There has been a lot of talk lately about consumer ratings. Sites have been created that target buyer reviews of dealerships and personnel. The topic has been beat to death on other blogs and even here. These sites do bring value to the dealership in a small way if they can encourage positive reviews and can provide some extra entries on the search engines when people search for your dealership name or brand and market area. No doubt they could be used to help build your message to potential customers. While at the same time they face challenges.

There are many places people will go to review their dealership experience. If it was good usually you will have to show them the way , if bad and they want to let the world know. Consumers will even go as far as buying domains targeting your brand name, creating youtube videos and filing rip off reports, just to name a few. There are plenty of places that they can rate their experience outside of these venues as well. Yelp.com, Google Maps, Yahoo Reviews etc..

In todays online world people are also blogging about their experiences. These types of reviews often carry more weight than any of the review aggregation services. These blogs may cater to very small audiences to 100 of thousands of hits per day. It is these types of consumer reviews that are worth their weight both in a PR sense as well as learning the real deal in how your customers feel about their experiences.

In a recent blog search I found several post where people were talking about their car buying experience. Here is a sampling of some that really stuck out.

• CJ, talked about his/her? whole process including research. Also the disappointment on how the whole transaction went down. He did not name the dealership but it does give some good insight into the consumer process.
• Arlo Midgett, talked about buying a used Jeep from Atlantic Dodge in St Augustine, FL while on vacation and described the frustration in how they were treated when they arrived at the dealership and the finalization of the transaction.
• Adam Dilip Mutum, Talked about his research process and buying from Station Garage.

None of these stories are totally unflattering but at the same time not completely positive either. All of these stories cumulated in the authors buying a car and describing their experiences. That is the kind of dialog that will have more weight in the eyes of consumers than any rating site can deliver.

Chances are where the dealerships were named no one even has a clue that their customers are talking about them, however the readers of those blogs do; family, coworkers and search engine users. No matter how obscure these references to these business are people will notice. If enough people talk about them there is no doubt it can increase or decrease their online reputation.

One way to monitor what people are saying about you or your business is to set up notifications. Here is a link to a guide on setting up Google Alerts. It may surprise you to find out what customers are really saying in their online world.

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