What is the difference between an idea and a business? Action. If you don’t take any action on your idea, it remains just an idea. If you do take action, you have the potential of growing a business. Chip Grueter, the President of DealerRater.com is a doer.
Car shopping can be a tricky business, and that is something which DealerRater.com has recognized. Positive, as well as negative, car dealership experiences are welcome. Dealers who want to defend themselves against anything negative may also do so. Unlike many sites that only feature a one sided view to a situation, DealerRater.com has been able to give both sides their say, leaving the reader the ability to decide for themselves.
What good is an interesting story without sharing it with others? Chip has taken the time to answer a few of our questions about his website and tell us a little more about what they offer.
What inspired you to create DealerRater.com?
I love cars. I love driving them and I love talking about them. In 2001, when I went to purchase my first new car, I had two polarizing experiences with two different dealerships. One was an extremely positive experience and one was an extremely negative experience. I was so happy to have found a local dealership that made car buying fun and exciting, that I logged online to write about it. However, at the time, there was no forum to share this experience. I took the next few months and created a Beta version of www.dealerrater.com. My goal was to have DealerRater.com committed to providing a central collection point for informative reviews. This is still our most important business purpose.
Besides Dealer Reviews, what else can be found on your website?
Besides our collection of over 60,000 user generated dealer reviews, we offer many features for website users and car dealerships. Dealership may respond to reviews publicly for free. We offer free classified ads where anyone can post their vehicle to sell.. Our classified ads feed into the Google Shopping site as well as our partner car news site AutoSpies.com. We have offered this free classified ad system since 2005. In 2007, we added in the ability for people to write reviews about their cars. So now you can find out information about your dealership and the car or cars you want to test drive. Users may submit requests for vehicle searches. These leads are broadcast to dealerships in our Certified Dealer Program. In September 2008, we added the Car Recall Database. This feature offers DealerRater.com users the ability to search our database for vehicle recalls or service bulletins about their vehicle.
What changes has DealerRater.com seen since it was first launched?
The biggest change has been in the importance user’s place on peer generated reviews. Many of these changes are sited in a recent J.D. Power and Associates article http://www.autonews.com/article/20081016/ANA05/810160298
Dealerships have become more online savvy and many now have internal programs to encourage customers to write reviews, to have staff monitor all reviews, and to respond to negative reviews. Dealerships realize that third party review websites are a very valuable marketing tool to build their online reputation. This awareness by users and dealerships did not exist six years ago.
Do you have any specific goals you would still like to meet over the coming years?
We would like DealerRater.com to be the primary information source for car buying consumers. As we add more features to the DealerRater.com site, we provide a greater breadth of information that helps to inform the consumer. We have also built the website to support other English speaking countries and we look forward to expanding into these countries.
What do you think your visitors enjoy most when they visit the website?
We have worked really hard over the last six years making sure our website is as easy to use as possible. Search plays a major role in everyone’s online life, so we have spent most of marketing efforts making sure that when someone searches for a specific dealership on a search engine, our site is also listed at the top of the results page. This gives the consumer the ability to quickly research that dealership and other dealerships in their area. Once that consumer has hit our website, we make it very easy for them to find reviews, classified ads and car dealers.
Have you always thought you’d end up running a business related to the car industry? What do you enjoy most about taking the leap into this area?
I don’t think growing up I thought I’d be running a business in the car industry, but I knew back then I wanted to do something involving cars. Since Formula One never panned out for me, this has been a pretty good backup plan! Building a company from the ground up has been an incredible experience. Hand picking the best and the brightest to work next to you — and having them share the same goals – is amazing. What we enjoy most about the dealer world is how dynamic it is, especially as it relates to technology and the internet.
Although you are putting your full energy into DealerRater.com now, do you have any intention to expand or create any new startups in the future?
I have created six other websites, but I am most passionate and committed to DealerRater.com at this time.
Did you come across any problems during the startup process? If so, how did you handle it and what did you learn from the experience?
After I built the site, I realized very quickly that its success would be based on generating a large base of reviews. To promote the site, I used guerilla marketing tactics by asking participants in car forums to add in their own dealer reviews. This was a steady but slow process. The biggest leaps in building the DealerRater.com brand, came after I partnered with AutoSpies.com and became dedicated to the site’s search engine optimization. I really believe that businesses owners need to be dedicated to their business and to be patient as they build. The DealerRater.com community has taken six years to build, but has become more exciting over that time.
If you were to retire tomorrow, do you feel you’ve accomplished everything you’ve wanted to?
I can not even imagine retiring tomorrow. I love what I do and do not consider it work. I have many more ideas and I would love to see come to fruition.
Going by some of the things said on your site about some of the car dealers, what recommendations do you have for a dealership looking to offer the best for their customers?
Put your customer’s needs first, listen to your customers, and respond to their concerns in a timely manner. Many DealerRater.com users that give low ratings and unsatisfactory review to a dealership feel that they were not heard or respected at the dealership. They believe that businesses often take feedback more seriously when it is voiced publicly and in many cases, they are right. We see that dealerships are more likely to come to a faster resolution with customers, once a review is posted. In some circumstances, issues have not been properly escalated within the dealership organization to the right decision maker. Most dealers that are monitoring their reviews on DealerRater.com, have a manager overlooking the posting and have the power to resolve issues.