Social Interactions – How do you represent your brand?
There are many places online for consumers to vent their frustrations like ripoffreport.com, pissedconsumer.com or dealerrater.com, some will create their own sites like PlanetHyundaiSucks.com. Car dealers can take negative consumer responses in these venues and strive to turn it into a positive or they can respond very negatively and damage their brand.
Sites like these and responses show up quite well in the SERPS because it is fresh content and Universal Search may give consumer reviews some precedent over other types of web properties. Dealers have three options when their customers vent.
Try to turn it into a positive -
Bill Heard Chevrolet in Sanford Flordia did a good job in doing this in their response to a consumer after they felt lied to after a spot delivery went bad. Nowhere did the representative replying to the entry at ripoffreports.com get caustic, they apologized to the consumer and made the consumer whole.
Attack the Consumer and Situation-
A representative at Jim Glover Chevrolet, attacked the consumer and claimed she had anger issues because they cashed a check that was supposed to be returned to her. They lashed out at the consumer and used the customers last name in the response. Instead of trying to turn it into a positive they used the board as a way to show justification, consumers don’t want that, they want to be treated like humans not numbers and entries on the P&L. You cash anybodies check after telling them it will be returned you get justified anger issues targeted at you. It is how you respond that makes the difference.
Do Nothing -
There are plenty of examples of this. No need to show examples of that here. However if someone takes a full court press on putting as much negative information out there as possible, you may have to work on getting those things buried in the SERPS.
Of the three types of responses a dealership can give only one of them is the right thing not to do. Sometimes doing nothing may actually be the right thing to do on a level of Search Engine Reputation Management for car dealers and for piece of mind. Sometimes a consumer will never be happy with your responses even if you take the path of helping and a response in that situation may even cause them to become more diligent in getting negative information out about your company.
Choices on managing your dealership’s online reputation -
- Be proactive get in there and engage consumers and try to turn negatives into positives.
- Build online brag books at the different review platforms and use them as a way to promote your brand in interactions with potential consumers. Good Example Here.
- Own the SERPS for all of your “money terms” especially your stores name.
- All of the above.
I would chose #4, thoughts and opinions?
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YES YES YES!! I agree you need to do as much as you can to protect your reputation, but always remember what I was taught as a first year waitress: the customer is always right. What I later learned was that you should always ask the customer what she wants before you offer anything–you might be surprised by how little they really want. Mostly, like you said, they just want to be treated like they matter. I’m tired of the anti-Ripoff Report blogs by businesses who avoided the issue, or worse, elevated it by lashing out. Rather than try to work positively with the customer they try to battle with the forum where the angry customer lashed out. Ripoff Report serves a good purpose by allowing people to vent, to warn other consumers and to notify media and law enforcement. You can turn your negative report into a positive, like you say above, by following certain rules–post a rebuttal, work with the site, stay positive in your website and train your people to work with customers. Getting defensive doesn’t help anyone. Great article!!
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