Reviews are an important part of the online presence of a business, and especially so with dealerships. Nowadays, it’s quite common for potential customers to look at reviews of a dealership before even looking at the inventory purely because of how highly they value the personal experience and support from the dealership. When potential customers search for your business on Google, other search engines and AI tools, what they see in the reviews can hugely impact whether they choose your services over those of your competitors.
What if you have a bad review that’s tanking your reputation, or many reviews that have no responses? Our team at EDealer covers not only why responding to reviews is so important, but also how to do so with all three types of reviews: positive, negative, and neutral.
Why Is It Worth Responding to Reviews?
When potential customers go through your reviews, it isn’t just the review score they’re looking for. They want to see what previous customers enjoyed about your dealership (or didn’t), and what they got out of it that they might not receive at other dealerships. More importantly, they want to see that you’re there too, present and caring enough to respond to each review. For those who leave positive reviews, customers want to share their experience with others so they can enjoy the same, and for negative reviews, customers want to see what your dealership is doing to address the concerns brought up in the review, and to warn other potential customers of said negative experience.
This future-forward thinking and addressing of pain points is something that potential customers find extremely valuable. It’s not the end of the world if you get a negative review, but leaving it unanswered isn’t the way to go. Responding to it with a resolution not only satisfies the reviewer, while also showing potential customers that even if a negative experience happens, you’re committed to remedying it.
This lets them know that, should they have an issue with the way their business was handled, your dealership is open to feedback—and, most importantly, wants to make it right. Having all of your reviews responded to also lets your potential customers know that you have an active online presence, and that the reviews are something you are keeping an eye on so as to receive helpful feedback and criticism to better the overall experience at your dealership.
How to Respond to Reviews
When it comes to actually responding to the reviews, there is one thing that cannot be overstated: each response should be unique. While having a template can be helpful when you have lots of reviews, using the exact same wording in each response can feel disingenuous and gives the feeling to readers that you aren’t taking the time necessary to actually digest the information provided in the review. Let’s go over how to respond to each kind of review:
Positive Review Responses
The easiest of the three to respond to, your responses to positive reviews should reflect that you’re taking in the information the reviewer is telling you appropriately. If the reviewer mentions a member of staff specifically to highlight their stellar performance, let your response contain some point toward letting that staff member know about the review and its content. Great staff moments should be highlighted so that both the staff member knows their customer enjoyed the experience, but also to show potential customers that the dealership values that sort of treatment being given to all customers.
Negative Review Responses
When past customers are dissatisfied, they often write scathing reviews. As such, the best thing to do when addressing negative reviews is to follow these three steps:
1. Respond
Don’t leave bad reviews sitting unanswered! Instead, address them as quickly as you can with a thoughtful response that both apologizes to the reviewer and lets them know how your dealership intends to rectify the situation moving forward so that it doesn’t happen again. This helps ease the worry of the reviewer while also showing that you’re taking steps to address their concerns, which oftentimes can be enough in and of itself.
2. Follow Up Offline
In your review, ask the reviewer to get in touch with a specific member of your team directly who makes the most sense for the issue (ie. General Manager, Service Manager, etc.), by giving the phone number and/or email address, so they can learn more about the situation to better resolve the issue. This further shows your willingness to address their concerns in a more personal manner, both for the reviewer’s exact issue, and for potential customers to see and know that you deal with these kinds of problems swiftly and confidently.
3. Make It Right
Try to fix the issue as best you can so the reviewer is satisfied. You can also ask the reviewer to revise their review to mention that such has taken place and how they felt about how the issue was handled). It’s one thing for a dealership to say that they addressed the situation, but another entirely for the reviewer to post about the experience themselves and confirm something was actually done about it.
Neutral Review Responses
Neutral reviews are more rare, as often past customers leave either excellent or upset reviews. That being said, if you get reviews that are a mix of the two, then it’s best to do just that in your response: address the positives by showing that you’re grateful for such, but also address the negatives with how you plan to make certain it doesn’t happen again, and either contact them or leave your contact info.
Get Help with Your Review Responses With Our Local SEO Services at EDealer
At EDealer, our Local SEO Accelerate package includes daily Google Review Management, where we’ll respond to any and all reviews you get on the platform. Negative review responses will still be approved by you, so you can feel confident about what is going out to your customers. We’ll keep your Google Business Profile information up to date so that your dealership is easy to find and get in touch with, and so much more. Contact us, today, to get set up with this package, as well as any of our other SEO services to help grow your online presence and turn more potential customers into past and future customers!