Customer reviews have a major impact on your dealership’s sales, but implementing them on your website has always been a major headache. Find out how you can easily integrate customer reviews into your website in this edition of DealerOn University.
Showcasing your customer reviews on your website is a great way to establish trust with your shoppers.
Customer reviews have never been more important to car buyers than they are today; this gives reviews the power to significantly enhance your marketing and sales efforts. According to a study by SalesFuel, “59% of survey respondents said dealership reputation was the most important factor when choosing which dealership to visit”.
Your dealership should have customer reviews available in critical areas of your website, such as your homepage. We recommend taking the extra step of integrating your reviews into their own page and adding a link to your dropdown menu. This enables your shoppers to quickly access them from anywhere on your website.
Integrating customer reviews into your website may seem like a no-brainer for your dealership, but there are major hurdles to including customer reviews on your website.
The challenge with integrating reviews into websites
Historically, there have only been two ways to feature reviews on your website. You could either use a third-party widget or manually enter your customer reviews into your pages. Both of these solutions came with major headaches for your dealership.
Customer reviews have never been more important to car buyers than they are today; this gives reviews the power to significantly enhance your marketing and sales efforts.
Third-party widgets tend to feel tacked on and don’t fit into your website branding (or, in the case of poorly developed widgets, break your pages entirely). Manually entering reviews is an incredibly time-consuming process for your team or agency, and requires constant monitoring to keep reviews fresh.
Listings Manager, the comprehensive business listing solution available exclusively from DealerOn, has a brand-new feature that allows you to display your third-party reviews anywhere on your DealerOn website. These reviews will take your website to the next level, generating more leads and sales for your dealership.
When you look at the impact customer reviews have on your business, you’ll see why integrating them throughout your website is such a big win for your dealership.
Reviews establish trust with your shoppers
Your marketing needs to be effective, but shoppers won’t take what you have to say at face value. Consumers are relentlessly marketed towards, which means any claim made by a business will be greeted with skepticism. You need an impartial third party: customers who took a chance on you and had a great experience.
Let’s look at some statistics that show just how critical reviews are to establishing trust with your shoppers:
- 87% of customers read reviews for local businesses, up from 81% in 2019 (BrightLocal Local Customer Review Survey 2020)
- 85% of customers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations (BrightLocal Local Customer Review Survey 2020)
- 88% of customers who read an online review say it influenced their buying decision (Zendesk)
Customer reviews don’t just establish a trusting relationship between customers and a business; reviews lead directly to revenue. According to a study by the Harvard Business School, a one-star increase in your Yelp rating can lead to a 5-9% increase in revenue.
Ready to manage your customer reviews with ease?
Schedule your Listings Manager demo today!
As the numbers show, customer reviews go a long way toward establishing trust with your prospective customers, making them much more likely to buy from you. By including customer reviews on your website, you are providing social proof that your dealership is trustworthy and reliable.
Now that you know why reviews are so important, let’s look at where customers are finding them.
Where do customers leave reviews?
The good news is that reviews are aggregated at several sites that shoppers use on a regular basis. All you need to do is make it easy for your customers to leave reviews on these sites.
Besides auto industry-specific sites such as AutoTrader, Cars.com, CarGurus, DealerRater, and Edmunds.com, the big three review outlets are Google, Facebook, and Yelp. We highly recommend that you sign up for all of them.
“59% of survey respondents said dealership reputation was the most important factor when choosing which dealership to visit” – SalesFuel
Google reviews are included in search results, and because over 92% of all internet traffic goes through Google, you want to make sure reviews are there. Facebook lacks Google’s overwhelming market share, but it is one of the most trusted sources for reviews. Yelp is also a titan, particularly for shoppers ready to buy. 85% of visitors go to Yelp with the intention to buy, and 98% follow through with a purchase.
You should claim your business profile on all of these sites; this provides your customers with multiple opportunities to give feedback on your store. Once you have your profiles set up, you’ll have to monitor and respond to as many reviews as possible. That means you will need to keep your eye on over half a dozen sites.
Four reasons customer reviews are essential to your dealership website:
- Increase online visibility
Online reviews are a critical factor in how search engines like Google rank websites in search results. By including customer reviews on your website, you are increasing the likelihood that your dealership will appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This means that potential customers are more likely to find your dealership when they are searching for car dealerships in your area. - Improve your online reputation
Online reviews are an essential part of your online reputation. They provide feedback from customers about their experiences with your dealership, which can be used to identify areas for improvement. If you have a high percentage of positive reviews, this can help to improve your online reputation, which can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty. - Provide insight into customer experience
Customer reviews can provide valuable insight into the customer experience at your dealership. This feedback can be used to improve your products and services, as well as your customer service. By listening to what customers are saying, you can make changes that will help to improve the overall customer experience. - Encourage customer loyalty
When customers feel that their feedback is being heard and acted upon, they are more likely to become loyal customers. By including customer reviews on your website, you are showing customers that their opinions are valued, which can help to build a sense of loyalty to your dealership.
Showcase customer reviews with Listings Manager
Listings Manager has a wide array of reputation management tools available that make it simple to monitor and respond to customer reviews across the web, directly from the DealerOn Platform.
This invaluable tool has gotten even more powerful with reviews integration. Using our customer reviews integration, you can place your customer reviews in any location on your DealerOn website. You can even customize each instance of the review widget, giving you full control over how and where you display your reviews on your website.
Reviews integration in the Listings Manager app makes it simple to place reviews anywhere on your DealerOn website.
When you make your reviews easily accessible, you increase the level of trust between you and your shoppers while they browse your inventory and research your dealership. Your reviews help shoppers decide where to spend their hard-earned dollars.
The challenges involve the number of sites you must monitor for those reviews and making those reviews easily accessible for your shoppers. With Listings Manager, you can take on these challenges with ease.
Schedule your Listings Manager demo
Customer reviews are a fantastic way to establish trust with your customers, but they are a huge drain on your resources. With Listings Manager, your dealership gets a set of tools that help you monitor, manage, and display your reviews, all from one central hub.
Schedule your Listings Manager demo today and we’ll show you how Listings Manager will maximize the effectiveness of your customer reviews.
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