You just sold a car, the customer signed on the dotted line and seems happy with their purchase. They drive off into the sunset with a smile on their face, all is well, right? The following day you get a notification from yelp, you’re expecting an awesome review, you’ve done everything right, so this should be good. It reads “NEVER PURCHASE FROM THESE GUYS EVER!” attached to a 1 out of 5 stars rating. What?! Why?!
This story plays out time and time again. It’s beyond frustrating because most of the time you don’t know why it happened, and there's been no communication you’re aware of from the customer, and you’re not sure why they’re upset. It feels like reviews on yelp are just somewhere to get hit where you can’t hit back. Well, there’s a way to handle this. The key to tackling these reviews is simple! Respond kindly to them and request them contact you to help resolve their grievances. The goal is to get in direct contact with customers before they rampage across the rest of the web leaving a trail of bad reviews and a bad taste in the mouth of whoever reads it. Letting it sit and ignoring it, or trying to report and get it removed wont work most of the time. Make sure to be actively watching your Yelp page and respond as soon as possible to help rectify the situation. A lot of the time the issue can be resolved by just talking to the customer, and most will actually even delete or edit their review in a more favorable way. Dealers don’t have a crystal ball, they don’t know when problems will happen with the vehicles they sell or what will cause a customer to go off, so communication is key!
Most review sites, including Yelp, now clearly prohibit this behavior in their terms of service agreements or policies. Offering gift cards, discounts, or other incentives in exchange for more Yelp ratings is likely to result in your reviews being removed and a consumer alert notice being placed on your page. This can be extremely harmful to your business as consumers almost always look for reviews before purchasing with you. The best way to get good reviews is by providing the best service you can and really being about the customer. It's also a good idea to ask them to leave a Yelp review if they enjoyed their purchase, but don’t try to sweeten the deal to get one out of them. Most customers will be happy to leave a review if they were treated well. Organic reviews are the best, because even if they aren’t 5 out 5 stars every time, it can lead to a better understanding of what the customers like and dislike about the process and help you improve where you were lacking.
Also, CAUTION: Absolutely, 100 percent make sure your customer is NOT connected to your local WiFi/IP or using a company device to leave a review. Yelp monitors businesses IP addresses and will actively block reviews submitted from them, as they don't want fake reviews from businesses on their page.
Let's imagine the reviewer was either unwilling or unable to legitimize their account in time to save the review. In any case, contact the reviewer and ask if you can post their testimonial on your website. It will not affect your Yelp rating, but it is an excellent strategy to avoid losing everything. It also gives your customers a sense of belonging and community, which boosts loyalty and will encourage them to come back and let their friends and family know to go to you when looking to purchase a car. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy having themselves highlighted for the world to see?
We’ve seen it, time and time again, where a business has an unclaimed Yelp page that’s running rampant and has done nothing to claim the page. This can be extremely detrimental to brand presence and leaves a door open to get hit with bad reviews that you can’t engage with. Always claim your business pages on review sites so you can stay on top of customer reviews and engage with your customers if issues arise. It pays to be on top of your online brand presence as this is where the vast majority of customers will get their first impression of you. So grab the moment and get going!
If you follow these tips, your Yelp Page will be sure to flourish, but we have another parting gift, if you will. We here at Drivonic love reviews, we love them so much, in fact, we've incorporated it into every single one of our programs. Yeah, that's how much they matter. We specialize in amplifying these reviews by hand selecting the best ones for our clients and highlighting them on every channel imaginable. We shout the love for you company from every rooftop to make sure your audience knows how awesome you are, and guess what? It's worked wonders for all of our clients, and the best part is, we can do this for you as well! If you're interested, which If you read this far, you probably are (don't be shy), we'd love to talk about how we can make you look like the awesome people you are. There's buttons everywhere on this page to get in touch with us, so don't be a stranger and click away! We'd love to chat!