WALTHAM, MA – November 14, 2011 – DealerRater, the premier car dealer review web site, today announced continued expansion with the launch of a Canada-specific web site dedicated to auto consumers and car dealers throughout Canada. The new site will serve as a central collection point for consumer reviews of Canadian car dealerships. Using DealerRater’s new site, Canadian auto consumers will be able to search for car dealerships, read existing reviews of car dealers, or post their own descriptive review of a car dealership experience.
“Our new Canada site addresses the immediate need for auto consumers across Canada to be able to easily research and find Canadian car dealers that are committed to quality customer service,” said Chip Grueter, president of DealerRater. “With the launch of this Canada-specific dealer review site, we are excited to expand the DealerRater community and build lasting partnerships with additional Canadian dealerships.”
DealerRater was founded in 2002 as North America’s first review web site dedicated solely to automotive dealerships. In the last two years, the site has demonstrated record growth in the number of dealer reviews as well as web site visitors. In addition, the volume of Canadian dealers and reviews represented in DealerRater’s database has grown at a rate of 3,711% and 1,342%, respectively, over the past year.
Dealers throughout the U.S. and Canada have embraced DealerRater as a third-party review site and trusted partner that is critical to their online reputation management efforts. The DealerRater Certified Dealer Program, created in 2008, is a certification program and reputation management tool offered to qualified car dealers. The program is designed to help car dealerships connect with automotive consumers at the most critical phase of the buying process, while demonstrating an utmost commitment to quality service.
“DealerRater gives a simple and effective conduit to represent the dealerships brand and experience through a rating online,” said Mitch Gallant, internet department manager of Capital Ford Lincoln, which was the first dealership in Saskatchewan to qualify for and embrace the DealerRater Certified Dealer Program. “As a Certified Dealer, we now have a tool to focus on not only building reviews but sharing them through our website, RSS feeds and staff pages.”
DealerRater maintains more than 4,100 dealer partners through its Certification Program, and has experienced a 327% increase in Canadian dealers joining the program over the past year. As auto consumers increase their reliance on online reviews when selecting a car dealer, building third-party reviews and defining a proven strategy to manage and leverage those reviews is becoming a critical component of a successful sales process for car dealerships.
About DealerRater
DealerRater was founded in 2002 as the first car dealer review website worldwide. DealerRater is the world’s #1 online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on automobile dealerships. DealerRater features more than 41,000 U.S. and Canadian car dealers, 460,000 user reviews and over 1,000,000 cars for sale. DealerRater attracts more than 5 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free. Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience. In addition, DealerRater offers qualified car dealers a Certified Dealer Program as a reputation management tool to help them grow their online presence and achieve higher SEO rankings across the Web. Today, more than 4,100 dealers are members of DealerRater’s Certification Program. For more information, visit www.DealerRater.ca or call 800-266-9455.
