For years the bane of business owners, it has now become an important tool for the modern online presence strategy. The feeling has always been that platforms that allow for anonymous criticism promote a one-sided perception. Users who have a gripe are more motivated to make use of the opportunities to leave a review, compared to a satisfied client. This was true then and is true now if you don’t have a strategy in place for managing your online reputation.
For auto dealerships this is extremely important as a bad experience drives away clients forever and a voiced bad experience drives away new clients forever.
So how do you get ahead of this?
To buy or not to buy.
Should you buy online reviews, the answer is an emphatic no. If you are not discouraged from this practice due to moral reasons, the possibility of being caught out should be reason enough. If we look back at the backlash from Amazon when they started punishing sellers who were buying reviews, similar repercussions are common on all platforms. Google proactively filter out reviews they deemed suspicious and although the scoring mechanism and other algorithmic impacting decisions, are a closely guarded secret, we can guess that you will not be looked favorably upon when caught out abusing the system.
So what should your strategy look like.
Being proactive allows you to turn the risk posed by review platforms into an opportunity. By reaching out to your clients shortly after a business interaction via an independent intermediatory, you give them the opportunity to voice a concern or to promote them in leaving a positive review.
Two key requirements to emphasize here is “Independent Intermediatory” and “Soon after”. You need to make use of a partner that understands how to ethically gather and politely nudge your clients to not chase them away or to win them back when they had a bad experience by showing you are accountable. Unhappy clients want to be heard, by contacting them before they leave the bad review we give them this feeling and you get the opportunity to change their mind.
Bad reviews stay up forever, but so do good reviews.
Omni Auto has launched a reputation management solution that assists your business in proactively managing your online first impression. Reach out to one of out to us today so we can further discuss this opportunity.