When asked about online reviews, buy-here, pay-here dealers typically offer one of these six responses. Here they are in random order:

1. Our customers don’t read online reviews.

2. There is nothing we can do about it because the BHPH customer is quick to complain.

3. We ask for customer reviews, but we have not had much success.

4. We used to ask, then we gave up.

5. We are doing pretty good because we only have “X” negative reviews.

6. We don’t have any reviews at all, and that is a good thing, right?

Evidence to the Contrary

Denial is not a river in Egypt, as they say.

A dealer who says they may have already given up desperately wants to believe that reviews are irrelevant. There is a chance that your customers do not read online reviews because the people that do read online reviews choose not to do business with you because of your negative reviews.

You may be someone that believes online reviews are irrelevant because you know your dealership treats people right despite the negative reviews. How people are treated at your dealership and the perception of how they are treated may be opposites. You may not read reviews when you are searching online for something to buy. It is important to realize the difference in how you think and how your customer thinks. Your customer has an entirely different mindset than you do.

Dimensional Research did a study in 2013 and found that 88 percent said their buying decision is influenced by online reviews. This was not a study just for car buyers but one could argue that the more important the purchase, the more a customer will research for the purchase — meaning online reviews could matter even more.

In June of 2013, Search Engine Land published an article that revealed a shocking statistic: 79 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

So not only do customers read reviews, but they also trust online reviews.

More trust leads to a faster, smoother sales process and more effective marketing and advertising.

More Than Just Complainers

“There is nothing we can do about it because the BHPH customer is quick to complain.”

There is no argument with the second half of that statement. However, just because you haven’t found a solution does not mean one does not exist.

Simply asking customers to write a review is not the answer because you need a mechanism to filter out the unhappy customers or complainers. It is buy-here, pay-here, and you will get complaints. The trick is to keep the complaining internal while you get the positive feedback posted publicly.

I am not suggesting you do anything unethical or illegal such as posting fake reviews or even posting reviews on behalf of someone else. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it as you will read about momentarily.

Not Much Success

It is a challenge. You are asking the customer to do something in addition to giving you money. If you are asking the customer to write a review as a favor to you, their thought might be, “I did you a favor when I gave you my money.”

Asking for reviews without any filter to weed out the unhappy customers is also a gamble because without a system, it may take one hundred happy customers to write the same amount of reviews as one unhappy customer.

Giving Up

You may have fallen victim to successfully promoting unhappy customers, and their negative reviews or frustration got to you.

After reading this article, hopefully you will consider trying again with a better plan because you realize the importance of online reviews and how it can speed up the sales process and maximize your advertising/marketing dollars.

Small Amount of Negative Reviews

More than once, I have had a dealer tell me how many thousands of vehicles they have sold, and a handful of negative reviews is a good overall percentage.

Buyers do not know that you have sold thousands of vehicles. All they know is what is right in front of them. If you have four online reviews and two are negative, all the potential customer can see is 50 percent of your customers are unhappy.

If you are not using a system that helps you earn positive reviews on a regular basis and you have a recent negative review, it may cost you some sales if that review is front and center for the next two weeks (or however long it takes you to get four or five more positive reviews, causing that negative review to disappear off the screen).

No Reviews At All

We don’t have any reviews at all so that’s OK, right?

No. It’s dangerous. If and when you get a negative review you could end up with 100 percent negative reviews.

Plus, if you are an ambitious entrepreneur that wants to maximize every opportunity to increase your profits, you should boost your positive online reviews.

Furthermore, online reviews and the yellow stars that go with them are the only way to stand out on the local search results page after someone goes searching for a dealer in your area.

Type in “used-car dealer” or something similar into Google. There will be approximately three to seven dealers listed. They will all have their name, address and phone number displayed. They are all in a similar area so geography doesn’t differentiate one dealer from another.

Your dealership name doesn’t mean much to them unless they are already your customer, so the only thing left to help the buyer choose a dealer is the number of online reviews and the reviews rating.

Seven Recommendations

Here are some suggestions to consider:

—Don’t set up a computer or tablet in your dealership, and have customers write reviews from there. Google and other review sites can detect the IP address — giving less importance to the reviews. They may even get deleted.

—Don’t hire someone to do fake reviews. That is fraud, and there have already been prosecutions.

—Don’t post reviews on behalf of your customers even if they say it is OK. It may not be illegal, but this practice will get you in hot water with Google and the other major powers online.

—Don’t go another day without a system. It affects ALL of your marketing and advertising. A large percentage of people Google you AFTER seeing an ad or after being referred to you. The reviews are unavoidable as explained earlier in the article.

—Do use a system that allows you to intercept negative feedback before it is publicly displayed as online graffiti for all the world to see.

—Do use a system that aids in transforming the positive feedback into positive online reviews.

—Do use a system that enables you to earn positive reviews from various IP addresses, frequently, over time.

Kenny Atcheson is the president of Dealer Profit Pros. Get his free special report: “Review Power for Buy-Here, Pay-Here dealers” at http://dealerprofitpros.com/bhph-review-system/.