Dealership reviews will now be available on AutoTrader.com.  

As part of a partnership between AutoTrader and DealerRater announced Tuesday, consumer-generated ratings and reviews of dealerships done through DealerRater will be integrated into dealer profile pages on AutoTrader.com. That starts this month, the companies said.

Additionally, a shopper can click a “Rate & Review This Dealer” button while browsing cars on AutoTrader.com. When the consumer clicks that button, he or she is directed to the “Write a Review” page on DealerRater.com, where the shopper can then grade the dealer on customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience. 

After the shopper submits the content, DealerRater’s content integrity team reviews and verifies the material before it hits the Web.

“The car buying process can be boiled down to three key steps: finding the right vehicle, understanding the appropriate pricing and choosing a dealership that delivers an exceptional customer experience across all departments,” said Jared Rowe, president of AutoTrader.com. “The addition of DealerRater reviews to AutoTrader.com will provide shoppers with streamlined access to the resources they need to make confident decisions while enabling our dealer customers to gauge and enhance their service levels.”

The program allows dealers — including those who are subscribed to DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program and those who are not — to post their DealerRater reviews on AutoTrader.com.

However, the DealerRater Certified Dealers get this benefit: if there is a shopper who submits an unsatisfactory review, the dealer gets a two-week reconciliation period in which the store can communicate with the shopper and resolve the issue prior to the review’s publishing.

Once that two-week time frame ends — and provided the customer has not edited or removed the review — it is published on both DealerRater.com and AutoTrader.com.

Sharing his thoughts on the partnership, DealerRater chief executive officer Gary Tucker said:  “This partnership reinforces how critical online dealer reviews are in today’s car shopping process. Each day, more than a thousand car buyers write a DealerRater review, and their opinions about their dealership sales and service experience are invaluable referrals for other car shoppers.

“Written by consumers for consumers, DealerRater reviews help guide car shoppers to the best dealerships, and also allow auto dealers to reach a higher level of trust with car shoppers through transparency,” he said.

Tucker added: “We’re excited to put more than 1.6 million dealer reviews at AutoTrader.com customers’ fingertips, as well as help our Certified Dealers continue evaluating and improving their customer service experience.” 

Auto Remarketing talked with Tucker this summer about transparency in the digital auto marketplace and how it relates to Millennials. That story, plus related content from an interview with AutoTrader vice president of research and market intelligence Isabelle Helms, can be found in the Oct. 1 digital edition of Auto Remarketing. 

AutoTrader indicated that DealerRater is its first partner in this initiative. When asked by Auto Remarketing if there was a possibility for expansion or additional partners, the official response from Rowe provided by the company was this: “There is the possibility for additional partners, as we believe very strongly in dealer choice.”