Tag Archives: reputation management

Buying Reviews and Car Dealerships

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In the last few days, there has been national media coverage of a vendor on Amazon who decided to “stack the deck” and buy reviews. The two articles, one on Gizmodo and one in the New York Times, told the story of a company selling cases for the Kindle Fire on Amazon who included notes in the packages asking for positive reviews from buyers in exchange for a full refund of the purchase price they paid.

Within the automotive industry, there have been (and still are) companies that promise to increase your online reviews and, while they claim the reviews are all genuine, people paying attention can easily dissect the fact that they are not. I wrote an article in June of 2011 that investigated one company, Review Boost, that was suspected of doing just this in which I interviewed the owner.

Most dealers do not participate in or knowingly hire any companies that do this.

One statement in those articles, which was included in the letter to consumers who purchased the Kindle Fire case, caught my attention though.

“We strive to earn 100 percent perfect ‘FIVE-STAR’ scores from you!”

Does this sound familiar?

Most dealerships have a time, usually in their delivery process, in which the customer is “educated” that they will be receiving a survey from the manufacturer and how important it is for the dealership to receive top scores in all areas. Some dealerships even get as detailed as having a copy of the survey with the desired answers highlighted and reviewed with the consumers. I know dealers who ask the customers to fill it out and bring it into  the dealership in exchange for something – a free oil change, t-shirt, etc. Some ask for the survey to be returned blank (which they obviously plan to fill out themselves) and some just ask them to return a completed survey which they can then read and decide for themselves whether to return it or not. I know dealers who will even RDR the car with a different address if there is heat on the deal so that a customer never gets the survey at all.

While this is certainly not identical to the vendor in the articles, in which they offered a refund for the product in exchange for positive reviews, it’s pretty close.

Reviewing a CSI survey with customers when they buy a car is skating a fine-line especially when there’s coaching involved. When you throw in a free oil change or some other incentive, it’s the same thing. Every dealer knows that they aren’t supposed to do this. However, CSI scores can be tied to future incentives from manufacturers so dealers are always under pressure to keep their scores high.

The problem with any of this is that you never get an opportunity to truly improve. You don’t get real feedback on what (or who) is broken in your process. Even though these aren’t “public” reviews and are only viewed by the manufacturer and employees of the dealership, the opportunity for improvement still exists.

You should embrace the opportunity, take your lumps when they come, and do your best to solve the customer’s complaints or criticism with your CSI surveys just as you would with your online public reviews. Even though consumers might not see these when choosing your dealership, making sure that ALL your customers are happy by attempting to solve issues they may have had, whether you received the feedback publicly through an online review or privately through CSI survey feedback, will help you grow as a dealership.

Embrace all reviews, both negative and positive, public or private, and use them as a learning experience and an opportunity to fix broken processes, clean house of cancerous employees, and become a better dealership.

I guarantee that by doing this, you’ll see less negative reviews.

BMW Dealer Customer Service Fail Goes Viral

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A customer comes into your dealership because the warning lights come on in his Certified Pre-owned BMW after your service department tells him to bring it in immediately. He comes in and your first tier tech tells him the lights only apply to an emissions issue which doesn’t apply in his state, promptly turns the warning lights off and tells the customer he’s “good to go”. The customer leaves and two days later, the steering fails on his car while driving 65-75 mph on the freeway causing him to crash off the side of the road. When he complains to the GM, no apology is given and he’s told to bring the car back in. He expresses concern about his trust in the dealership and says he wants to go to a different one and is told that he can only bring the car there.

He then goes online and starts asking questions in a brand-enthusiast forum. After getting some information and advice from his peers, he meets with the GM at the dealership where, after expressing his concerns about the dealership’s service quality, the GM asks “then you shouldn’t even be in my office wasting my time”. The customer then agrees to let the dealer pick up his car via flatbed to look at it but is denied a loaner car.

Someone at your corporate office sees his online forum posting and has the corporate LAWYER call the customer requesting that he remove his online posting. He refuses and takes the car to an independent mechanic where he is told that the codes indicate issues with “steering and stability control”.

BMW North America gets involved. They ask the customer to bring his car into a different dealer and promise to fly in a team of specialized engineers. They confirm the steering and stability issues, charge him his $50 deductible and only fix two issues that are covered under his CPO warranty. Neither the corporate office or the dealership will explain to him what was wrong or take any responsibility and, when asked why, they say they “don’t appreciate that (he’s) made this a public issue on the forums.”

Yes, this really happened. What a train wreck.

The dealership? BMW of North Scottsdale. (a Penske Automotive dealership)

This story made the website “Jalopnik” yesterday. The article (in which the dealer is not only named but linked to) “Did a Dealer Ignore a Faulty, Dangerous BMW?” has received 27,334 unique visitors and has 209 comments. In one day.

The original forum post has 327 comments on it in less than 30 days and has been viewed by 27,956 unique visitors.

The Jalopnik article is now in the #6 position on Google Page 1 for a search for the store’s name, four spots up from their DealerRater page.

 

bmw

We’ve all experienced irate customers. We all make mistakes. There were so many opportunities for customer service to appear by so many different parties (technician, service manager, general manager, corporate office, manufacturer, the second dealership, and, of course, the corporate lawyer), yet it never did and now the dealer and BMW have a PR nightmare on their hands.

One forum poster actually said this: “Scottsdale BMW got a pretty good rating at dealer rater…shall we change that?”

What would you do if this happened at your dealership? How would you handle this?

When Dealer Promotions Go Wrong

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In browsing a popular deal website, Slickdeals, I noticed a thread titled “20% off all new Chevrolets (Arizona)”. Out of curiosity, I thought I’d check it out. I was more curious to see if the dealer (or an employee) posted this or if it was something that a forum member posted.

Wow. Talk about negative publicity. Here are some choice comments from the thread from people who TRIED to take advantage of this deal posted on the dealership’s website (which does actually say “20% off All New Chevrolets”) and one local customer who decided to chime in about his buying experience at this dealership.

“Interesting. Called the dealer and he stated that the deals are good for Arizona residents, although this isn’t stated anywhere on the website. Doubt very much that the OP was successful in securing a car from these guys. I was trying to buy a Chevrolet Volt from them. The salesman was very accommodating, suggesting that I falsify my residency to obtain the price. Imagine that, a dealership suggesting that we do something illegal so that we can take advantage of their poor advertising and sales tactic. Unfortunately this is another example of one poorly run dealership proving the stereotype that all dealers are thieves. Sad really.”

“Get ready. My deal went all the way to the owner. Just another car dealer living down to their reputation.”

“I’ll be interested to see if any of you get the deal. I live close to this dealership and recently tried to buy a new truck that was listed in an ad. Went to the dealership that morning and was told that the truck listed in the ad “wasn’t available.” The salesman offered me a truck with the same exact options, color and sticker price as the one listed in the ad, for $2,000 more than the price listed in the newspaper.”

They even included a response e-mail from the Internet Manager at this dealership that they got when inquiring:

“Hi Chris … Thanks for your email 11-27-11 on the New Chevrolet Volt #120126 and choosing Sands Chevrolet in Surprise for your next Chevrolet purchase.

This Volt is available from Inventory here in Arizona. Is that a CRAZY PRICE or what? $7,500 of this Huge Discount will be in the form of a Tax Credit at Year End Tax Time, and you will also need to be a Resident of Arizona to purchase at this Special Price.

There are no Rebates or Special Interest Rates at this time. Please call or email me.

Thanks
XXX XXXXX
Internet Manager”

 

To date, over 5,000 people have viewed this thread.

That’s 5,000 people who were interested enough in buying a new Chevrolet that they clicked on the thread to get the details and found the above types of comments.

Done right, that could’ve been 5,000 leads. This probably led to 5,000 people who aren’t going to buy a car at this dealership.

The Ethics of Online Reviews

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This article started as an investigation into a company providing services to the automotive industry,Review Boost. I didn’t know much about the company, only that it had received some negative press and accusations of gaming online reviews. In fact, it even had a local San Antonio television station, KSAT, run a news segment regarding a dealership who used their services. There have been blog articles written questioning the authenticity of the reviews as well as articles written in both Automotive News and F&I Magazine.

The importance of reputation management has been increasingly on dealers’ minds, being, from the dealers I spoke with and interviewed for DrivingSalesTV, the hot topic of this year’s NADA convention. The FTC is cracking down on companies engaging in posting misleading reviews, legislators are pushing for stricter laws regarding this practice, legal advisors are reporting that a company exposes themselves tolegal risks by engaging in this act, and a California law went into effect Jan 1, 2011 making it a criminal activity. Add to these variables the fact that search engines are starting to increase the importance of online reviews in their algorithms and incorporating them into search results, naturally, when they popped up on my radar again after partnering up with an industry vendor, I was curious as to why the partnership happened and I started asking questions and doing some homework.

[Edit: After sharing my article with representatives from Review Boost, they informed me that they decided not to move forward with the partnership I referred to above.]

I spoke with William, the owner of Review Boost, at length. We spoke for upwards of an hour and he walked me through what his company does. First, to be clear, they deny all accusations of gaming reviews and/or writing the reviews themselves. William was very pleasant, if understandably nervous during our conversation but, in my opinion, sincerely wanted to clear the air regarding what his company does. Without revealing too many of his proprietary practices, which he shared with me, I didn’t get the impression that he is doing anything wrong at all. Now, given that there were already a ton of articles investigating and breaking down why other people feel that they are, I didn’t feel the need to rehash what others have already done and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.

See, William isn’t in the car business. Review Boost began assisting local businesses like dentists, doctors, and such. It ended up that dealers account for about 30% of their current client base but this wasn’t by design. The crux of their strategy, which is what surprised me the most, is that they administer a website called myreviewboost.com in which they post reviews collected from clients of their dealers. These reviews are then syndicated across about 40 online review directories through partnerships with them. I was surprised that such a syndication was allowed but I did some investigating and, not only is it allowed, but it is encouraged. Judysbook.com, in example, promotes review sharing partnerships openly.

I reached out to Google themselves. The fact that they syndicate reviews is telling about their policies but they did point out within their Review Posting Guidelines that conflicts of interest, including misrepresentation and/or posting reviews on behalf of others is not allowed.

In essence, William’s company is soliciting reviews only from the customers which the dealer provides contact information to them. They do not edit the reviews – whether positive or negative. They will moderate a negative review, if received, allowing the dealer a chance to resolve the problem and then, when the dealer reports that the problem has been resolved, resurveying the customer to get an updated review. In my mind, this absolutely explains why almost every review is positive.

If I were a dealer who needed to increase my online reputation, I certainly wouldn’t hand over an unhappy customer’s e-mail address to be reviewed. In fact, I know many dealers that will occassionally RDR cars to the factory with incorrect information to avoid a potential negative CSI survey and/or “buy” surveys from their customers through offers of free oil changes or something to encourage their consumers to return the surveys to THEM and not mail them in to their OEM unscreened.

William’s strategy made perfect sense to me and the syndication accounted for the reason for the same review appearing on multiple sites. So while this practice may be viewed by some to be unethical, it’s not illegal or in violation of these directories terms of service. They’re simply taking advantage of existing online directories willingness to crawl their review site to maximize the SEO value of each review they collected from their client’s customers.

So, is this article about Review Boost? No. The real story is what is ethical in the online reputation management arena.

I’m sure that we would all agree that posting fake reviews is unethical and, in some cases, illegal.

What about these practices?

Posting REAL reviews, verbatim, by your customers on their behalf with their permission.

Screening WHO gets reviewed to avoid negative reviews.

Choosing which reviews get displayed (ie. avoiding sites in which negative reviews exist)

The fact is that online reputation management, and the process in which dealers are utilizing, are becoming more and more important for the many reasons I described above.

How do you feel about this? What’s ethical or unethical regarding online reputation management?

(Originally published on DrivingSales)

Brand Protection: The Line In The Sand

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(Originally published on Dealer magazine) 




In our online world, many companies’ brands are increasingly being challenged by others. Dealers are increasingly becoming more aware of the importance of reputation management. Vendors are shouting its importance through blog articles, conference session and webinars. Many people only look at one aspect of brand/reputation management – online reviews. While reviews are certainly important, they are only one aspect of it. Search results, domain names, PPC campaigns and online content also must be monitored in any company’s brand and reputation management programs.


There are many “types” of brand attacks your company can be forced to deal with ranging from those that are hostile to those with good intent. Here are some types:



  • Domain squatters – These are individuals that buy domain names (website addresses) that include other company’s trademarked names with the express intent to sell them back to those companies for profit.


  • Competitor attacks – These would include people who buy domain names, create content or run Google pay-per-click ads with the intent to use your branding for their benefit. In example: Your competing dealer buying domains, writing blog articles or running PPC campaigns that are designed to appear when consumers search for YOUR name.


  • Supporters/Fans – Yes, even your supporters and fans, despite their good intentions can also attack your brand. More about this.

Which do you deal with? All of them? Some of them?


The first two are the easiest to decide. Of course you don’t want your competitor running around driving your consumers (actual or potential) to them. I’m fairly certain that you also don’t want to have your brand name hijacked by a domain squatter and be held ransom for some exorbitant amount of money. There is at least one industry vendor who screams to dealers that they MUST control search engine results by buying domains that contain their names and branding then quietly buys domains that belong to others. There are certainly moral dilemmas involved here. On the one hand, you want to maximize your exposure to people not looking for you but, at the same time, you don’t want your competitors doing it. I’ve heard many people complain about their competition doing this to them and arguing how it’s “dirty” and “immoral” and then opposite comments resembling “you snooze, you lose” (usually followed by a snicker).


The last one is where many companies waiver and don’t know what to do. You can take the open path and allow all of your fans and supporters to create any content they want or you can protect your brand from these actions also. Every business likes and wants fans and you certainly don’t want to alienate them. Your company may even have “partners” that, while in support of your brand, utilize it for their interests, even if you benefit in some way.


What’s the “right” response?


Here’s my advice:


Any use of your brand or trademark that allows others any amount of control over your name without your permission and consent should be treated the same whether it’s out of malice or support.


Some would call this extreme and disagree. That’s fine.


Let’s take some examples of extremely popular brands with gigantic fan bases: Apple, Lucasarts and Toyota.


“Between January 2008 and May 2010, Apple Inc. filed more than 350 cases with the U.S. Trademark Office alone..” [link] Apple aggressively protects its brand in all cases. There aren’t many days that go by that you don’t see Apple suing somebody or sending “cease and desist” letters for some violation of their trademark whether it’s from companies utilizing part of their names (ie. iWhatever), fans creating websites supporting (or not supporting) Apple products whether or not they actually contain any reference to “Apple” in the domain, or blogs leaking unannounced product information. Do they piss their fans off? Sure, at times they do. Do they still do it? Absolutely.


Lucasarts, the owner of the Star Wars brand, has arguably one of the largest fan bases in the world. Whether its companies selling knock off products , websites that are “close” to something they own (Note: They sued Digg because the popular social media sharing site sounded too much like an old video game they made titled “The Dig”),  or fans creating (and growing) the Star Wars brand through fan created content or websites, they don’t care. It’s their brand and name and they are very aggressive in controlling it. They’ve even gone so far as to say if you create anything that involves or uses any of our trademarked assets or intellectual property, we own it. Go ahead, draw a picture of R2-D2 right now. Yeah, they own it. Sorry.


Any Toyota dealer out there can attest to the aggressiveness in which Toyota protects its branding. I worked as an Internet Director for two dealer groups that owned Toyota stores. I remember all the hoops I had to jump through whether it was with Google or Toyota just trying to buy Google pay-per-click ads containing our dealership’s name. I even had to argue with Toyota to buy my own dealership’s exact domain name! Go ahead. Buy a domain or try and place a GoogleAd containing the word “Toyota.” See what happens.


While your company is arguably not as popular or has as much of a fan base as either Apple or Lucasarts, does that mean you shouldn’t take the same position? I would argue that they have even MORE to fear from this standpoint than any dealership would ever have to worry about. How many people could you potentially upset versus either of whose companies? I would guess they have some of the best attorneys and brightest employees on the planet making these types of policy decisions. Any of us would happily trade places with them in terms of company success, popularity and brand awareness.


How do supporters of your brand hurt you? It may not be so obvious. Think about a consumer searching your brand on Google. When the results appear, they see all sorts of content, which you may or may not own. Any content that uses your name but doesn’t drive the traffic or business to you is an attack. Whether it’s a Google pay-per-click ad, a fan community, or a competitor trying to use your name to drive the consumers to themselves, it is all the same.


Look, I’m not against your business having fans. You should create and encourage your raving fans to be fans. You should identify the ones with the most influence and have them shouting how great your business is from the top of a mountain. That being said, there are many ways in which your fans can support you without innocently (or not so innocently) attacking your brand. They can encourage their friends to join YOUR community, leave reviews FOR you, write blog articles saying how great you treated them, and SHARE your content with their social network. Your brand protection and your fans’ support can coexist without your trademark being violated. Encourage fans that are supporting you the right way, absolutely.


If you come across a fan that IS using your name, identity or branding that, in any way, could potentially confuse your consumers or drive traffic to themselves that you would have received had that content not existed, you should take action. I would advise that the first thing you should do is reach out to the supporter, thank them for their support, explain your brand protection policies and ask that they cease, alter, or turn-over your trademarked assets (depending on what the trademark violation is).


What do you do if they refuse? Well, if they refuse to respect your wishes and comply, you only have two choices: allow them to retain control of the asset(s) or not.


We’ve all heard the saying that 1 happy person will tell 1 person about their experience while 1 unhappy person will tell 100.


Keep in mind when deciding whether to enforce your trademark that it only takes one bad experience to turn that happy person controlling trademarked assets from a raving fan into avocal opponent. I would advise that rather than wait until that moment arrives to deal with it, you become proactive and take control of your assets. None of the companies I used as examples are where they are from being passive.


If you reinforce the ship before the attack, you minimize your company’s vulnerability and spend less time doing damage control and more time on building a better ship.