Dealer Spotlight: Nissan and Infiniti of Elk Grove
12/18/2008 7:36:57 PM
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Tags: dealer spotlight, infiniti, nissan
By Amy Rothenberger
As the world of e-commerce has grown, there have been many companies that embraced the voice of the customer. It is not a new idea; automotive dealers have always known the best form of advertising is word of mouth. A happy customer refers their friends and family, and in return a sales person no longer relies on advertising dollars spent by the dealer to bring customers to the showroom. They are able to earn their living from repeat customers and referrals.
Dealer Spotlight: Nissan and Infiniti of Elk Grove
As the world of e-commerce has grown, there have been many companies that embraced the voice of the customer. It is not a new idea; automotive dealers have always known the best form of advertising is word of mouth. A happy customer refers their friends and family, and in return a sales person no longer relies on advertising dollars spent by the dealer to bring customers to the showroom. They are able to earn their living from repeat customers and referrals.
If you look at the business models of Amazon.com and Ebay, they both were proactive in embracing the opinions of customers regarding the product they sell as well as the experience they had purchasing it. Both these sites and many others have immediate ratings of the products and experiences on the page of what you are looking to purchase.
After nearly a year of researching a similar concept for gathering online reviews for our dealership, I attended the NADA conference in San Francisco in February 2008. In one of the seminars regarding creating a better online presence, I was introduced to www.DealerRater.com.
This website is a third party review site where dealership customers can anonymously write reviews about their purchase experience as well as their service experience.
At Nissan and Infiniti of Elk Grove our mission statement is:
To exceed the expectations of our clients by providing exceptional value in a professional hassle-free environment; to learn and improve each day to better serve our clients, co-workers and community by developing relationships built on integrity, sincerity and respect.
We have the manufacturer’s survey to help us gauge our areas that need improvement, we have our Client Relations Department that follows up with each client after their purchases and after their services, and we even had an email program that sent surveys to our service customers after having work completed in our shop. We found all of this data invaluable for us to internally work on improving our processes and coach our team members, however, this information did little to let other prospective customer know how well we treat our clients, and what we provided before, during and after the sale of a vehicle.
That is where Dealer Rater fit in so well for us. We began to send our follow up emails with the link to DealerRater’s website requesting the clients to share their experience with others. Our sales associates gave each of their customers a card with the website link to review Nissan & Infiniti of Elk Grove at DealerRater. Our customers embraced the online format and began to write glowing reviews. There are the occasional reviews that are not 4 and 5 stars where a customer has a legitimate concern. Being a Certified Dealer with DealerRater, allows us to follow up with those clients and communicate in a non-confrontational way to solve the problem. Usually faster than waiting for a bad manufacturer survey.
Every internet prospect receives an email linking them to our review page that allows them to see what others people have to say about doing business with us and that goes a long way. It is a great tool for the sales associates on the floor to use with customers who want to go shop us against the competition. They can show not only what our customers say about us, but what other dealership reviews look like.
All in all, DealerRater has been the perfect solution for our online reviews and ratings and has the added bonus of an excellent resource for Search Engine Optimization. I would highly recommend it to any dealership that believes in promoting itself via word of mouth.
Amy Rothenberger is the Client Relations Manager and E-commerce Director for
Nissan and Infiniti of Elk Grove, California. Amy may be contacted at 916.405.5137.