Survey – Internet Reviews for your Shop

[jgibson]

This can be a real challenge for shop owners…finding the time to search the multitude of major and local search sites as well as third party review sites to find out what people are saying about your business. The reality is, in most cases, people are talking about your business online and it’s really important that you know what they are saying and where the discussion is taking place. I would encourage you all to do some searches and see what you find out there. In today’s search heavy society, it is critical that you are aware of and working to improve your online reputation. Remember, that’s where people are searching for your business.

If you don’t have time to do it on your own, please use a third party company to do it for you. Some of the companies that provide review services can give you a report that shows you all of your online reviews in one place while helping get good reviews published to the Web for you. The bottom line is that people are basing their service decision on peer reviews, and if you’re not represented well, they may choose your competition.

Joe Gibson

[Jon]

I try to check every few weeks. 18 on google and 3 on yelp.

[joecval]

We have a service with customerlink to monitor the web for reviews about us. They send us weekly updates. Since I advertise (just a little) in the the yellowbook I also am enrolled in their reputation program. I think it’s called chatter hub, they send monthly updates.

> How many reviews are there currently for your shop:

>

> ___2__ Google

>

> _27____ Other sites http://reviews.customerlink.com/biz/auto-safety-center-west-bend

[John Bamford]

Joe is on point about checking and not only reviews but your Facebook pages, linked in pages, etc. I know of two shops that had some VERY un-seemly pictures posted their FaceBook pages. Also know of one that had a disgruntled former employee post on their Facebook page. It can be handled.

You almost have to check daily.

John Bamford

Automated Marketing Group

Auto Profit Masters

[gcauto]

I check our online reviews monthly. I also update our website monthly with any customer testimonials. We have 1 bad review from a former customer on his personal website. Any other reviews I personally respond to monthly.

4 reviews on Google

3 reviews on Yahoo

1 review on Angie’s List

[jmanchester]

You may also want to consider setting up Google Alerts for your company name, DBA name, your personal name or any variation of a search term that may be used to describe your business.

[gcauto]

Thanks for the advice Jennifer, I’m looking into that today!

[ronhaugen]

I check the reviews weekly as well as test all of our internet marketing, website, etc. to make sure it all functions as designed.

We have 58 reivews on Google and hundreds on many other sites. I focus mainly on Google as that is where the bulk of people are. Rarely will someone go to a directory site to find something.

Great tip Jennifer, Google Alerts will assist in keeping tabs on internet mentions of you. It doesn’t catch everything, but can sure help.

[easauto]

Jennifer,

Did that a while ago, someone suggested that in a seminar I was at. Also keep in mind with the new I phone 4S , that if the customer uses the Siri voice activated assistant will skip Google entirely so it is very important to increase your SEO results on major search engines.

[John Shanderuk]

28 google

Hundreds elswhere

[Alan Ollie]

24-7 we have close to 1000 reviews .

Check out this one that we got today.

She found us on yelp.

She gave us the best yelp review

I know that this is a repair shop, but they also sell a few VWs and it

was the first place I went that didn’t try to push me to get a car

totally took their time with me. ONLY place that gave me a 30 day

warranty on a used car, made sure any little problems were taken care

of before handing it over even little things like 2 of the VW logos

were missing off of the rims and they made sure to replace them. All

maintenance records were readily available I didn’t even have to ask.

Like an idiot the day after I bought it, since I wasn’t used to the

handling of a german car and was in an extremely tight parallel spot, I

hit the guy in front of me. After crying half the morning about my

stupidity I emailed them (it was a Sunday) and Alan got back to me like

within the hour. Monday morning as soon as the shop opened I had more

emails from Luis being like its ok we can fix it don’t worry (I broke

one of the reflector lights off). Any other place would have been like

“oh well” but not German Car Depot.

Seriously I’ll be taking my car there for any service now that I have

it and am more than willing to drive from south beach to hollywood to

do so. PLUS they have a drop box so you can leave your car there at

night in case you can’t bring it in the morning. I can not say enough

good things about how they have treated me, honestly, I can’t remember

ever getting service and kindness like this from any business, car shop

or other. I was so nervous being it was the first time I was buying a

car out of state without help from my parents mechanic and they made me

totally comfortable.

[northtown-auto]

16 positive google

12 others

6 yelp

but this one past emplyee keeps puting bogus reviews out there for past 2 yrs.Its very transparent and obvious and its getting very old.

[sanfordsauto]

Olie,

That was a great review! It even made me feel good!