Google reviews, what are you doing to get them?

The power of positive reviews on sites like Google and Dealerrater are undeniable but the reality is customers who have a negative experience have a higher motivational force to submit reviews. Being proactive with your happy customers is the best practice for getting positive reviews so how are you being proactive? What are you doing to get more positive reviews from your happy customers? Are you doing anything with service customers?

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Permalink Reply by Nannette Staropoli on November 15, 2011 at 12:20am

There are number of highly effective ways to secure getting Google reviews (or any reviews on any of the rating sites for that matter) - below is a list of tips to secure increased reviews:

1. Create promotional cards to hand out to customers (i.e How are we Doing? / Rate us cards) - Be sure to include specific directions about where they need to go to post the rating - a bullet list works best (see example from cards we've created for clients). Newer versions include a QR code.

2. Provide incentive for posting a review - oil change, free car wash, movie tickets, community donation - all can be effective.

3. Engage the service department to get reviews - a Dealers service department encounters a huge amount of potential ratings - have an ipad on hand with your Google maps rating site loaded and ready. Hand out cards in this department as well.

- keep in mind Google ratings require that the person rating you have a registered gmail address

4. Emarketing can be effective - If your dealership doesn't utilize emarketing for this, create a script that you use after a sale - yet another place to have a connection with your customer.

5. Utilize social media ~ If you are a sales person, send a personal message to your customer with the link and ask for their review. Taking an authentic approach works - explain to the customer your Dealership measures and rewards you for positive ratings - if you've done a good job with the sale - they will be happy to help. If you are from the dealership side- post generic language asking for reviews on a regular basis on the Dealer's social media site - tie it into an incentive for increased results.

In summary, there are number of effective approaches to increase your customer reviews. As with most marketing tactics, multiple touch points and consistency will help your effort.

Nannette Staropoli

Permalink Reply by Evan Rodenberg on April 25, 2012 at 7:26pm

What concerns me more is receiving consistent 5 star Yelp reviews. Considering the ubiquitous influence the site seems to have on consumers (especially in the Bay Area), does anyone have any suggestions for getting more 5 star reviews. Yelp has been a whole different beast for us so far. Their "501" algorithm intentionally blocks out users writing their first review if it happens to be 5 stars. It seems you have to tear down a few establishments first before you can be ushered into their good graces and start writing 5 star reviews. The only thing we are doing now is explicitly asking if the satisfied customer is "a Yelper" and then directing them to that site first to write us a good review. Has anyone else had success with Yelp?