Auto Repair Shop Owners
Can't IGNORE Reviews Anymore!

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                                 (Estimated Read Time 4 minutes)

Let’s talk about something you just can't afford to ignore anymore. Reviews were something you've wanted to have or a nice to have. Or they were something you really didn’t want to know about.  You didn’t want to know what they were thinking about and don't want to deal with it. The ‘ol head and the sand thing, doesn’t work. Reviews are something you can't ignore anymore. I’ll share with you just a few of the statistics that I have found.

93% of all consumers read online reviews
before they make a purchase.

I don't know about you, but I am one of them. It's part of the information gathering at this point when it comes to making a selection. That is super important.

58% of consumers would pay more or travel
farther to visit a company with good or great reviews.

Think about that for a second. How many companies do you know that go out of business for charging too much? Are you afraid of charging too much? Are you afraid of charging more than your competitors? Are you afraid of charging more than the dealers? I have not been to a dealer my entire life that stepped up in the way of communication, understanding, empathy, etc. I was simply a number and I hated it. People will pay more for a better experience.

Look at the newest reviews first.
Anything older than a year is a waste of time.

I’ll tell you how I look at reviews. If I'm thinking about working with a company, I go to the reviews and the first thing I do is click on the newest. I look at the reviews to see how many they've had in the last year. Anything older than the year is a waste of time. They probably don't have the same people. So I'm looking at how many reviews they got in a year and what they look like.

Look at the lowest reviews see the complaint and the company’s response.

The second thing I do after I've done that is click on lowest. I want to see the worst of the worst. What are they complaining about? Is there a trend? Am I seeing the same people complain about the same thing? What were the company’s responses to them? So I looked at the newest first, then the lowest ratings.

85% of consumers consider any review older
than three months to be irrelevant.

Here's what amazed me. 85% of consumers consider any review older than three months to be irrelevant. That’s three months. Anything older than three months doesn’t matter. So yes, it's great to have 500 reviews, but if you have 500 reviews over 10 years, that's 50 a year. Let’s do the math. That's four per month. And if I'm only looking three months back, that gives me about 12 reviews to see. That's not enough to tip the scales in your favor. We want better odds. So you must be super intentional about your reviews. Having a plan is a must. You need a strategy for that plan. And then put action on that plan.

I want to help you in this area because this is something that helps SEO (search engine optimization). It helps algorithms, it helps you with search when you go to Google search. The more reviews you have with the keywords in them, the higher you rank on the map. So, this is a big deal.

Reviews are not something you can ignore anymore.

You may think it will take a lot of time and effort. But it's really not that bad. You will spend some time, in the beginning, to figure it out. For example, determine how many you are getting now.  Then identify how many you want. And what are some ways you could increase your number of reviews? So you put a plan together. But once you have that plan in place, now it's just monitoring. Are you getting the number of reviews that you want? Think about that this week.

Take care. Have a great week, stay safe, have fun, and go make some money.

Want to learn more about transforming your business? CLICK HERE to get advice you can use to improve your shop, the day it lands in your inbox.