  This was a good dealer with a good regional reputation so it was particularly frustrating for them.  This was a reality he had to address.  Let’s talk about some realities.

Reality One: Be proactive in protecting your reputation.
More customers are sharing negative experiences online, and usually the sites where they complain do not allow dealer feedback. So you can’t even defend yourself.   You need to monitor what is being said about you online.  I suggest you sign up for free Google Alerts on google.com.  Just create a free account at Google and under their product offerings you will see their Alerts.  You can enter your dealerships name and the names of your competitors, and anytime the name is mentioned on a website, blog or posting you will get an email with a link to that content. This will keep you aware of what is being said about you. If possible reply to accusations, contact the customer and fix the situation.  If the comment is on a site that allows you to reply, please do so.   If the situation described by the customer was true, do not try and put the blame on the customer, but share your side of the story.   Do not call the customer a liar but reply in a calm and positive tone. You do not want to make the situation worse.

Monitor known sites where dealer feedback and complaints often surface. Some of those are RipOffReport.com, Dealerrater.com, MyDealerReport.com and Edmunds.com.

Reality Two: Tell the World Your Problem Resolution Policy
The first step to avoid these issues is to develop a clear, simple policy for customer complaints.  Every complaint, comment or suggestion should be directed to a manager and addressed in a timely fashion.  You may also want to consider presenting a “card” to every customer in the business office that states your policy and invites them to share any issues with a specific person at the dealership. If you are proactive and let customers know you care about them and that they have recourse for any issues, you will negate about 98% of any online complaints.  Of course providing a great buying experience will need to be part of your process too.  This policy could be called your  Customer Satisfaction Commitment.

Reality Three:  Provide a place to vent where you are part of the conversation.
If a customer wants to complain online, you need to make sure it is on a channel where you can participate.  This allows you to reply, fix the issue and turn an unhappy customer into an evangelist for your store.  One of the channels I have been recommending to my clients is CarFolks.com.  They are a new site but have a unique model. First they are dealer advocates that truly want to help dealers and they do it by working with dealers and inviting all your customers to come in and say good things about their experience.

When customers leave your dealership, whether they are happy or disappointed they are talking about their experience with family, friends, and co-workers. Most customers leave your store happy and if they didn’t you wouldn’t be in business. CarFolks.com offers dealers a place to harness all the goodwill from their happy customers and essentially provides a powerful promotion tool, “Word of Mouth” advertising.  When a customer posts any negative comments, dealers can respond and fix the issues.  And, by giving every sales person a free microsite they utilize user generated content to provide search engines with good content for your dealership.

Dealers can’t afford to be lax in protecting their online reputation. It is critical to be proactive and develop plans to promote all the positive activities and events that are supported by the dealership.  Take steps now to protect your online reputation and leverage all the positive things you and your sales team do every day. 

 
Sean V. Bradley is founder/CEO of Dealer Synergy Inc. Dealer Synergy is an international automotive training and consulting agency that specializes in full business development, CRM, Internet sales, owner retention, phone sales, special finance and advertising/marketing.