The importance of reviews for dealers

How important are customer reviews to shoppers? Very important, as it turns out.

Depending on the research source, in the UK, between 70% and 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their car purchase and dealer selection decisions. In short, potential buyers see what kind of experience others have had with a dealer, which helps to inform their choices. Crucially, it is not just the car people want to trust, it is also the dealer and reviews can help.

MotoNovo’s market-leading performance on Trustpilot is an important ‘proof point’ for dealers when talking about finance with customers. The Excellent rating and the significant volume of reviews is a compelling message.

Some key insights on consumers' use of reviews:

• 75% of consumers consider the average star rating when reading reviews; however, 53% don’t trust star ratings alone as much as they do ratings accompanied by written reviews.
• Three-quarters of consumers consider how recently reviews were written. Just over 70% want to access reviews written within the last month.
• The quantity of reviews is essential; 62% say that they’d be able to find at least 26 reviews for a given product in an ideal world.
• 5 out of 5 ratings can be too good to be true - 45% of consumers view such ratings as suspicious.

Negative reviews have a crucial role to play

• 95% of consumers in the UK seek out negative reviews. Reading negative reviews doesn’t guarantee a shopper will pass up a product. There’s actually a 120.3% lift in conversion when site visitors filter to see only one-star reviews on a product. How well a company responds to a negative review on a review site is all-important. No action is a negative; a positive response is a significant builder of trust if, overall a business’ reviews are positive.

Google Reviews

One of the most commonly used review sites is Google reviews. Encouraging customers to complete a review here is a win/win situation for all dealers. The quality and quantity of reviews on Google is one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO. When a potential customer searches for a local product or service on Google, business listings that include customer reviews present greater credibility and, naturally, receive more clicks throughs.