DealerRater, the world’s premier car dealer review web site, today announced that its vice president of sales, Heather MacKinnon, will be a featured speaker at Chicago DigitalCON, to be held at the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, May 9-10. MacKinnon’s presentation entitled, “The Do’s & Don’ts of Building and Leveraging an Online Reputation,” will be held Thursday, May 10th at 4:15 PM. Attendees will learn about the myths vs. the realities involving online reputation management and the “do’s and don’ts” of building credible, third-party reviews.

Waltham, Mass. April 30, 2012

DealerRater, the world’s premier car dealer review web site, today announced that its vice president of sales, Heather MacKinnon, will be a featured speaker at Chicago DigitalCON, to be held at the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, May 9-10. MacKinnon’s presentation entitled, “The Do’s & Don’ts of Building and Leveraging an Online Reputation” will be held Thursday, May 10th at 4:15 PM. Attendees will learn about the myths vs. the realities involving online reputation management and the “do’s and don’ts” of building credible, third-party reviews.

“One in five consumers change their original dealership choice based on the reviews they read online, and reviews trump both dealer location and past dealer loyalty,” said MacKinnon. “Dealers know they need to pay attention to reviews, but what should they be doing to build more reviews and effectively leverage reviews to sell more cars? This presentation will help you get back to the basics of building real, credible reviews for your dealership and your employees.”

Attendees will take back to their dealerships numerous valuable insights and tips, including: 

• A broader understanding of the importance of an online reputation both at the dealership and employee levels, and the necessary steps to effectively monitor and build online reviews.
• Best practices for building real, credible reviews and how to recognize potential pitfalls in soliciting and building online reviews.
• Key tactics for monitoring reviews across the Web, ensuring a proper review mix, and focusing efforts on third-party review content that matters to customers and prospects.
• Strategies for leveraging online reviews to boost showroom traffic and sell more cars across the Web and in the showroom.

About DealerRater: 
DealerRater was founded in 2002 as the first car dealer review website worldwide. DealerRater is the world’s #1 online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on automobile 
dealerships. DealerRater features more than 41,000 U.S. and Canadian car dealers, 650,000 consumer reviews and over 1,000,000 cars for sale. DealerRater attracts more than 8 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free. Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience. In addition, DealerRater offers qualified car dealers a Certified Dealer Program as an online reputation management tool, to help them grow their online presence and achieve higher SEO rankings across the Web. Today, more than 4,300 dealers are members of DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program. For more information, visit http://www.DealerRater.com or call 800-266-9455.