WALTHAM, Mass. -

The thing about Millennials is, they can sniff out insincerity pretty easily.

That’s why when it comes to the dealership experience — be it online, in reviews or at the store — a transparent and genuine approach is the best route.

As the chief executive officer of DealerRater, Gary Tucker has his finger on the pulse of what shapes satisfaction in the customer experience with this and other generations — and he shared some of these insights with Auto Remarketing, particularly as it relates to Millennials and their car-shopping behaviors.

“I think to all consumers that rely on third-party reviews or user-generated content, both overtly and subconsciously, they’re looking for genuine feedback from consumers like them,” Tucker told Auto Remarketing in an August interview.

Millennials “have been just marketed to from sunrise to sundown their entire lives,” he said.

“They’re especially astute at perceiving genuine content online, and not being misled or confused by somebody who is trying to represent their dealership as delivering a great experience, when it really doesn’t,” Tucker said.

In other words, not much gets past Generation Y, which Tucker said is “just far more active with user-generated content — and there is research that says they’re far more trusting of user-generated content.”

For instance, he pointed out a social influence research paper done through a partnership between Ipsos MediaCT, Crowdtap and the Social Media Advertising Consortium that examined how Millennials viewed media.

One big takeaway, Tucker said, was that Millennials trust user-generated content 50 percent more than other forms of media.

“There is both a perceived and real higher level of trust that consumers put into third-party reviews when they’re done in a way that’s trustworthy, with high integrity and when they can put confidence in the process,” Tucker said.

Another bit of research Tucker mentioned was the “Local Consumer Review Survey 2014” from SEO firm BrightLocal, which indicates that 88 percent of local consumers (Millennial or otherwise) put as much trust in an online review as they would in a personal recommendation.

Or as Tucker puts it: the chat you used to have with your neighbor, standing in the driveway and checking out the new car, has now moved to online third-party reviews.

So, transition that to the dealership lot: what are the dealers with top review scores doing in the showroom to merit such strong online reputations?

Tucker explains that it has a lot to do with the evolution in the car-shopping process itself. More and more car shoppers are conducting their research at home — and this is particularly evident among Millennials. He also pointed out various research that indicates the number of dealerships shoppers, in general, visit these days has dropped from five just a few years ago to less than two now, according to some industry observers.  

“So, they are doing a lot of research online, starting with the car and the brand of the car. They’re doing a lot of research online to determine what’s a fair price to pay for that car,” Tucker said. “Increasingly, they’re doing research online around which dealership to visit, and even going a level below that, which salesperson to ask for when they get to the dealership.

“So throughout that entire process, expectations are being built for an experience that’s being represented in all those different places where the consumer is doing their research,” he continued. “And a dealership that does it really well delivers on that expectation; they’ve got consistent in-store process and experience and culture that lives up to the experience that the consumer went through in the online research process.

“I think increasingly for Millennials, that's having salespeople that are prepared to inform and educate the buyers about the technology that’s in the vehicles and being prepared for a far more educated consumer in the sense of the amount of research that they’ve done on their purchase prior to setting foot in the showroom.”

And once they do, chances are they already know what they want. In fact, 70 percent purchase the car they had in mind when they stepped on the lot, versus 66 percent of all car buyers, a recent study from AutoTrader.com indicated.

Similar to what Tucker emphasized, AutoTrader vice president of research and market intelligence Isabelle Helms said that because of this pre-dealership decisiveness, a Millennial consumer needs a consultant on the lot who can provide a vehicle walk-through, particularly with the advancing technology in today’s cars.

“We know that over the last few years, consumers are visiting fewer dealerships during the shopping process. Today the average car-buyer visits 2.5 dealers. And as this research tells us, 70 percent of Millennials know what make/model they want and end up purchasing that make/model when they walk in to the dealership,” Helms told Auto Remarketing in an interview to discuss AutoTrader’s 2014 Automotive Buyers Influence Study this summer.

“So the dealership experience has to evolve with that.  The consumer is educated; they know what they want.  And when they visit they dealership, it’s all about the test-drive experience. It’s the test drive of the vehicle, but more importantly, it’s also the test drive of the technology,” she added. “So finding folks at the dealership that can showcase this technology and answer some of the more technical questions that they may have is something that dealerships need to be prepared to address with car-buyers. “

There are so many differences in the in-vehicle technology from model to model, the dealer needs to be able to answer the questions the shopper is bound to have for the specific car he or she has chosen, Helms said. For instance, can the driver connect their devices with the in-car technology? What are the steps toward using the technology?

“What’s interesting is, consumers aren’t walking into dealerships anymore wanting to look and explore the various makes and models,” Helms said. “It’s, ‘No, I want this make/model and I want to learn more about the car. I want you to answer the questions for me that I couldn’t get answers to on my own by searching the Internet.’”

And then when it comes to the online experience (for Millennials and others), Tucker recommends that dealers make information on their websites readily available and easy to find and “meet the customer where they are.”

Additionally, be sure to showcase and explain what makes your dealership unique: explain what’s in your inventory that would meet the shopper’s needs, and provide information on other peripheral services you offer. And make your site easy to navigate.

“Whether you’re talking about Millennials or really any generation, their expectations are being shaped every day by other consumer experiences.  And I think for Millennials the most often referred to comparison is the Apple store,” he said. “They (Millennials) have a consumer experience benchmark, and they’re constantly comparing all different aspects of their consumer life to that benchmark.”

The successful dealers, he said, are the ones who provide easily accessible and easily navigable information for the customer, so that he or she can find the data they need on a car without any fuss.

But say a dealer has a lower-than-desired online reputation score. What steps should they take?

Tucker says the foundation of a strong review or rating comes from a good experience, which is “the hard work that’s done every day in the dealership,” he said.

“And we know that It is hard work to consistently deliver a great experience,” Tucker added.

But he did offer three best practices for dealers to follow to help generate stronger reviews:

  • Ask for stories from customers to provide greater detail and context of their experience at your store.
  • Have photographs of your staff on your website as well as your DealerRater page
  • Instill a culture of embracing transparency. Celebrate good reviews, post them on the walls of your store, but also engage with your staff about negative ones, as well. Communicate with the customer and figure out what the cause of dissatisfaction was — and learn from it.

 “There is still a minority of dealers that have completely embraced transparency, and they’re genuinely seeking to build trust with their prospective and current customers through a spirit of transparency. These guys are prominently featuring review content in their advertising, on their websites, in their showroom, at their salespeople’s desks — and promoting this notion that you’re going to have a good experience at our dealership and we’re so confident of that, we want you to hear about it from other consumers,” Tucker said.

“They’re fully embracing that participation from all their customers, both on the show floor side and the service side,” he continued.  “And, essentially, the other part of that story is, you really can’t promote a positive experience unless you’re delivering one.

“We know that it’s difficult to deliver a great customer experience in the showroom, but for those dealers that have good process and good people and are consistently delivering a positive experience, that proactive promotion of transparency through ratings and reviews is something that they can leverage very effectively in the marketplace.”