This type of dealership review may feel like a worst-case recipe for reputation disaster. But the reality is that it’s only the beginning! If a dealership doesn’t handle this negative review in the right way, the worst review is yet to come.

Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse

So what’s the “right” way to approach a heated customer after they’ve left an uncomplimentary review about your dealership?

• Do not take it personally. This can be difficult if a customer left a particularly slanderous review. But remember— the customer feels this way for a reason, and it’s your job to understand why.
• Immediately contact your customer. The best way to better understand your customer’s concerns is by reaching out to them privately via phone or email, before responding to the review.  Listen carefully to their concerns. Approach the conversation with the goal of understanding and sympathizing, not disputing.
• Apologize for their unsatisfactory experience. You should reassure the customer that you strive to create great customer experiences and that you’re interested in addressing whatever issue they may have had.  Assure them that you’ll do your best to fix the issue.

Responding to customers in a straightforward way will help a dealership build a “strong culture of customer service.”  Once you’ve done your best to reach out to the customer and mend the situation, you may post a follow-up response to the original review, letting the customer (and anyone else who is researching your dealership) know that you were happy to address their concerns, and that you appreciated their feedback.  This alone may encourage them to go back and revise, or even retract negative comments that they left.

Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about.  In his first review, this customer was clearly unhappy, expressing his dissatisfaction and even discouraging others from buying at the dealership.

Yet just a few days later, the same customer left this review on the dealer’s Google+ page:

The dealership clearly addressed the issues raised, and the customer freely revised their previous comments without being pressured to do so. Encouraging your happy customers to post positive feedback is certainly an important piece to managing your online reputation. But revisions and retractions that appear alongside a review that was originally critical can have an even more powerful influence in a future prospect’s purchase journey than if the review had been positive in the first place.

It’s important for potential and existing customers to see that your business listened to customer comments and proactively focused on the issue at hand, and not on the review.  A dealer that approaches a negative review in this way has a chance to turn negative feedback into an opportunity for the dealership and regain the trust of the unhappy customer and the respect of others who see the review.

What approaches have you seen work well in your reputation response strategy?

Download the eBook: The Street Smart Guide to Automotive Reputation Management

Featured Content

Knowing how and when to respond to your negative reviews is just part of the reputation management equation. This eBook will arm you with the do’s & don’ts and the top myths in automotive reputation management, as well as some compelling data on the proven impact of reviews in the car-buying process.
Download eBook

Alicia Ruggles is a Reputation Management Specialist at Cobalt. Alicia and her fellow Rep Man experts help their clients manage their dealership’s online reputation and connect with their customers in online review and social communities. Alicia currently works with GM dealers to help them engage customers and increase overall customer satisfaction through social media platforms. She received her BA in Communications at the University of Washington, along with the Sales Certificate from the UW Foster School of Business. Alicia drives a black Mazda 3 named Sasha that is her pride and joy. Feel free to reach out to Alicia directly at rugglea@cobalt.com.

Learn more about Cobalt’s automotive reputation management solutions.

On May 15^th, Google announced the launch of the new Google Maps. The change is just one of a series of updates Google has made in the month of May. It’s been redesigned to be more interactive and more personalized, leveraging users’ previous searches and behavior to help them discover more places they may like. But this update in Google Maps also coincides with an important change that will impact your dealer reputation online.

When people search for your dealership on Google Maps, they’re not just searching for directions. They’re also looking to read your customer reviews and rate their experiences at your store. Google has also made a significant change to the rating system used for local businesses on the new Google Maps.

Instead of the Zagat 30-point scale rating that was introduced over a year ago, a new five-star rating system has been introduced.

The overall rating for businesses will be calculated from a combination of old and new online reviews. Jade Wong, the Community Manager for Google+ Local, wrote in the Google and Your Business blog post:

Previously, users rated businesses from ‘Poor-Fair’ to ‘Excellent’ on several dimensions; these ratings were converted to numerical scores and expressed on a 30 point scale.

— Jade Wong, Google+ Local Community Manager

This improvement to the rating system offers quick readability. But it doesn’t mean that Zagat is disappearing from Google products altogether. Gannon Hall, the Group Product Manager and Head of Zagat, stated:

The Zagat reviews you’ve come to love and trust are still available throughout Google, and of course you can still enjoy all the great ratings, reviews and specialized lists on Zagat.com and in the Zagat mobile app. Now you have the best of both worlds to help you make quick, informed decisions: expert curated user reviews from Zagat plus the opinions of friends and other Google users.

— Gannon Hall, Group Product Manager & Head of Zagat

As the new rating system continues to roll out onto Google Maps for Mobile, Google search results and Google+ Local in upcoming months, I’ll continue to keep an eye out on how this may affect the activity on your Google business listing.

What’s your reaction to the change back to the five-star rating system?

Download the eBook: The Street Smart Guide to Automotive Reputation Management

Featured Content

Google’s just one of the players in the reputation management game. There’s a ton more to managing your dealership’s reputation. This eBook will arm you with the do’s & don’ts and the top myths in automotive reputation management, as well as some compelling data on the proven impact of reviews in the car-buying process.
Download eBook

Chelsea Shearer is a Reputation Management Specialist at Cobalt. Chelsea and her fellow Rep Man experts advise their clients on best practices for managing their dealership’s online reputation and engaging with their customers in online review and social communities. She graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, Concentration Marketing and Management, from Western Washington University. Chelsea also has experience writing blog posts, managing company websites, creating email campaigns, and publishing content on social media sites for clients. She has a passion for helping clients find their voice in new media and engage with their customers in creative ways. Feel free to reach out to Chelsea directly at shearec@cobalt.com.

Learn more about Cobalt’s automotive reputation management solutions.

You’ve just finalized a great email marketing campaign and can’t wait to share your amazing offers with your customer base. Naturally, you’re inclined to blast the email to every email address in your database for maximum customer reach. After all, the more emails you send, the higher the response rate will be, right? Wrong!

A better way to think of it is this— the more untargeted email addresses you try to hit, the higher your chances of customers opting out of your email list. And sadly, once customers unsubscribe from your email database, they’re gone forever. Forever! As in, they’ll never, ever, receive a message from you at that email address again.

When you blast your full email list, you also run the risk of sending to old, inactive emails; a practice which can send your spam score skyrocketing and your reputation as an email sender plummeting. Before you click “Send To All”, back away from the mouse and let’s reconsider who should be receiving your message in their inbox.

“I just bought a vehicle last month, and now you’re offering it for how much less??!! Ugghh!”

Your dealer advertising isn’t the only digital channel that can be highly targeted.  If you sold a vehicle to a customer last month or they just came in for an oil change a week ago, imagine how the newly discounted prices in this week’s email campaign will make them feel about their recent purchase or service! No one wants to pay full price, only to see the price slashed the next day. Instead of blasting your email to everyone, consider which customers in your database might be due to upgrade or service their vehicle, and really benefit from the offers you are promoting.

Ding, Dong, The Email’s Dead

Jobs change. Internet service providers change. And because of this, email addresses change— and more often than you think. Consider your own email address. Is it the same one you were using 5 years ago? 10 years ago? You’ve probably changed your primary email address a few times since then, and your customers are no different.

So what happens to those old email addresses? Well if your customer hasn’t been in the dealership to update their new email address, their old inbox is sitting in cyberspace filling up with unread email messages— including yours. Once it’s sat long enough without activity or once it’s been disabled, your emails will begin to bounce until the email address is considered dead. If you’re thinking, “Well… no big deal. It’s not like it costs anything to send a message to a dead email address,” you’re not exactly right. It could be costing you your sender reputation.

Spam: It’s Not Just Meat In A Can

Spam scores were developed to help email providers protect their customers’ inboxes from unsolicited emails. The higher the spam score, the less likely the sender will be treated by email service providers as a trustworthy source. The validity of email addresses the sender is attempting to reach weighs heavily on spam scoring. In other words— the more dead emails you send to, the more bounces you get, and the higher your spam score rises. The higher your spam score, the harder it will be to get your messages to pass through email filters and land in your customers’ inboxes.

Lately, email providers have become much more stringent when it comes to which senders make it through their spam filters. With more and more senders being blacklisted altogether from certain providers, the sanctity of a sender reputation is more important than ever. A good way to help protect yourself in the spam battle is to appropriately target your campaign list to a relevant audience, and let the old email addresses go.

Here’s a good rule of thumb to help you protect your sender reputation… when targeting your emails, go back no further than sales customers from the last 5 years, service customers from the last 2 years and prospects from the last 6 months. These are the customers who are not only more likely to still be using the email address that you have on record as a their primary email address, but are also more likely to be responsive and engaged.

Quality Over Quantity

The ultimate defense against high spam scores and the dreaded unsubscriber is targeted email messaging. Show your customers value by sending messages that are relevant to their stage in the vehicle ownership cycle. Not only will your email response rates improve, but so will your customer relationships.

In what ways have you segmented your customer database when targeting email campaigns? Has it impacted your response rates?

Melissa Mangold is a VMR (Virtual Marketing Representative) at ADP, optimizing dealer email & direct mail marketing efforts by analyzing their ROI results, monitoring current industry best practices and gauging current business needs. Her first car was a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and together they ruled the road (and off-road!). When Melissa is not optimizing dealer marketing campaigns, she is a social media editor for an online magazine. She has a B.A. in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Post-baccalaureate certificate in Advertising for Creatives from Northwestern University. Melissa can be reached directly at melissa.mangold@adp.com.

Learn more about ADP’s team of automotive marketing specialists.

1. A New Stream

If you login to your Google+ account, you will notice that the layout of posts has changed from one column of updates to the existing tablet view of three columns of tiles, as seen in the image that was shared on the Google+ blog.

This increases the amount of information that is readily available for your customers to view on the initial screen. So make sure to keep those posts coming!

2. Automatic Photo Enhancement

Google is now automatically enhancing your photos. You no longer have to fumble around in Photoshop or paint to lift that shadow. Google will brighten and highlight your photos for you so that your new car will look as shiny online as it does out on the lot. Check out sample images to see what these enhancements look like.

This example was shared on new.cnet.com:

3. Dropdown Toolbar

There are a few minor changes to the site’s navigation placement as well. Be sure to take a look at the new dropdown version of the toolbar in the upper left corner of your page as well as the new location of the navigation tabs above your cover photo.

Check out the full article on Google+ for more details about the recent updates. We’ll do our best to keep you in the know on business listing changes so be sure to check back soon!

What do you think of the new look and features?

Download the eBook: The Street Smart Guide to Automotive Reputation Management

Featured Content

Google’s just one of the players in the reputation management game. There’s a ton more to managing your dealership’s reputation. This eBook will arm you with the do’s & don’ts and the top myths in automotive reputation management, as well as some compelling data on the proven impact of reviews in the car-buying process.
Download eBook

Kaitlyn Bender is a Reputation Management Specialist at Cobalt. She works with dealers to help them manage their online reputation and engage customers through various social media platforms. Kaitlyn holds an Economics Degree from the University of Washington. Feel free to reach out to Kaitlyn directly at benderk@cobalt.com.

Learn more about Cobalt’s automotive reputation management solutions.

Sitting in the driver’s seat and pushing the start engine button was a rush. So, what did I do that afternoon for 15 minutes once I got home? I watched a handful of Acura videos on that dealership’s site.

The MS Walk is just one of the numerous community opportunities that allow dealerships to capitalize on engaging with new potential customers. Even if event goers aren’t looking to buy a vehicle in the near future, they still may do what I did; research online when convenient and learn more about your store. And when the need for a new car or quick service arises, your brand will carry more mindshare.

Adding community outreach content on your website not only helps foster a warm and fuzzy feeling before shoppers visit your showroom; it also drives online engagement. The website data I analyze often reveals that community pages are some of the most viewed. And if your subnavigation includes your top inventory models, those pageviews help drive increased inventory searches and Vehicle Detail Page views.

Community outreach opportunities are everywhere. Medical non-profits including the MS Society, Susan G. Koman Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society offer annual walks or runs in support of patient care and research. By making a donation or participating in an event, your store can make a difference.

Another common mode of community outreach is to sponsor a little league or other youth team— and of course plaster your logo all over the team uniforms! You may also consider sponsoring a Habitat For Humanity build site, or donating to the Red Cross if severe weather issues occur.

One tangible way to showcase your community involvement is to post event pictures on a dedicated landing page, with descriptive captions and positive feedback from people in attendance. Community content might also include local news coverage, which you can integrate yourself or contact your web provider to help post.

Our automotive consumer behavioral data shows that the average car buyer visits a minimum of 8 dealership sites before making a vehicle purchase. You can differentiate your dealership from the other stores prospective buyers are shopping by featuring your commitment to your community front and center. The flashy new redesigned vehicle on your lot is intriguing. But what’s more intriguing is this type of “why buy” messaging that can help attract prospective customers who agree with your stewardship and share in your desire to help those around you.

What ways have you found to showcase your dealership’s community involvement online? Please share in the comments below!

Download the eBook: Defining Your Dealership Why

Featured Content

Find out how your commitment to your community can help you define a “why buy” message that will differentiate your dealership from the rest of the digital crowd.
Download eBook

Marissa Dogeagle Smith is an Account Advocate at Cobalt, working primarily with Hyundai and General Motors stores. Marissa and her teammates provide and implement ongoing website optimization strategies that help dealerships distinguish themselves and drive qualified showroom traffic. Marissa is extremely passionate about the value of using website data (eg page views, top vehicle views) to formulate and employ powerful strategies. Like many Toyota owners, Marissa learned to drive in a Camry and now owns a Corolla. When she’s not optimizing websites, Marissa tutors children in Math and English and frequents local theatre, parks, and sporting events with family and friends. Marissa holds a Business Administration degree and Marketing Management Certificate from the University of Washington. Feel free to reach out to Marissa directly at msmith@cobalt.com.

• “Capitalizing on Changes in Online Shopping Behaviors,” presented by Scott Pechstein at Autobytel Inc.
• “Do You Know Today’s Customer? New Findings Show Difference between Prices of Vehicles Shopped vs. Actual Prices Paid,” presented by Scott Hernalsteen at AutoTrader.com
• “Mobile: your key to winning shoppers when they’re ready to buy,” presented by Jack Simmons at Cars.com
• “Your Marketing Team Is Using the Wrong Metric to Manage your Advertising,” presented by Chris Reed at Cobalt

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Revealed: The #1 Digital Activity That Really Sells Cars

Do you know the online activity that is the #1 sales predictor …

Meet four-year old Martina. She’s about to teach you a lesson.

You: Martina, it’s time for bed, sweetie.

Martina: Why?

You: Because you’ve had a long day and you’re going to be getting sleepy soon.

Martina: Why?

You: Well, because you played outside and ran around the house all day.

Martina: Why?

You: Because you’re four!

Martina: Why?

You: [Sigh]

If you’ve ever worked a gig as a parent (or babysitter, for that matter), you know about the “Why Game.” Even though it originates with kids, it can also be heard played out in conversations in your dealership too. My buddy Brian Pasch warns us about avoiding what he calls “white noise” when playing the “Why Game.”

What’s white noise? Here are some examples…

You: Why should someone buy from us?

Eddie: Because we’re the best dealership in the area. (WHITE NOISE!)

You: Why?

Eddie: Um, because we sell in a consultative manner, effectively helping people buy and not selling them.

You: Better! Why?

Eddie: We work on salary and bonuses, not commission, so we deliver a no-pressure sales experience.

You: Ha – that’s what I’m looking for!

Or…

You: Why should someone buy from us?

Angela: Because we take care of our customers. (WHITE NOISE!)

You: Why?

Angela: Well, because we don’t just want them to do business with us one time. We want customers for life!

You: Better!

Angela: That’s why employees get a Hawaiian vacation when they reach ten years. We just think there’s something nice about the same person who sold you your first “married couple” car also selling you your first minivan when junior comes along… knowing that you’ll see the same friendly face through life’s biggest changes.

You: Perfecto!

Drilling down to define your dealership’s unique “why buy” message can help you win the “Why Game” and stand out from the white noise that’s constantly competing for the attention of your prospective customers. The new eBook, Defining Your Dealership Why, helps explain how you can answer the “why buy” question, and how doing so can help you attract and retain like-minded customers.

Does “why buy” messaging still feel warm and fuzzy, but not practical for your bottom line? Do you still think you don’t need to bother differentiating because the OEM does it for you? Check out these startling stats from our automotive-shopping activity study:

• The study shows that shoppers visit a minimum of eight dealer websites. That’s the minimum! Your “why buy” messaging is the key to separating your dealership from the competition.
• The same study tracked the purchase journey of one family and revealed that they had been exposed to a total of 329 dealership ads over their 90 day shopping journey. Injecting your advertising with a healthy dose of your “why buy” messaging can differentiate your impression from the hundreds of others competing for that family’s attention.

• It also tracked the online activity of one brand loyal shopper who shopped his favorite brand exclusively, but did not show loyalty to any one dealership. In fact, he shopped his brand across 20 dealership websites in a single day!His journey illustrates that brand alignment is the baseline, but it’s not the full equation. This is further supported by the fact that of the 75% of shoppers who visited OEM websites, most of those visited the OEM website and the dealer website within the same 30 minutes. Moral of the story: The OEM only starts the “why buy” equity; it’s your job to finish it.

“Why” is the reason they buy

What’s YOUR dealership why? Learn how answering the “Why Buy?” question can transform your dealership today.
Download eBook

And let’s face it… we also realize that many businesses, including dealers, face challenges with the Yelp filter. Frustrations and filters aside, most dealers have come to appreciate the value of participating in this space and promoting their business through this channel. To that end, Yelp has offered various tools to help you engage with the Yelp community, including check-in offers, promotional deals, business photos and other features.

Now Yelp is offering new insight into the potential impact your Yelp listing has on your dealership with their Revenue Estimate tool. Yelp’s Revenue Estimate is designed to provide visibility into how much business Yelp is directly sending your dealership. Yelp partnered with the Boston Consulting Group to determine the average revenue estimate for various industries. The company surveyed 4,800 businesses in these industries to find out the average estimated revenue generated by the review site for each business category. For the car industry, the study determined the average annual revenue from purchase-minded Yelpers to be $39,000.

How does it work? Yelp considers a lead to be any unique user who views your listing, including check-ins, calls, photo uploads, or other user activity. Assuming that every individual who looks at your listing is a paying customer, Yelp assigns a specific value to these leads or activities to generate the estimated total revenue for businesses within each category.

Here are the categories:

• Car dealers – the average revenue of all profit centers within an auto dealership
• Auto Repair – the average revenue of service departments
• Tires – the average revenue for tire center departments

We recommend using “car dealers” as the category to receive the most accurate estimate. If you select a category that has a lower ranking, as determined by the Boston Consulting Group, your estimate will show an incomplete picture. If you have multiple categories selected, it will use the revenue estimate from the lowest category.

You can find the revenue tool by logging into your business account, or if you are a Power Reputation Management client, have a discussion with your Specialist about what your estimate means.

What do you think of this new tool and how it helps (or doesn’t help) your dealership? Share your comments!

The Street Smart Guide to Automotive Reputation Management

This insight-packed eBook includes the do’s and don’ts on the most popular review sites like Yelp, the top myths in automotive reputation management, and compelling data on the proven impact of reviews in the car-buying process.
Download eBook

About the Authors

Natasha Seidl is a Reputation Management Specialist and began her career at Cobalt as an Account Advocate in 2010. She previously held positions at several PR firms and regularly applies her vast knowledge of RepMan to writing industry-facing articles and assisting her clients. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and her spoiled 10 year old Jack Russell mix breed. Natasha holds a Public Relations & Communication Degree from Gonzaga University. Feel free to reach Natasha directly at nseidl@cobalt.com.

Ryan Kenny joined Cobalt in the summer of 2012 as a Reputation Management Specialist, bringing with him 15 years of Auto Industry experience working in various capacities at dealerships and automotive vendors. Ryan’s background is utilized on a daily basis as he works to improve the online reputations of his many dealer clients. Ryan holds degrees in both Business Administration and Automotive Marketing. You can reach Ryan at kennyr@cobalt.com.

As an automotive reputation management specialist, I work closely with my clients to monitor, manage and edit their listings, drive traffic to them, and keep them updated with fresh content. I can tell you that I’ve seen it all; from merged listings, to deleted listings, to reviews disappearing and more! It’s been a labyrinth of pain, frustration, escalations, hours spent in the Google forums, and hair pulling. So you can imagine that my initial reaction to the new update was one of relief and excitement.

The updated dashboard will be rolled out for existing businesses in phases. In the meantime, Google encourages current Google Places Business users to…

Sit tight and continue to use Google Places for Business to update and edit your listing. The update currently affects new users only. Please do not make new accounts/pages for listings that already exist. Please know that the update will be gradually rolling out to existing Google Places for Business users like you in the coming weeks.

— Google

While we wait, I’ve done some research on this topic and here are my takeaways. Overall, the change will be a good thing. However, be warned. It’s not perfect. Not just yet. You still may find yourself in the Google product forums suffering through the occasional hair pull. Let’s look at the not-so-good news first.

The Less Than Ideal News

No Custom Categories

Categories are a factor in Google’s determination of the relevance of a business listing. With the new updates there is no longer the option to have custom categories— instead Google will provide a fixed list of choices.

No More Enhanced Data

Often customers want to know if a business has a parking lot, carries multiple brands, has special accommodations, etc. The feature that once allowed us to add this information will no longer be available. However, it will help that a longer description field is now provided and can include some of this information that used to be found under “Additional Details.”

No More Videos… Kind of

Video uploading will only be available if your business has a Google+ Local page in ADDITION to a Google+ profile. If you want videos, start getting familiar with Google+.

Photo Publishing Still Delayed

There was hope that the new and improved dashboard would allow for photos to be uploaded much quicker. But it looks like it will still be weeks until your newly added photos will be published.

No Improvement to Hours Listings

It’s been requested over and over to allow for split and seasonal hours, but this enhancement did not address this concern.

Now the GOOD News

Better Integration with Google Products

Several of the new features in the dashboard make it clear that Google intends to continue fighting for a larger chunk of the social medium, hoping to compete with the likes of Facebook, all while keeping Google products relevant and top of mind. That’s good news for business owners as the new dashboard will offer a one button Google+ page set-up AND manager widget, a Google Adwords Express widget, and a Google offers widget— all together in the same place!

The upgraded interface is simpler and more intuitive, so the process of updating your business information is quick and easy.

— Google

Edits will go live faster

Most edits made via the upgraded user interface now appear within 48 hours! (with the exception of photos)

Status Updates for Edits Now Available

The updated dashboard will now notify you when edits need to be approved and/or are pending. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this feature. It means I can now rest assured that my edits are not getting lost in the Google abyss and I can now communicate to my clients about more accurate timelines for when edits will be published.

Throughout the dashboard you will find several visual cues in various places that alert you to the status of your edits. If you’ve ever waited 6-8 weeks to simply update say, a business category, and wondered if Google ever really got the changes, now you’ll have proof that you’re not crazy— you did make the edits and Google did receive them.

A New Widget to Help You Optimize Your Listing

In the new dashboard, you’ll get an “at a glance” view of how much more you need to add to your listing to have a fully optimized business profile. Having a complete online business profile is not only customer friendly, but SEO friendly as well.

Drag & Drop Functionality

While it will still take time for photos to upload, there is more ease now to adding photos.

No More 200 Character Limit

The 200 character limit in the description field has been removed and you can now add rich text. There is also the ability to add links to your description.

10 Categories

Even though the option of custom categories has been removed, businesses will be allowed to select up to 10 categories with this new upgrade, as opposed to 5 in the old dashboard.

More Contact Options

Notice that chat, AIM and the option to add more contact info have been added.

Multi Business Management Interface

This is big. A business can no longer be claimed into multiple accounts. Once a second business has been entered, the user is shown a multi business management tool. This is amazing, as it appears you’ll be able to not only manage your business listings, but the Google+ pages for those businesses as well— all in one place and with one log-in!

Have you ever experienced the “respond to review” feature missing from your listing, disappearing right when there’s a negative review that needs a business comment stat? Often times the respond feature is removed when businesses have multiple log-ins and it’s not clear to Google as to who the owner of the account is. The person who last logged in becomes the owner of the listing and is the only one who can respond to reviews, regardless of whether you also have access to the listing. This simple change will alleviate a big frustration. It also means no more multiple log-in screens and passwords to edit and manage all of your Google properties— a big time saver.

The average automotive consumer’s online purchase path has become more complex and crowded. And dealers are facing a growing need to differentiate online. So the topic of “why buy” messaging is one I find myself discussing with dealers more and more. A dealership that’s already defining their why is Rallye BMW. The car dealership equivalent to a Ritz Carlton resort. A Four Seasons experience. And a tenured staff who’s empowered to make the decisions they need to make to deliver an exceptional buying and service experience. Those are only a few of their many whys. Rallye BMW doesn’t just tell you why… they show you why in their “why buy” video tour. Not only does it make you want to purchase a car from Rallye BMW, it makes you want to eat, hang-out and work there too!

The Defining Your Why Concept has had a profound impact on Rallye BMW’s reputation and retention. What does “defining your why” mean to your dealership? That’s exactly what the new Defining Your Dealership Why eBook answers. Here’s a sneak peek…

Since the dawn of time, dealerships have believed a great lie: customers will never be passionately loyal to a car dealership. Automotive professionals look at companies like Apple and Zappos and think, ‘That’s great for them, but that will never happen to me. That kind of die-hard fan loyalty just doesn’t happen for car dealers.’ This is false. Of course it can.

After all, our industry is a retail industry exactly like any other. From a product perspective, cars are not inherently repellant. It’s not like you’re selling unicorn tears. In fact, cars probably have more natural sex appeal than tennis shoes, computers, or any of the other wares of these more beloved brands.

You too can have lines around the block for
 a new model release; you can have die-hard customers who won’t shop anywhere else; you can create a legendary brand just like your retail peers. All you have to do is define your why.

The theory behind “defining your why” is simple: consumers don’t care what you sell, they care why you sell it. It’s not about features; it’s about feelings. It’s not about price; it’s about principles. It’s not about vehicle specials; it’s about shared values.

In other words, “why” is the reason people buy.

Download the full eBook, Defining Your Dealership Why, to find out how you can stand out from your competitors, shine more light on your store and sit back and watch your dealership soar!

“Why” is the reason they buy.

Learn how answering the “Why Buy?” question can transform your dealership today.
Download eBook