WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. -

It was announced this morning that J.D. Power and Associates and DealerRater have entered an alliance in which the two companies will integrate each other’s capabilities to give dealers a deep base of shopper feedback and help stores drive stronger relationships with customers.

Under the alliance, DealerRater’s customer ratings and reviews of dealers will be blended with J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction data through J.D. Power’s customer experience management platform.

This will give dealers a side-by-side view of their online reputation (per DealerRater data) and survey-based customer feedback from J.D. Power.

When a customer receives an automotive survey from J.D. Power, once the questionnaire is finished, he or she will have the chance to post a rating and review of the dealership selling or servicing the car to the DealerRater website — and at that point, these public reviews from such customers will then be fed back into the J.D. Power platform for reporting on the dealer and OEM levels.

The integration gives dealers the chance to not only immediately respond to reviews and resolve concerns that crop up, but get a more firm grasp of how they’re viewed online. The companies say they have already started collaborating to generate consumer insights for dealers and automakers.

“We are excited to work with DealerRater to provide automakers and dealers with fast and comprehensive insights delivered through our new industry-leading online reporting platform,” said Mike Battaglia, senior director of automotive retail at J.D. Power.

“Where J.D. Power provides detailed operational information to manufacturers and dealers, DealerRater represents the magnified voice of customers across the Web in this age of social media,” he added. “Further, this relationship protects our clients by avoiding the potential intellectual property issues associated with scraping online social media content without permission.”

DealerRater founder and chief technology architect Chip Grueter said: “Our consumer-written reviews serve many purposes, which includes helping consumers find the best place to buy a car and enabling dealers to understand what their customers are looking for in the car-shopping experience.

“This integration will help make the process of gathering feedback easier for dealers and consumers by merging survey and review collection into one seamless process,” Grueter continued. “Publishing this valuable feedback on DealerRater will give car shoppers the resources they need to make a confident purchase decision, while pinpointing how dealers can meet consumer needs.

“In short, we can help foster better relationships between dealerships and their customers.”