The Power of Review Platforms
Automotive Expert Philipp Kranich
Philipp Kranich has been Senior Manager Automotive Market Intelligence at rpc – The Retail Performance Company since 2023. Previously, he held various management and consulting roles within the automotive industry for several years. At rpc, he focuses on strategically relevant topics concerning the future of automotive retail.
What are review platforms and how do they work?
Review platforms like Autohauskenner allow customers to rate and share their experiences with car dealerships. These reviews are typically given on a scale of 1 to 5 stars and can be supplemented with comments. Customers can evaluate various aspects of the dealership, including the sales process, customer service, workshop services, and the quality of vehicles.
In addition to specialized platforms like Autohauskenner, there are also general review portals such as Google My Business, Yelp, or ProvenExpert where car dealerships can be reviewed. These platforms offer the advantage of greater reach and are frequented by a broader user base. Additionally, more and more automotive manufacturers are starting to collect and make their own customer reviews transparent. These reviews often follow a similar rating logic but are viewed with more skepticism by customers as they are not considered independent.
Different rating logics
Different rating logics are applied on review platforms. The simplest method is average rating, where the average of all ratings of a car dealership is calculated. However, this method can be misleading as it does not consider the number of ratings. An alternative method is weighted average rating, where newer reviews are weighted more heavily than older ones. This logic provides more meaningful insights as it better reflects current customer satisfaction.
How can car dealerships learn from customer reviews?
Car dealerships can gain valuable insights from customer reviews. Positive reviews confirm that the dealership is doing a good job and satisfying its customers. On the other hand, negative reviews highlight areas for improvement. Car dealerships should take customer comments seriously and use them to optimize their processes and services. However, this is easier said than done. There are various approaches for car dealerships to effectively handle online reviews.
ACTIVELY REQUESTING REVIEWS
Often, car dealerships lack defined procedures to actively solicit feedback from customers in the form of reviews. Therefore, reviews often arise spontaneously and ad hoc from customers themselves. From our experience, customer reviews are still a sensitive issue in many car dealerships. Business leaders often see customer reviews as a business risk rather than a real opportunity for continuous improvement and acquiring new customers. They hesitate to actively engage with their customers' experiences and thus miss the opportunity to engage in valuable dialogue.
It is therefore crucial to establish a positive mindset within the company regarding customer reviews and to embed this mindset at all levels. Management must deeply consider how to handle honest customer reviews and what conclusions to draw from them. If only negative associations are evoked among employees, this can lead to ignoring customer reviews and missing out on learning opportunities.
To get a realistic picture of the current status quo, customers should be actively encouraged to leave reviews. There are various ways to do this, such as sending emails or directly asking customers by service representatives. Likewise, a link to a review platform can be provided on the dealer's own website. This has the advantage of providing both potential new customers and existing customers with direct transparency about the company's reviews.
INTERACTION AND RESPONSE
The management of customer reviews varies greatly today, ranging from simply being unaware of the existence of such reviews on various online platforms to a very proactive approach to handling review results. It is important to first create transparency about existing reviews on the internet. It is no longer necessary to manually search review platforms for results. Service providers like Autohauskenner capture the most relevant review results from various platforms and provide them in the form of a dashboard. This quickly and currently gives the car dealership a comprehensive overview of all relevant incoming reviews on the internet.
Interaction is the key to proactive review management. Most review platforms allow reviewed companies to respond to customer reviews. A respectful handling of reviews and a prompt response from the dealership are highly appreciated. For positive customer reviews, the dealership should thank the customer for the feedback. Even with negative reviews, a public response is important: thank the customer for the feedback and offer to find the best possible solution for them. If you know the author of the negative review, proactively contact them and initiate a proper complaint process.
No company has exclusively satisfied customers, and potential customers reading reviews are aware of this fact. A positive, proactive handling of negative feedback is crucial. A company that only has positive reviews appears unbelievable and gives the impression that negative reviews are being hidden or deleted.
BUILDING A PROFESSIONAL COMPLAINTS MANAGEMENT
Often, car dealerships do not have a professional complaints management system that exclusively deals with handling and tracking complaints. Complaints are usually the responsibility of the respective location manager and the responsible on-site employees. Especially in larger dealership groups, this leads to isolation of complaint cases. If certain complaint reasons accumulate across the group, these accumulations are not recorded, resulting in isolated solutions developed by the respective location managers. This prevents cross-group processes and regulations, which can lead to different compensation solutions. For example, if a customer, such as a company, uses multiple dealership locations for vehicle maintenance, different approaches and solutions for the same complaint reason can lead to confusion. Decentralized complaints management also leads to lack of transparency for management: which locations have how many complaints? What are the most common complaint reasons? How much budget was used to resolve complaints?
For car dealerships with multiple locations, establishing a central complaints management system makes sense. The central complaints management system is informed by each location about new complaint cases, independently reviews incoming reviews from various contact channels such as online reviews or emails, and creates standardized complaint cases in the dealer's CRM system. Complaints management assigns appropriate responsibilities to these cases, monitors the progress of complaint cases, and thus ensures maximum transparency in finding solutions. Standardization also creates a clear escalation procedure with corresponding approval limits. Complaints management can be organizationally assigned to quality management, as it should be a staff function independent of sales or service areas. This ensures the necessary independence and a direct reporting line to management.
Outlook: Introduction of the agency model
With the introduction of the agency model in sales, the importance of online reviews will continue to grow. Since in the agency model, the pricing authority lies with the respective automotive manufacturer, price negotiation plays only a minor role in customer acquisition. Therefore, the dealership must focus on its core competencies and strive for excellence in customer service. This excellence, together with the development of the dealership's own brand, will shape the dealership's unique selling proposition (USP) in the future.
To achieve this excellence, management must use customer feedback to initiate a continuous improvement process. This is not just about individual customer reviews, but about identifying improvement potentials for the entire company and deriving actions from them.
