You checked your dealership’s Google Business Profile. Your hours are right. Your star rating looks good. Your information is accurate.
So, you’re all set, right? Not exactly.
Your dealership’s online reputation is constantly changing, even when you’re not actively managing it.
New reviews come in. Older reviews keep aging. Business information can change across online listings, creating inconsistencies. Customers see how, or whether, you respond to feedback. Meanwhile, competing dealerships are building their own review profiles and strengthening their presence in local search.
That’s why dealership reputation management isn’t a one-time project. It’s an ongoing process of keeping your business information accurate, generating and monitoring reviews, responding to customer feedback, and understanding how your dealership compares with the competition.
Here’s what dealers need to keep an eye on.
1. Your Dealership’s Online Listings Can Change
First, let’s remember one big reason why online reputation matters. Accurate online business listings are an important foundation for local search.
Your dealership’s name, address, phone number, hours and other information can appear across Google and numerous other websites and databases. Some sites even allow customers to input this information.
You can imagine how easy it is for that information to become inconsistent. And when that happens, customers may have trouble finding or contacting you.
Importantly, bad information can also work against your local search efforts because Google considers the consistency and accuracy of information in its ranking algorithm. It’s checking the hours listed on your website and on your Google Business Page against information on third-party directories and platforms like Facebook, Yelp, DealerRater, and other review sites.
We’ve previously covered how to maximize your Google Business Profile for local SEO. Keeping that profile accurate and complete is important, but Google is only one part of your dealership’s broader online presence.
That’s why listing management needs ongoing attention.
AutoSweet’s Local Listing and Reputation Management services help dealerships maintain consistent address, contact and hours information across the web, supporting both the customer experience and local search visibility.
2. Your Review Profile Is Always Changing
Your dealership may have a great star rating today. But that number doesn’t tell the whole story.
Every new review becomes part of the picture prospective customers see when they research your dealership. At the same time, your existing reviews are getting older.
Think about two dealerships with similar ratings. One has received dozens of reviews in the past few months. The other has plenty of positive reviews, but most are a year or two old.
Which one gives a shopper a better picture of what the customer experience is like right now?
Generating a steady stream of authentic, recent reviews helps give prospective customers a current view of your dealership.
AutoSweet helps dealerships do that by proactively requesting reviews from real sales and service customers.
3. Your Responses Are Part of Your Reputation
A customer review isn’t just a conversation between your dealership and the person who wrote it. Other shoppers are reading along. One study found that up to 98% of customers read reviews before a purchase. Statistically, that’s “everyone.”
How your dealership responds to positive and negative feedback can tell future customers something about how you treat people, solve problems and value their business. Your responses build trust. And trust generates leads.
That makes review monitoring and response an important part of dealership reputation management. Here’s the rub, though: Someone has to actually do it. And your team should be selling, not scouring the internet for reviews of your dealership.
AutoSweet monitors new reviews from popular review sites and provides a single interface for dealerships to respond. Or, AutoSweet can manage the responses for you, responding in your dealership’s voice to both positive and negative reviews.
Our automated process ensures that your customer feedback doesn’t simply sit unanswered while your team is busy following leads and servicing vehicles.
4. Your Competition Is Changing, Too
It’s easy to overlook the fact that your dealership doesn’t have to get worse to lose ground online. Your competitors just have to get better.
Suppose your dealership has a 4.5-star rating and a solid collection of customer reviews. Six months later, your rating is still 4.5.
It may seem like nothing has changed, but during those six months, a competing dealership could have generated hundreds of new reviews, improved its business listings, responded consistently to customer feedback and strengthened its local search presence.
While your dealership stood still, your competitor was surging ahead.
That’s why dealership reputation management shouldn’t be evaluated on your rating alone.
These questions help you better assess the health of your online reputation:
- Are customers finding accurate information about you online?
- Are you consistently generating fresh reviews?
- Are you monitoring and responding to customer feedback?
- What are customers actually saying about you?
- How does your online reputation compare with your local competitors?
Your reputation exists in the context of your competition, and managing it means that you must know where you stand and what’s changing in your local marketplace.
5. Reputation Management Is a Cycle, Not a One-Time Project
The best way to think about dealership reputation management is as an ongoing cycle:
Each step in the process supports the others.
Accurate listings help customers find you. Fresh reviews give shoppers a current picture of the customer experience. Monitoring helps you spot problems quickly. Thoughtful responses show customers you’re listening. And looking at reviews collectively can uncover patterns that help you improve both the customer experience and your marketing.
Then the cycle starts again.
That’s a very different process than fixing your listings once in a while, checking your star rating occasionally or scrambling to respond when a bad review gets someone’s attention.
What Does Automotive Reputation Management Include?
For dealerships, effective online reputation management should address the entire customer journey, from being found in local search to what shoppers discover when they research your reputation.
AutoSweet’s Reputation Management services help dealerships:
- Maintain consistent address, contact and hours information across the web
- Monitor new reviews across popular review sites
- Generate new reviews from sales and service customers
- Respond to customer reviews through one interface, or have AutoSweet respond on the dealership’s behalf
- Track results through a transparent dashboard
The goal isn’t simply to collect more stars. It’s to actively manage the online presence customers encounter when deciding where to buy or service a vehicle.
Because whether you’re paying attention or not, that presence keeps changing.
What Does It Really Cost to Manage Your Marketing In-House?
Effective reputation management takes ongoing attention. Someone needs to keep your listings accurate, generate and monitor reviews, respond to customer feedback and track how your dealership is performing.
AutoSweet’s Reputation Management services can help dealerships manage that work, from keeping business listings accurate to generating reviews, monitoring customer feedback and managing responses.
But reputation management is just one part of your dealership’s digital marketing. When you add paid advertising, SEO, social media, email marketing, creative and other responsibilities, the resources required to manage everything in-house can add up quickly.
So, what does it really cost to build and manage an in-house marketing team compared with working with a full-service automotive marketing partner?
AutoSweet’s In-House vs. Full-Service Marketing Budget Analysis breaks down the costs to help you compare your options and make a more informed decision about the right approach for your dealership. Download it for free here.
Your dealership’s online reputation isn’t standing still. Make sure you have the resources in place to keep up.
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