A recent Dataium and DealerRater study has just announced consumers are 90% more likely to visit and 5.3 times more likely to submit a lead to a dealership with positive reviews. While many automotive dealerships have known the power of positive reviews, this data truly drives home the fact.
With the power of participating Dataium dealerships and DealerRater Certified Dealer Program dealerships, the data revealed dealerships with a positive overall rating of 3.5 stars or higher would receive far more website traffic and leads than dealerships not focusing on reputation management. Furthermore, consumers looking at a dealership’s employee DealerRater profile with positive reviews were 12.1 times more likely to submit a lead.
The Numbers:
- 3.5 Stars or higher for more leads
- 90% more likely to visit store
- 12.1 times more likely to submit lead with positive profile reviews
- 50% more likely to visit dealership’s website
- 80% more time spent on site
- 8.8 times higher lead conversion for new cars
- 10.8 times higher lead conversion for used
If they haven’t already sunk in, sit back, stretch and think about the power behind these numbers.
This type of consumer behavior is not specific to the automotive industry, as you can probably guess. The Consumer behavior of rewarding businesses with positive reviews is everywhere. A Harvard Business School study from last year indicated that restaurants would see a 9 percent increase in customers per additional positive star on their reviews.
We are living in a customer centric world and the customer’s expectations are high.
Questions:
Should we, at this point, be thankful for those manufactures that require reputation management?
Who is managing your reputation? Are you reactive or proactive?
If you’re using a vendor to manage it, how often are you checking up on their performance?
How are you handling negative reviews?
How are driving consumers to leave reviews?
Tell us what you think about reviews, the DealerRater Certified Program and your success and fails with reputation management.
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