CHICAGO -

People are talking via social media, there’s no doubt about that. For dealers and OEMs, managing that chat — along with customer review postings — is critical to business, and a new tool can help. 

Social media management firm SOCIALDEALER this week announced the addition of new features to its reputation management products that the company says can result help dealers monitor their reputations from multiple review sites, and have instant access to real-time customer feedback.

Updates to the SOCIALDEALER reputation dashboard include color-coding reviews in which positive reviews are shown in green, while negative comments are shown in red, to help dealers take immediate action for follow-up.

Also new, dealers can receive email notifications when a customer review is added to any major reputation site, including Yelp, Edmunds, Google, DealerRater and others, the company said.

“Having the ability to monitor and instantly respond to customer reviews is of vital importance to the overall health of a dealership in today’s market,” said Phil Penton, president of SOCIALDEALER.

“Many customers now make Google or Yelp their first stop before heading to the dealership. It’s imperative that dealerships make the best first impression they can on these review sites. With these new features we’re giving dealerships the tools to instantly post and promote good reviews while respond to and disarm the negative ones.”

The company also noted that dealers can now stream their reviews through the SOCIALDEALER platform and send them to individual Web pages for posting or internal communications.

SOCIALDEALER offers three different reputation management packages based on the needs of the user, including Reputation Monitoring, Reputation Pro and Reputation Management, in which SOCIALDEALER will completely manage the program, including responding to and soliciting reviews for the dealership.

OEMs Monitoring Online Reputations Too

In related news, Auto Remarketing reported earlier this month on General Motors’ focus on social media monitoring through its CARS program; short for Customer and Relationship Services Group.

Using Twitter and Facebook CARS performs text-based searches, with a variety of scenarios and “listening tools” feeding into GM to provide contacts for agents, the company reported.

Melody Blumenschein, social media manager for GM’s CARS, said agents also search for specific terms or phrases from a form or Web perspective, using a “robust algorithm-based tool that listens to and then serves up that information.”

As a result of its efforts, Blumenschein said GM has seen the number of customer interactions via social media rise to an average of nearly 9,000 per month.

“What we focus on is really reaching out proactively to customers who have questions about their vehicle,” said Blumenschein. “We’re doing it through the web, but we’re reaching out to them and saying, ‘Hey, we see you had a comment out here. We’re concerned and we want to help you.’”