Reputation Management For Automotive Service Departments

The purpose of reputation management is to influence public perceptions and discourse about a company and its brands. Maintaining a positive reputation is essential in a world saturated with many competitors. Since there are so many sites and platforms where people can leave comments, online reputations are delicate and easy to destroy.

Over the past ten years, customer reviews have dominated the digital sphere. According to statistics, only 2% of customers do not read online reviews before making a purchase decision. The caliber of online reviews and ratings thus significantly impacts the buying process.

Managing online reputations requires full-time attention, and most dealerships don’t have the in-house expert staffing and resources to manage this process successfully.

Reputation management is critical because negative reviews can have a snowball effect. When one customer expresses dissatisfaction, new customers naturally become more sensitive to that issue. Since every potential customer checks online reviews first, negative reviews can quickly drive your business toward a competitor. Responding to a negative review helps regain the audience’s trust and confidence in your business.

Positive reviews deserve just as much attention. This aspect of reputation is frequently overlooked and underappreciated until it yields excellent results. Positive reviews can be leveraged to build a reputation that encourages brand loyalty and increases brand awareness.

Testimonials and positive feedback can help you understand how customers feel about your goods and services, boost morale, and, if necessary, help you raise the caliber of your services. Instituting a process to syndicate positive feedback allows you to share testimonials on your website and other marketing platforms.

Frequently, a customer will leave a poor review because they feel wronged or cheated in some way, and leaving a negative review is a way for them to feel “heard.” Many people are uncomfortable engaging in direct dialogue or confrontation, so online reviews give them a level of security to voice their concerns. The unfortunate aspect is that once they do, the poor rating is permanent, regardless of its validity, unless they choose to remove it. Naturally, companies should always aim for positive reviews, but if they receive a negative one, the following action is to manage that complaint quickly and effectively.

Four leading platforms generate the most reviews: Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Facebook. However, reviews can be left at any of the websites below. The most recommended platform is Google. “Not only does Google have the most reviews, it also attracts the most readers of all review sites. In 2021, 81% of consumers said they read Google reviews which is a significant increase over 2020 when just 63% of consumers read the site’s reviews.”

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) can be used to forecast the social health of a business. NPS is a metric used in customer experience programs; it measures customers’ happiness with and loyalty to a company.

When your NPS is on the high side, your business has strong customer relationships. It means that customers are more inclined to promote your brand, spread the word about it, and create a positive growth cycle.

Your reputation management service will ask customers a question to determine their NPS and thus quantify their loyalty, contentment, and enthusiasm for a business: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?” To boost customer loyalty, organizations can improve their service, customer assistance, delivery, etc., using aggregate NPS rankings.

Top-tier businesses typically have an NPS of 70 or higher, but if you think this is exclusively the purview of large, international businesses, you’d be wrong: according to this site Customer Guru, Netflix had a score of 13, and Amazon came in at a “lowly” 25. Even Apple only scored 47.

A good NPS score for an automotive customer service department is between 45 and 75. NPS scores are best used to measure improvement rather than indicating a stagnant “standing” among competitors since it is a fluid, ever-changing measure.

The first step is to set up the metrics for measuring success. Like a map, you will never know if you’ve arrived if you don’t know where you’re going. So, the first thing is to set NPS goals for the automotive service department. This can be done internally or by a reputation management service.

Create a one-question survey that customers can answer without hesitation. You want to determine if the service they received was good enough for that customer to be willing to recommend the automotive service department to their friends, colleagues, and family. A “yes” garners points, while a “no” garners negative points. Once you have a few months of data, you can set benchmarks to improve your NPS score.

Businesses can send customers automated text messages asking for feedback regarding their service; management can follow up with dissatisfied customers before they leave a bad review, thereby improving ratings. Working with a provider that shares the average NPS every month allows managers to stay on top of the dealership’s score.

Look for a company that specializes in the automotive and trucking industry. You want a company that understands the keywords and can accurately assess customer sentiment. They should know how a technician interacts with customers and how a dealership works. Finally, look for a service that understands how to leverage AI to get results. Automation through AI is essential in harvesting positive feedback from customers. So, when researching reputation management services, make sure they mention AI as one of their tools.