Company Press Release

On the Road to Two Million Reviews: DealerRater Looks Back at its Journey

With the milestone quickly approaching, DealerRater shares some highlights.

WALTHAM, Mass. – June 25, 2015 – DealerRater – the car dealer review site for consumers – announced today that it’s quickly closing in on the two million review milestone, anticipating for the review to post as early as next week. With that, the company wanted to share some highlights that have contributed to its continued growth.

·     November 2002: Chip Grueter founds DealerRater.com as the result of a polarizing dealership experience

·     January 2003: First dealer review is published of JMK BMW of Springfield, New Jersey , which is still active today

·     December 2004: Surpasses 10,000 consumer reviews

·     December 2007: DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program is launched and Acton Toyota of Littleton, Massachusetts becomes the first Certified Dealer

·     November 2011: Extends it services to Canadian consumers and dealers

·     May 2012: 360Connect is launched and Hyundai of St. Augustine, Florida becomes the first 360Connect customer

·     March 2013: Receives its one millionth review, a review of Garber Honda in Rochester, New York

·     October 2013: ServiceEngage is launched and Broadway Ford of Idaho Falls, Idaho becomes the first ServiceEngage customer

·     November 2013: Announces its first major content syndication partnership with KBB

·     March 2014: Launches partnership with J.D. Power, integrating consumer reviews with satisfaction survey insights to improve dealer processes

·     February 2015: Syndication deals with Autotrader, KBB and others expose DealerRater’s content to more than 14 million consumers monthly

·     June 2015: DealerRater’s newest program upgrade, ReviewBuilder

“Word of mouth has always been a key source of new business and the Internet has made online reputation and trust-building strategies an absolute necessity for today’s successful car dealerships,” said DealerRater CEO Gary Tucker.

“Consumers rely on the internet to compare products and triangulate price. Most consumers are also relying on third-party sites like DealerRater to choose the place where they will buy from and more than ever before they are using DealerRater to choose the person they will buy from. Consumers will drive well out of their way to connect with a salesperson they trust and DealerRater reviews are a powerful tool in building that trust.” added Tucker.

With nearly 2,000 reviews collected daily, DealerRater vets every review it receives before it’s posted to ensure legitimacy – that it’s a real review written by a real consumer. Additionally, DealerRater offers a platform to open the lines of communication between dealers and consumers. For example, if a customer has a negative experience at a DealerRater Certified dealership and writes a review about it, the dealer will be notified and given a two-week window of opportunity to resolve the problem through the industry leading Resolution Advantage Program. This innovative feature creates a bias for action at the dealership leading to a clear path for the consumer to have their issue addressed.

“It’s inevitable that, eventually, all businesses will receive a negative review. It’s difficult to know why but, in our case, it signifies a breakdown in our process,” said Andrew DiFeo, general manager of Hyundai of St. Augustine, a 2015 Dealer of the Year recipient and DealerRater Certified Dealer since 2008. “Resolution Advantage lets us know how we’re treating our customers, more quickly resolve concerns and potentially turn an unsatisfied customer into a loyal one. Essentially, it gives us the opportunity to better our organization by showing us what's working well and what we can improve upon.”

“Good service isn’t just about your reputation but what you do to manage it. DealerRater adds credibility to our reviews and offers a variety of tools to help us monitor our online reputation,” added DiFeo.

Hyundai of St. Augustine’s first review as part of the DealerRater platform was DealerRater’s 54,213^th review.

“For today’s auto shoppers, knowing ‘where to buy’ and ‘who to buy from’ is just as important as knowing ‘what to buy’,” said Tucker. “Consumers are visiting DealerRater to read dealer reviews as the final step in their purchase decision, and are then returning to write a review about their own dealership experience for the benefit of future shoppers -- thus establishing the lifecycle of reviews.”

To celebrate the two millionth review milestone, DealerRater will recognize both the dealership and the consumer associated with the two millionth review.