Reputation Management: Stand Out for the Right Reasons.

Now more than ever, consumers are turning to the internet to share their positive and negative experiences with businesses, including car dealerships.

If a customer shares a positive 5-star review, you should know about it! Unfortunately, negative reviews happen, too. What matters most is how you react and respond to those less-than-complimentary reviews.

Follow these best practices to make sure you’re properly monitoring what’s being said about your dealership and taking the proper course of action when necessary.

1. Check all review sites daily for new reviews.

Make sure you’re regularly checking the popular review sites such as Google+, Yelp, and Bing. Don’t let any reviews go unnoticed.

2. Respond to every review, including negative reviews, within 24 hours.

The best thing you can do to combat a negative review, is to acknowledge it and respond to the person in a timely manner. You’ll have the best chances of fixing the problem and turning the situation around.

3. Include a signature at the end of every review response.

Your response should always include the full name, phone number, and email address of the employee responding. This way the customer has an option of contacting the employee directly.

4. Share exceptionally good reviews on your business’s social networks, especially Facebook.

Good reviews should be shared! When you receive a great review from a customer, share it on your social networks to let others hear about the positive experience.

5. If you receive a “fake” or SPAM review, flag it to the review site for further investigation.

A “fake” or SPAM review isn’t something worth responding to. It’s best to report it so it can be removed.

6. Accept that negative reviews can happen and cannot simply be deleted.

Instead of trying to get a negative review deleted, which is very difficult, it’s best to contact the unhappy customer and address the issue directly. If you can make the customer happy again, they may take down the negative review and replace it with a positive one!

7. Prior to responding to a negative review, speak with the employee who worked with the customer to get the full story.

Before jumping into a response, it’s best to speak with the employee who dealt with the customer to get their side of the story. You’ll want to have a full understanding of the situation before addressing the review.

8. Always include a genuine apology in your response to any negative review, regardless of the situation.

It’s important to acknowledge that you are sorry that the customer had such a negative experience, no matter what happened.

9. Do not advertise within your review responses.

Keep all review responses personal and genuine. This isn’t the place to be advertising your business.

10. Respond to all reviews publicly, but also send a private message to the customer when possible to personalize the conversation further.

If possible, it’s always best to take the conversation “offline” and have a more private and personal conversation with the customer.

Don’t have time to monitor reviews on your own? DSplus can help! We offer reputation management programs to help you monitor your dealership’s rep. on top review sites. Visit dsplus.co/toyota-social/ to learn more.