Company Press Release

DealerRater Launches New Solutions to Help Dealers Grow Their Referral Business Through the Power of Social Media and Manage Review Response to Save Time and Drive More Sales

New Social Referral feature enables dealers to harness the power of social to turn happy customers into a referral system, while AutoResponse delivers real-time, customized review responses to build dealer engagement and connections

WALTHAM, Mass. – February 12, 2020 – DealerRater, a CARS Inc. (NYSE: CARS) company and the world's leading car dealer review website, announced today two new features to its popular reputation management platform, which helps dealers grow their reputation by accelerating, automating and managing their review generation to share with an audience of millions. Social Referral is a new feature of the company’s core DealerRater Connections solution that allows dealers to earn more customers through the power of social media. In addition, a brand-new offering, AutoResponse, provides customized, real-time review responses to a dealer’s customer reviews to drive dealership efficiency and boost SEO. The new solutions will be previewed at the 2020 National Automobile Dealers Association Show in Las Vegas from Feb. 14-17.

Social Referral invites dealerships’ happy customers to promote their experience to their social networks after they submit a review. The customer’s social post features the profile of the salesperson or service advisor they worked with and links back to that employee’s page on DealerRater. Dealers can set up a referral bonus program to further encourage consumers to promote their employees and track referral lead activity through the DealerRater platform.

“In the auto business, referrals drive not only the highest close rate among all types of leads, they also require less effort, less cost and have a higher gross. And in an age when everyone is sharing experiences and discovering businesses through social networks, Social Referral gives dealers a powerful opportunity to drive referrals directly from the people who trust their dealership most — their own employees and happy customers,” said Jamie Oldershaw, president of DealerRater.

AutoResponse, another new solution to be unveiled at NADA, provides customized, real-time review responses to a dealer’s customer reviews, which helps build a dealer’s reputation, engage with customers and generate unique digital content for the dealership. This also helps increase a dealership’s SEO footprint on the sites that matter, including Google, Facebook, DealerRater and Cars.com. 

Recent research found that 97% of customers said they read responses to reviews — not just the reviews — when determining where to buy, and 71%  of consumers are more likely to use a business that responds to reviews.¹

Oldershaw added, “Great customer experiences lead to repeat business, organic referrals and long-term relationships, which why it is so important for dealerships to respond to every review — both positive and negative. But it can be a time-consuming effort. AutoResponse takes the guesswork out of managing review responses so that dealers can focus on selling and servicing more cars.”

For more information on Social Referral and AutoResponse, visit Cars.com-Dealer Inspire-DealerRater booth #3577C at the NADA Show 2020.

¹BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey, December 2019


ABOUT DEALERRATER
Founded in 2002, DealerRater, a Cars.com Company, is the world's leading car dealer review website that connects consumers with the right person at the right dealership. The site offers more than 6 million sales and service reviews across 42,000 U.S. and Canadian dealerships, including a network of more than 5,000 Certified Dealers. DealerRater content has a reachable audience of more than 34 million consumers across the web each month. By offering a product suite that allows qualified dealerships to manage their reputations and achieve higher SEO rankings, DealerRater supports new customer connections by growing online presence.