By: Earl Brown, Autofusion (2022)
It’s no secret that car shoppers typically place a high value on organic dealership and model reviews. According to a recent study by Podium, a whopping 93% of consumers say that online reviews impact their decision making. Most dealers know that it is important to continuously track and engage with your dealerships reviews to maintain a good reputation for your store, and some dealers even hire a PR firm to manage their reputations. However, using customer reviews and testimonials in your marketing and advertising comes with certain legal liabilities that many dealers (and marketing vendors) are not aware of.
A proliferation of factually inaccurate or exaggerated dealer reviews has led the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to further clarify its rules and guidelines on these “endorsements”. Misuse of these endorsements has even resulted in significant law-suits and legal troubles for businesses who cross that line. There’s also been a rise in fraudulent negative reviews like in this older case involving Edmunds.com. If your dealership is a victim of negative review fraud, you may have recourse with the review platform itself, however, advertisers should understand that using reviews and testimonials to promote deceptive or unsubstantiated performance claims (even if the testimonials are word-for-word quotes and genuinely reflect the endorsers perception.) could lead to an assortment of problems.
One prominent example of this, recently analyzed by the National Law Review was in Cliffdale Assocs., Inc., 103 F.T.C. 110 (1984):
• The advertiser used testimonials to make performance claims for a device that supposedly improved fuel economy for automobiles. The testimonials included statements by users about their fuel saving experiences. These claims were not factually correct, and therefore the FTC found that by printing the testimonials, the advertiser “implicitly made performance claims” that the Commission had found to be false and deceptive.
The key takeaway is that you should not use or solicit testimonials that make false, exaggerated, or unsubstantiated claims, even if your customer said it with good intention, and even if you utilize boiler plate disclaimers such as “results may vary”, “results not typical”, “results reflect users experience” and so on.
Dealers should focus less on obtaining exaggerated reviews, such as those with claims about having the “lowest prices”, “largest inventory”, “lowest finance rates” etc. Instead, it may be better to ask your clients to focus more on reviewing the general benefits of doing business with your dealership. Try asking for reviews that focus on the customers feelings about things like: your prices, your staff, your selection, the website and shopping process, or the service after the sale. These are typically referred to as “soft” testimonials, but they contain highly relevant and valuable information that will better inform consumers about your dealership and services.
There are many proven ways to solicit these types of high quality / high value reviews, as well as to fold them into your website and marketing plan. In the second part of this article (read more here), we will discuss some of the practical ways your dealership can obtain and utilize reviews to build trust, sell cars, and manage your dealerships reputation. If you’d like to learn more about how we optimize the use of reviews on our dealer’s websites and in SEO/PPC marketing, click here to schedule a demo or email sales@autofusion.com
