Google My Business is a highly effective tool for local businesses that want to get noticed by potential customers nearby. This is why it can be an essential showcase for companies that base their business on local customers, such as automotive dealerships. In this article, we will deepen how Google My Business works, and we will see how to use it to improve the image of your dealership, its positioning on search engines, and, above all, the number of customers.
Table of Contents
Why Is It Essential To Be Found On The Web?
Let’s start with a few numbers. According to the analysis carried out by Google itself, over 40% of the searches carried out on the web by smartphones concern commercial activities in the vicinity. In addition, more than half of these potential customers visit the business they searched for within hours, and 20% of them buy a product. But how do interested people find your business with a Google search? With Google My Business, of course.
Google My Business
If you still don’t understand what we’re talking about, the Google My Business tab appears on the web page after searching for a company name. For simplicity, we show you an example of the information card when you type in Google. Google My Business is entirely free and allows you to create a card that helps anyone searching the internet get helpful information about your dealership. But the benefits don’t stop there. Let’s see them.
Visibility
The most apparent advantage is visibility. By setting up the Google My Business card correctly, your dealership will appear in the top search positions on Google. It is easy to understand how greater visibility leads to a probable increase in customers.
Useful Information
By accessing your dealership’s Google My Business tab, potential customers can find helpful information about your business, such as your address, telephone number, opening hours and days, hours of the day with the most significant number of customers, and even the exact location on Google Maps. In this way, in addition to further facilitating the availability of your business, the customers who come to your dealership will be the ones who are interested.
Also Read: How Do I contact Google My Business? The Step-by-Step Guide
Departments
If your dealership also provides additional services beyond sales, Google My Business allows you to create multiple listings, one for each department. Google has offered predefined categories for each department:
- Car dealership
- Car services
- Tire shop
- Auto parts shop
By associating your dealership’s name to the examples listed, depending on the services offered, all the associated departments will appear on the Google+ My Business card of your dealership. However, remember that you will need to contact Google support to notify that the departments created belong to the same business. Having a card for each department/service provides information to potential customers about the services offered and allows you to set different hours. For example, the workshop has an extra opening time than the showroom.
Multi-Brand
The same goes for multi-brand dealerships. It is possible to create a card associated with your dealership for each car brand present in your store.
You can also distinguish between the point of sale and the workshop department. If, for example, your dealership, in addition to being an official dealer of the Fiat Mercedes brands, is also an authorized workshop, you will need to create 4 cards:
- Fiat dealership
- Mercedes dealership
- Authorized Fiat workshop
- Mercedes authorized workshop
Multi-Seat
What has been said in the previous points is valid even if your dealership has several points of sale. The latter can be associated with each other through the exact mechanism.
Customer Reviews
The Google My Business tab allows users to leave reviews about your business, which is good practice to respond to. While it may seem like a waste of time, dedicating some time to your customers can bring significant benefits in branding and customer retention, even for negative reviews. You are more likely to respond to positive reviews, but the responses to negative reviews can make all the difference. Here are some helpful tips for dealing with negative comments:
- Use a gentle tone: Remember that you are writing on behalf of your business, and answering rudely will give your company a bad image;
- Try to provide helpful information: Use the opportunity to provide advice and information that can help readers;
- Learn from criticism: Negative reviews often (not always) arise from experiences that have not satisfied your customers. Use these criticisms to improve the service you offer;
- Try to answer immediately: As far as possible, try to give a quick answer. This will help give the impression that you care about customer satisfaction;
- Do not advertise yourself: Please do not use the responses to comments for advertising purposes. It is a practice received negatively by users.
Updates
One last aspect of fundamental importance concerns updates: you must ensure that the information on your Google+ My Business card is always up to date. The seasonal hours and promotional offers, events, and news that may involve your business are among the things to consider.
Also Read: Google Maps Entry For Your Business
