It’s good news for reviews!
Buyers want to know more about who they’re buying from.
In today’s omni-channel retailing landscape, buyer expectations are constantly evolving. With more of the buying journey being done online, the need for trust and transparency is increasing and buyers want to know more about who they’re buying from. Reviews allow you to showcase your customer experience to potential buyers in the words of recent customers.
We've had feedback from buyers that they place much more emphasis on recent reviews when making a buying decision. We've also had feedback from retailers that it can be hard to shake historic bad reviews.
So, we're revamping the way we calculate your review rating.
Buyers want to see who you are today,
not 12+ months ago
Our latest research shows that 95% of visitors to Auto Trader believe it’s important to read a review of a dealership that was written within the last 12-months¹, meaning reviews older than this might not be seen as valuable to those in market for their next vehicle.
Let’s compare this to another industry, think about searching for a holiday, you probably wouldn’t be as interested in reading about the service or food in a hotel from several years ago, would you? You’re hardly likely to get the same experience so why waste time reading about it?
Buyers expect to read recent reviews about your business, they want to see who you are today, not 12 months ago.
So, what’s changing?
In December, we’re changing how your average star rating will be calculated on Auto Trader, reflecting the last 12-months of reviews that you’ve collected. Your current review score is calculated on the average of all reviews you’ve ever collected, meaning it can be hard to easily influence your rating.
Your new review rating will become a rolling metric, updated daily to only include reviews within the last 365 days. Older reviews will still be visible on your adverts and Retailer Stores page, they just won’t count towards your average review rating as they no longer reflect the current customer service experience that you’re offering as well as recent reviews do.
How will this look on my adverts?
It all depends on how many reviews you’ve generated over the last 12 months. The rolling metric, updated daily, resets the 12-month window every day. If you are not collecting reviews on a regular basis then your star rating could potentially change daily based on the reviews you’ve collected in that 12-month window. So it’s never been more important to make collecting reviews part of your routine.
Here’s how the average star rating could look from December:
Nobody’s perfect – don’t fear the negative
Every retailer fears a negative review. But the reality is there will always be negative feedback at some point in your retailing journey. Buyers too expect this with Feefo finding that 26% of buyers actively seek negative reviews.
But, handled correctly this isn’t cause for concern. What really matters is how you tackle the negative review.
The key is to address the issue in an open and transparent manner, showing all who read your reviews how your business is there to help its customers.
In fact, it can often be the case that openly acknowledging and addressing a negative review can have a more positive impact than just receiving a positive review. Feefo found that 44% of buyers who left negative feedback but received a response would use the retailer again and that 40% would share their experience online.
Add reviews from other platforms
If you collect reviews using a different platform, you can feed them over to Auto Trader so they appear on your profile.
Here’s a list of the companies we integrate with...
Supporting you to generate reviews
If you haven’t generated any reviews recently and need to get back on track, don’t worry, we’ve got lots of helpful resources to support you in generating reviews before this change goes live in mid-December.