Review Site Archives - DealerRefresh

January 15 by Sean Peoples -

5 Principles to Rock your Online Reputation and Win more Customers

Not long ago I was on the phone with Sean Peoples, VP of Sales for CarGurus. I’ve known Sean for some time now and there’s never a dull moment during our conversations. We got on the topic of online reviews and he was sharing with me some interesting data around customer reviews on CarGurus.com. I asked him to share this data in a post here for our readers. I hope we hear more from Sean in the near future. He’s a smart dude! -Jeff

Who cares what people are saying about you online?

By now, you know the answer: everyone that is shopping for a car on your lot. For dealerships, online reviews offer an opportunity to establish credibility and trust among prospective customers – or they can quickly destroy both when things go wrong.

Our experience with user reviews and online community runs deep (notably, our founder and CEO was the co-founder of travel review site, TripAdvisor). More than 7 million unique monthly visitors research and shop for cars on CarGurus, and we invite each shopper that contacts a dealership through our site to submit a review of his or her experience. More than 250 of these shoppers take the time to do so daily.

Recently we spent some time analyzing 100K of our most recent dealership reviews, and I wanted to share some insights from this study that I believe will be useful to your dealership.

The biggest takeaway from our dealership review research is that the majority of dealerships are nailing it when it comes to customer satisfaction are… [Read more…]

Guess the Villain Game - from RefreshFriday
On today's RefreshFriday, Jeffrey Tognetti laid-out some shady tactics being done by a "trusted" vendor. This vendor is pulling the dealer's DMS and CRM data to see if the marketing they are doing is turning into sales. That should be all the hints you need. Who is this vendor?... Guess the Villain Game - from […]
Coolest Lead Response Tools
Anyone got something cool that is helping to create customer engagement when responding to leads and/or emails? There are video systems, eBrochures, etc. Anything outside of the norm?
A new data breach of humongous proportions has just been made public
Attention Automotive Industry peeps:, We are talking astronomical numbers. This data set has been labeled as a "Collection#1" and it consists of: Email addresses and passwords totaling 2,692,818,238 rows 1,160,253,228 unique combinations of email addresses and passwords. Unique email addresses... A new data breach of humongous proportions has just been made public
NADA 2019 - who's going?
Although neither @Jeff Kershner nor I will be there this year we hope the community can find each other at the show. Who's going and who's going to catch up?
Ford Dealers - Say goodbye to your DAS matching funds!
Got word yesterday that matching DAS funds from Ford are going away so I ran our OEM vendor (L2T) down to $0 spend (we manage all other campaign spend "in-house" since Ford only required an OEM provider for DAS spend). They, FD, did mention though that we can now apply budget towards Service... Ford Dealers […]
Google Chrome Browser
I tried Chrome a long time ago and wasn't that impressed, but decided this morning it was time to try it again. It is sweet! Anyone got any plugin advice?
Debate: Are customers still intimidated at the Dealership?
As vendors and owners, I think much of our decision-making is based on the belief that customers, when engaging with the dealership, are intimidated by the dealership. Let's all simply agree that intimidation is another word/form/symptom of FEAR. Of course, in the Old Days, there was no... Debate: Are customers still intimidated at the Dealership?

Jeff Kershner
I’m the founder of DealerRefresh. I got my start in the dealer business when I was 18. From there I've worked throughout several departments within fixed to variable ops. Whether it’s managing the desk, perfecting sales process or studying online marketing and media trends, I absolutely love this business and the challenges it brings. On top of keeping up with DealerRefresh, I consult with dealerships and key industry businesses. My passion has been and continues to be helping dealers leverage new media to sell and improve customer service.
Alex Snyder
Alex was born into the car business. His family owns a group of stores in Virginia where he held a multitude of positions since he first cut the grass there in 1989. DealerRefresh caught his attention in 2006 and he has been a part of the community ever since. In 2010 Alex joined Dealer.com to help put a dealer's spin on products; where he got a front row seat to converse with over 13,000 dealers and watch 2 acquisitions totaling over $5 Billion. Today, Alex lives in Vermont and works to make DealerRefresh amazing!