Online reputation management for automotive sales professionals

As the hum drum of social media marches on across the auto industry, a new approach to selling cars on the web has begun emerging. I don’t know what it will be called but it is based on the idea of building brand equity into individual sales professionals working for an auto dealership, much like real estate agents are able to do with a Realtor.

You can see it in form on sites such as Carfolks.com and AutoConverse.com and also with providers such as dealerMouth which strives to be a complete online operating system for sales professionals. The idea is that people buy cars from people, not dealerships.

Dealership websites today are effective at converting in-market buyers into leads, however they are not conversational and there is little ability to establish rapport which seems to be a growing demand in the car business. This explains why networks such as Facebook have become so readily adopted by dealers.

The problem with sites such as Facebook is that it was not designed for people to do business with car dealers, rather it was designed for people to connect, engage, and share their lives with other friends, however close or distant they might be. Therefore, it has limited use for car dealers who must be conscientious of getting a good return on their time investment.

Enter websites for sales professionals. On Carfolks.com an automotive sales professional gets his own page which is associated with his or her dealership and all other staff from that dealership that are on the site. Customers can rate individual sales people and entire dealerships. Sales staff can use their page as a communication point with customers entering the buying funnel. On AutoConverse.com, members have a profile and can create unlimited merchant sites which they can use to cherry-pick potential customers from forum discussions.

Now while this idea might appear new in automotive internet marketing, the perpetuating need for it over the past many years has been apparent. I recall back in 2003 working with a dealer who wanted us to build him this capability, but the timing for it was just not right. Today, with social media in its hey day and automotive sales professionals bumping head on into its limitations as a sales tool, the timing for technology designed specifically for dealership personnel to conduct business in an online social environment is ripe.

Which leads us to how and why new tools such as this are important. It boils down to a couple things…

a.) Brand building and online reputation management, or word-of-mouth advertising
b.) Transaction-equipped interfaces that give dealers and customers an even playing field

In the video below, Carfolks.com founder Mark Dubis dives into the idea of word-of-mouth advertising by looking at how the review capability accessible to people on Google and Yahoo!, and DealerRater do not create a level playing field for dealerships, plus how by offering space for dealers to truly manage their own online reputation as it pertains to their role at a dealership, more accurate depictions of positive customers experiences can be recorded and incentify customers to share these experiences with others.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

Not until dealers have and use tools such as this, designed specifically for staff members at auto dealerships to connect with and engage customers through time, will the process of selling cars be any different from a decade ago. It’s time to think outside the box to gain a true competitive edge in today’s automotive digital marketplace.