CASE STUDIES
Despite having their own marketing teams, businesses of a certain size increasingly still require dedicated personnel to effectively manage consumer reviews. Regardless of how responsibilities are assigned, these mission-critical efforts take focus away from other marketing activities and increase company overhead costs. Outsourcing a solution is usually the more cost-efficient option in terms of both budget and time.
While Widewail’s reputation management services are available to any business and industry valuing consumer reviews as part of online reputation and local SEO efforts, many of our earliest engagements have been related to Automotive. The following case study is a detailed run-through of our partnership with a car dealership servicing a super-competitive metro area. The crucial task was to strengthen their brand through customized responses to both positive and negative reviews. Previously utilizing a competitor’s automated review response tool, these impressive results are proof that automation/AI is not the best option when a people-powered, human option is also available.
Before the partnership, our client struggled daily (hourly, even) to manage the overwhelming volume of customer reviews. They had 7,000-lifetime reviews on Google alone and, while those numbers are a good problem to have - they were desperately in search of a cost-effective and efficient approach to responding to hundreds of new reviews each and every month. The solution also had to provide high-quality and customized responses fully optimized for local organic (SEO) visibility. Enter Widewail.
Using our proprietary Engage service, the client partnered with our team and took control of formerly one-sided target market interactions on Google, Cars.com, Facebook, Edmunds, CarGurus, DealerRater and Yelp. Widewail expeditiously replied to positive reviews in real-time, answering most happy customers within one hour. In terms of negative reviews, we first recommended a custom response before elevating it to the most appropriate department (Finance, Service, etc.). They were then able to publish our suggested response verbatim or provide additional context around the situation so we could collectively ensure the consumer’s concerns were thoroughly managed.
In the first 9 months, Widewail monitored and responded to 3,300 incoming consumer reviews across Yelp, Facebook, Cars.com, CarGurus, Edmunds, DealerRater, and Google.
Widewail saved the dealership marketing team an average of 5 hours of work per week responding at a rate of 20 per hour.
Negative reviews dropped from 25% to just 9% - a 64% reduction.
The client saw a tangible increase in their lifetime star rating.
An ongoing strategy, Widewail’s customer went on to adopt a two-way online customer experience turnaround. Potential customers’ problems were resolved while prospects could witness for themselves the experience to expect. This improved level of interaction also leads to improved organic search visibility.
Years of data and metrics demonstrate that these types of business enhancements lead to more new customers.
We appreciate you taking the time to review just one of many Widewail customer wins. Our products and solutions exist to help our customers take back control of their online reputation responsibilities while decreasing internal resource allocation at the same time. If you’re interested in reaching results like the ones in this reputation management case study, please get in touch with us today.
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