Capability

Dealership review and reputation management

Reputation systems should coordinate listings, review requests, responses, escalation and reporting without manipulating or selectively suppressing feedback.

Review volume concentrates on a few sites. DealerRater describes millions of sales and service reviews across US and Canadian dealerships and runs a Certified Dealer program, while Google reviews drive map-pack visibility and feed local search.

0 direct answers3 related market mapsSeptember 1, 2026 reviewed

Direct answer

Dealership review and reputation management

That split matters for tooling: platforms that request and route reviews work mostly on Google and the manufacturer sites, while DealerRater's own programs also connect to the Cars Commerce marketplace, where rated dealers are promoted to shoppers. Decide who answers each review, how fast and in whose voice, and ask any vendor how it avoids steering only satisfied customers to leave reviews, which Google's review policies restrict.

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What to check before you decide

Reviews are now regulated as well as managed. The FTC's rule on consumer reviews, in effect since October 2024, prohibits fake or AI-written reviews, hiding or filtering negative reviews to show only positive ones, insider reviews without disclosure, and compensation conditioned on the content or sentiment of a review; a request like leave a five-star review for a gift card is expressly out.

Google separately bans incentivized reviews of any kind. The rule lets the FTC seek civil penalties for knowing violations, and a dealership can be held accountable for what a third party does on its behalf.

So ask every reputation vendor how it asks for reviews, whether it sends unhappy customers to a private form instead of the public profile, and what it does with negative reviews. Put the answer in the contract and review a month of actual requests.

Answering reviews is an operations task with a policy, not a marketing afterthought. Write down who replies to each star rating, within how many hours, and in whose name, and require that replies to negative reviews offer to resolve the matter offline without arguing the facts in public.

Sales and service reviews reach different readers, so route them to different managers. A good tool assigns each new review to a person, shows how long it has waited, and keeps the reply history in one place.

Test it on your current backlog: import a month of reviews from Google and the manufacturer and sales-rating sites, and see whether the assignment, the reminders and the reporting hold up with your real volume.

Dealer-controlled evaluation