How HOT is the word REVIEW in our Space?

[joe.pistell]

Reviews* can easily sway a purchase decision. But, not all industries are impacted equally by reviews.

For example:
--Reviews can make or break restaurants.
--Reviews can make or break hotels.
--Reviews make no significant impact to Automobile Rentals (i.e. Hertz, National, Budget)
--Reviews make no significant impact to RADAR antenna manuf'ers


QUESTION:
Do we really know how much impact Reviews make in our space?


I am talking about real tangible results.
We know that the highest amount of traffic from a search engine is for white pages requests (a google search for dealers name). Google and all the other search engines have auto-complete that PUSHES the word Review onto the dealers name string.

Anyone out here in DR land toss me some feedback on what they have found? Dealer Reviews in my area all have very low counts (<10 reviews). Your feedback would be appreciated.


*Reviews found on large consumer facing sites like Yelp, Google, DealerRater, etc...

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Joe, you have read this right? In my opinion customers are using these reviews when shopping for a vehicle just as they would if going out to eat. If everyone in your market sucks, then it's probably not an issue. If one dealer is crushing everyone else when it comes to reviews, I would believe that's going to hurt the dealers with negative reviews.

It's just one more ingredient in the secret sauce that will make you great.

 

[ryan.leslie]

QUESTION:
Do we really know how much impact Reviews make in our space?

You do if you are leveraging them to win business away from your competitor's. You probably don't if you are the dealer that is losing business to a competitor due to your reviews...

That isn't a sales pitch. MUCH MUCH smarter people than me agree with this position, indirectly anyway.

This link will be it's own post if I get time today, but it fits so nicely here too. According to an Appeals court in MO, Reviews have so much impact that getting caught posting just 3 fake negative ones about a competitor will cost you $150k in punitive damages.

Excerpt (bold italics are mine):

Yet, the judge refuses to put the burden on the plaintiff to find actual lost customers:

We reject Defendant’s contention that Plaintiff needed to produce testimony from potential customers who opted to turn elsewhere due to the web reviews. With the internet, consumers are able to compare businesses and their wares with unprecedented speed. Interpersonal contact is characteristically absent, so if a consumer declines to engage a business it encounters on the internet, that consumer continues his or her search and the business has no knowledge it has been passed by. As such, it would be unreasonably burdensome to impose upon a business plaintiff the requirement that it locate potential customers that it never knew in order to successfully demonstrate actual damage to its reputation. The deleterious impact of such a constraint far outweighs any benefits it would have in proving reputational harm.

​

 

[Alex Snyder]

It absolutely sways purchase decisions for purchases where there is a lot of competition or the product can be delivered to your door. Reviews absolutely influence the decision to purchase X vehicle.

However...

Most people still prefer to buy a car in person. They're willing to drive to do this, and if the purchase is large enough some may opt to fly. However, driving more than 10 miles is not preferable for most. Only in major metro areas is there a plethora of dealership choice for the consumer, so a dealer with bad reviews will still receive traffic. It is also assumed that buying from a car dealership is going to be a bad experience, no matter what the reviews say.

In the absence of water, people will drink the sand.

 

[joe.pistell]

Joe, you have read this right? In my opinion customers are using these reviews when shopping for a vehicle just as they would if going out to eat. If everyone in your market sucks, then it's probably not an issue. If one dealer is crushing everyone else when it comes to reviews, I would believe that's going to hurt the dealers with negative reviews.

It's just one more ingredient in the secret sauce that will make you great.

Brother Jerry,

You know I am a ZMOT fan, but, you can't throw a "one size fits all ZMOT blanket" over everything because it affects every business differently. I disagree that Car Shopping Reviews are as important as Restaurant Reviews.

Give this ZMOT chart below a look.


Give that chart a good hard look, look at how many tasks are ALL ABOUT SETTING UP THE FMOT (visiting the store)!!

I've been pounding the table hard on this topic, ZMOT simply sets up FMOT.

FMOT RULES OUR BUSINESS.

 

[joe.pistell]

MY REVIEWS SUMMARY:

--Reviews mostly happen in Dealer White Pages SERPS (shopper is looking for dealer contact/map info)
--Bad reviews can kill FMOTs (FMOT = visits to the store)
--Good/Great reviews may not boost FMOTs, but, it could boost your closing ratio (good reviews makes shoppers less adversarial)

Hmm... I like what I'm seeing so far.

 

[john.quinn]

My personal take on purchase reviews: people read reviews to validate their (either informed or pre-conceived) opinions on a product.

I picked a new TV recently. It was the price, size, features, etc. I wanted. I then started reading reviews to make sure that no-one had a tremendously horrible experience -- validating my decision that this one is OK to buy.

I think service reviews are a bit different, as in trying a new restaurant for the first time.

I think car reviews work like the TV review situation above. People are not reading reviews to help MAKE their decisions -- it's decision validation.

 

[ed.brooks]

Brother Jerry,

You know I am a ZMOT fan, but, you can't throw a "one size fits all ZMOT blanket" over everything because it affects every business differently. I disagree that Car Shopping Reviews are as important as Restaurant Reviews.

Give this ZMOT chart below a look.
View attachment 1031

Give that chart a good hard look, look at how many tasks are ALL ABOUT SETTING UP THE FMOT (visiting the store)!!

I've been pounding the table hard on this topic, ZMOT simply sets up FMOT.

FMOT RULES OUR BUSINESS.

Joe, I'm with you when it comes to "ZMOT" being a poor consumer behavior model for high-involvement (expensive) purchases. I also think it's a poor model for very low-involvement (impulse) items. But it is the PERFECT model for a restaurant decision. This type of decision matters, but you won't live it with it for months or years. A restaurant decision matters ENOUGH to put a few minutes of research into, but not enough to spend hours on.

I fully believe that a customer will buy a car from someone they don't like, IF it is the car they want, at a price they are willing to pay.

As for ZMOT setting up the FMOT - absolutely! The thing about today's FMOT is there are far fewer of them: customers do much more shopping online than in the past and only visit a dealer or two in person before they buy. All things being equal; the same car at the same price about the same distance from the customer, a few bad reviews could absolutely eliminate a dealer from consideration and 100 good reviews could seal an FMOT visit for another dealer.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

I've been pounding the table hard on this topic, ZMOT simply sets up FMOT.

FMOT RULES OUR BUSINESS.

Bad Review + Bad FMOT = Validation

Not sure anyone will ever know the exact number that can be pegged to lost or increased business due to ZMOT, but I would say it's better to err on the side of positive ZMOT. It's part of the secret sauce to success. This is one I would keep on the radar screen.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

View attachment 1031

Sure I might go look to see if the car is available. Let's say I find two of them at different dealers and then I notice one of the two has negative reviews, where do you think I am going first? 16% is still a big number!

The bigger the ticket, the more serious I take reviews.