Sit­u­at­ed in Walled Lake, Michi­gan, Shu­man Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram plays in a high­ly com­pet­i­tive mar­ket with approx­i­mate­ly 50% of their con­sumer base rep­re­sent­ing employ­ees or friends/family of employ­ees at the neigh­bor­ing Chrysler man­u­fac­tur­ing plant.

For years, Shu­man focused efforts on being a lead­ing deal­er in SSI and CSI; how­ev­er, the deal­er­ship soon began to real­ize that its online rep­u­ta­tion was tak­ing shape on its own by means of a hand­ful of unhap­py cus­tomers that were prone to pro­vide feed­back on third-par­ty online review sites.

Shu­man became inter­est­ed in Deal­er­Rater because of DealerRater’s exclu­sive focus on reviews of auto deal­ers and viewed Deal­er­Rater as a crit­i­cal means in estab­lish­ing Shuman’s dom­i­nant pres­ence over oth­er Detroit-area Chrysler deal­ers. The deal­er­ship quick­ly enrolled in the Deal­er­Rater® Cer­ti­fied Deal­er Pro­gram with the goal of becom­ing the top rat­ed Chrysler deal­er in Michi­gan.

The Approach

Shuman’s approach to man­ag­ing their online rep­u­ta­tion allows for the occa­sion­al neg­a­tive review. Shu­man invites all cus­tomers to post on Deal­er­Rater, whether it reflects a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence. “We firm­ly believe that our cred­i­bil­i­ty and dom­i­nance on Deal­er­Rater has grown because we are not afraid to have a neg­a­tive post here and there,” says Shu­man. “It only lends cred­i­bil­i­ty to the hun­dreds of pos­i­tive reviews that we have built.”

When neg­a­tive reviews appear on Deal­er­Rater, the deal­er­ship con­sis­tent­ly responds in a way that direct­ly address­es the customer’s com­plaint.

The Result

Cus­tomers now often walk into the deal­er­ship show­room indi­cat­ing that they chose to work with Shu­man based on the reviews that they have read on Deal­er­Rater.

With word about Deal­er­Rater reach­ing many of Shuman’s core mar­ket through the dealer’s diverse mar­ket­ing cam­paign, Shu­man has built its online rep­u­ta­tion into a crit­i­cal com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in the Detroit Chrysler mar­ket.

Uti­liz­ing DealerRater’s Push tool, Shu­man has grown its review count on oth­er third-par­ty review sites, in addi­tion to Deal­er­Rater. Shuman’s sat­is­fied cus­tomers have been shar­ing their Deal­er­Rater reviews on oth­er review sites like Google+ and Cars.com, giv­ing the deal­er­ship an even greater online pres­ence with­out specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing those sites.

For more infor­ma­tion on how the Deal­er­Rater Cer­ti­fied Deal­er Program’s rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment tools can make your deal­er­ship No. 1, please vis­it our web­site today! Read the full arti­cle here.