ORLANDO, Fla. -

Do things like star ratings and likes on Facebook really make a difference? With companies stressing the importance of online reputation management at the NADA Conference and Expo this past weekend, a DealerRater/Polk joint study aims to reveal what will most affect potential online leads.

The new study finds that dealers with higher average online star ratings enjoy higher increases in vehicles sales.

Based on study findings, dealers with an average star rating of 4.0 or higher had a 25 percent greater increase in sales compared to dealerships with an average star rating of 2.0 or less over the study period (Jan–Sep 2012 compared to Jan–Sep 2011).

On the other hand, dealers with an average star rating of two or less underperformed the average sample set, according to the study results.

Judging from the results, the company contends “reviews drive business” on its site, in particular.

“DealerRater and Polk have worked together to bring greater insight into the effect of an auto dealership's average star ratings on new vehicle sales,” said Brad Korner, vice president, sales and client services, automotive retail and media solutions with Polk.

“We work with automotive marketing decision makers to help them understand and measure market performance at the OEM and dealer level. After viewing every slice of this study data, we are very confident that it looked at dealers in a fair and equitable manner.  The powerful and meaningful insight gained from this study finally puts some hard data behind the strong influence of online consumer reviews,” he continued.

Perhaps an interesting approach to such a study, dealership ratings and reviews from DealerRater's database were matched up with new vehicle registration data from Polk.

Polk analysts then investigated and reviewed the changes in registrations over several time periods, officials shared.

The companies revealed the study findings at the NADA Conference and Expo in Orlando, Fla., this past weekend.

During the presentation, DealerRater execs also touched on a few more stats that may prove particularly interesting to new and used dealers.

—75 percent of all in-market consumers conduct research on the Internet before walking into a dealership (data from J.D. Power and Associates.)

—89 percent of car buyers go online to verify recommendations before purchasing a vehicle (data from Cone study 2011)

—Four out of five consumers do not move ahead with a purchase based on negative reviews (Cone study 2011).

Editor's Note: Online reputation management was a hot topic at the NADA Conference and Expo. Stay tuned to Auto Remarketing for more on this subject.

 

Sarah Rubenoff can be reached at srubenoff@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.