I’m no mathematician. No math was injured (or used) in the making of this blog. This is my opinion. There is a devastatingly harmful effect of bad reviews. No dealership likes to receive bad reviews, and over the years, enough data has been collected to determine the worse a company’s reviews, the less action they receive from their Google Business Page. There is a clear correlation between bad reviews and your success (or lack thereof). Here is the “maths” as I see it.
For every 1-star review your dealership receives, it likely prevents you from receiving 3-5 calls/leads.
For every FIVE 1-star reviews your dealership receives, it costs you a sale. (Depending on the severity of what is written within a single 1-star review, it could cost you a sale per negative review).
For every 1-star review your dealership receives for the Service Department, it costs you two potential service appointments.
For every 1-star review your dealership receives, you need to overcome it with 10 5-star reviews. (This helps to maintain your overall review score in Google as well).
For every 1-star review that you respond back to, find a way to assuage the customer’s concerns, and get them to update or provide an additional response stating the situation has been resolved, it is worth FIVE 5-star reviews. (Yes, this is “Joe Math” as I don’t think this kind of analysis has ever been performed, or even can be, but let’s stick with my formula.)
For every 1-star review you are able to correct with the customer and convince them to take down, well then you just saved yourself a sale (or bought yourself 3-5 leads/calls. This means it pays to get reviews removed by the customer.)
For every 5-star review you receive, it is fine to have A.I. or a reputation management company respond back positively with a ‘thanks’.
For every 1-star review you receive, a person with a vested interest in the store should take it upon themselves to write back and spearhead the response online, and also get with those involved in the customer experience to identify who is handling this case moving forward.
5-star reviews should be shared with the entire team every day to build pride in the organization, so everyone can see each other’s successes.
Bad reviews should be shared only across the management team (be it sales or service) so they know what needs to be addressed, and devise a way to either overcome or correct.
This is my math. It isn’t based in science, analytics, or… well, math. But it is based on experience. Bad reviews hurt lead generation and turn away potential sales and service business. Putting a process in place to acknowledge, respond, address, overcome, and eliminate bad reviews has a financial value for the store. It’s math. And it’s time to recalculate your process.
