[Webinar Transcript from February 2023]
Hi everybody. Welcome to the webinar today. Thanks for jumping on. We're going to talk today a little bit about Google Reviews. We're going to talk about texting for dealerships. Let's dive right in.
We are based outside of Salt Lake City. We're a text messaging platform for auto dealers throughout North America. We were founded by dealers, built for dealers, more than 6,000 dealers use Kenect. Recently listed as one of the fastest growing companies two years in a row, which is a big honor. We also recently completed the acquisition of Friendemic, who you have probably heard of in the automotive world, have a lot of different partners that they work with on a regular basis. You can also see the dealers that we work with, Powersports, Equipment, Marine, RV and Auto. And some of our integration partners, Vin Solutions, CDK eLead, Lizzy, Total Control, HubSpot.
Four things to learn about Kenect. To communicate efficiently, we allow you basically to turn your main dealer number into a textable line to generate new leads, to collect payments, and to manage your online reputation. This is a quote from a dealer. He says, "We used to call customers, but 75% of the time they wouldn't answer back. So, we text them and they immediately text back."
We found that 89% of consumers say they'd prefer to interact with a business via text message rather than a phone call. 98% of all text messages are opened. 95% of those are read within three minutes. Bottom line is it's a great way to communicate with your customers. Top eight ways auto dealers are using Kenect. Top eight ways auto dealers are using Kenect, scheduling appointments, setting automated reminders, sending status updates, sending target warranty reminders, collecting payments as well. It's just a great tool.
Can also use Facebook and Instagram messaging and Messenger that will allow you to send and receive messages to and from Facebook and Instagram. Those Instagram and Facebook messages will go straight into your Kenect texting inbox. This looks and feels a lot like an email inbox, but it's for texting, so you have the ability to send and receive text messages, send and receive Facebook and Instagram messages as well directly from this inbox. You can also download the Kenect mobile app. So you can send and receive text messages directly from your phone. You can send pictures, you can request payments, you can schedule messages, you can request reviews. You can do all sorts of things on the Kenect Mobile app.
So what are they? First, the primary method for customers to share feedback about businesses. Customers, or really anyone using Google, can review your business and leave a star rating. These reviews can be just star ratings. They can be long or short, and Google does not verify to ensure that they are actually your customer. I think that's really important. How about Google My Business? So GMB allows you to put basic and verified information about your business on the internet. It's used by Google as the central location for verified information about your dealership. And it can also be used for engaging with clients in attracting modes. Your GMB page generally receives five times more views than your actual website. It's a location where reviews are left and housed, and it allows your business to show up in Google results and on Google Maps.
You can also claim your GMB profile. This is really important. You can search your business on Google. Google will then display what it knows about your business. You'll be prompted to log into your Gmail account. You click manage now, and then Google will ask for confirmation, phone, email, postcard, et cetera.
Why are we focused on them? Why do we worry about them? Well, the reason is because they matter to your customers. 93% of customers use reviews as the first step in choosing a dealership. 91% of customers trust online reviews as much as they would trust a personal recommendation. 87% of customers won't consider a dealership with low online reviews. That's why they matter so much. They matter to your customers. Reason number two is because they matter to Google. 97% of people go to Google and they want to find a dealership. Google determines the order in which these dealerships are listed based on ratings and reviews. That's how Google determines the order of the dealerships.
Why does Google care so much about reviews? Well, simply they have one job. That job is to produce the result the searcher wants to see. That's their job. To produce the result the searcher wants to see. How to deal with negative reviews. So here's a few ideas. First of all, how common are they? It's about one in 50 reviews are negative. Tips for avoiding them. You can't really avoid them. You can reduce them, you can mitigate them, but avoiding them is tough. Avoiding them is really, really tough. So make sure you know that. Avoiding these reviews is very difficult, simply because some people are just going to be cranky and leave you bad reviews. What not to do when you get a bad review? What you should not do is do the thing that you probably want to do the most, and that is light them up and tell them why they're wrong. That's probably what you should not do. What should you do when you get a bad review? What you should do is respond, but respond respectfully.
The key is to bury private reviews with good ones. So you can bury private reviews with good ones, and that is the best strategy to deal with negative reviews. If your negative review strategy is simply to just respond to every negative review, that won't work. You've got to bury the bad reviews with good ones. Will Google take those down? So if you have solid enough evidence that a review is fake, you can flag it in Google. Google considers the following characteristics to be inappropriate. So if it contains offensive language or profanity, if it's written by someone with a conflict of interest, if it's written by someone who never experienced a service or product before, how can you get more positive reviews?
Well, you can build a process to ask. So who do you ask? How do you ask? When do you ask? And then most important is number two, which is determinant owner for the process. So compensate that owner. Ask in the right way. You can email, get a 1 to 2% response rate. You can text get a 35 to 45% response rate. You can send a text message. It's going to look like this. The customer will select the review site and then post the review the steps of success with online reviews. Take control. Don't let the angry customers determine your online reputation. You've got to get your great customers to leave reviews.
Be aggressive with this, it's really important to be aggressive. And then text us 888-972-7422. We'd love to work with you. I think this would be a great fit for your dealership. Thanks again everybody.