Car Dealer Reviews

Big Nasty

Often see people on here looking for info on various car dealers. I think I saw before that someone else had a site like this before but that it is no longer in existance. There's also the usual restaraunt / shop reviews but it was the automotive section that grabbed my attention. I think it's only live a few weeks as the content is fairly minimal at present. Can see a few dealers not liking it!

http://www.whoseview.com/beta/category-homepage/16/Automotive.html;jsessionid=5BC6C3FAF3D33344FA39DDC502AB976C

Brabus

I always enjoy the dealers review in the Indo's motor section on Wednesdays. Very thorough, marks out of ten for everything.

-Chris-

Reviews so far are:

-One positive review for AC Car Sales (hardly unexpected)

-Four 5-star reviews for one Toyota Garage (C&K)

-One negative review for one of C&K's competitors where the reviewer says "but the shabbiness of it compared to CK in Blackrock, where I will probably buy my Toyota."

and

-One negative review for a BMW dealer (who also happens to be a Toyota dealer, and competitor to C&K).

BTW this reviewer, Sean S, states in his review that he'll be bringing his car to a Toyota garage that his sister recommended to him.
Did I mention that two of his three friends on the site are Helen G and Michael G, the guys who posted good reviews about C&K?

I'm worried that sites like this are open to abuse, what does anyone else think?

niceirishfella

-Chris- wrote: »

I'm worried that sites like this are open to abuse, what does anyone else think?

+1 . lots of bored or unemployed car sales people sitting around on the net etc

Big Nasty

niceirishfella wrote: »

+1 . lots of bored or unemployed car sales people sitting around on the net etc

Of course there is but by having a look around the site it seems to be more or less the same users posting in each category so it's hardly a good cross section of reviews at the moment. Once you get a good amount of reviews it will become more clear. Seems to be only live a short while. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it turns out with some more interest.

Drummerboy08

niceirishfella wrote: »

+1 . lots of bored or unemployed car sales people sitting around on the net etc

Wahey! Now where's my dealership on it......:pac:

WhoseView: Michael

Hi folks,

I'm michael the co-founder of WhoseView.ie. I'm reading the posts with interest and hope you don't mind me adding to the discussion. We only opened the site on July 17th last month and are still in beta. Prior to this we were in private beta with 40 people testing the site for bugs and posting reviews.

I think the questions raised here are all very valid. The key question for any review based website is trust. Trust that the reviews you read are genuine as is the reviewer. That is why we have placed so much emphasis on the social element and profile of the user. For example if you click on any of the reviewers images you will be brought to their profile page. Here you can see their level of activity, how many friends they have, their trustworthiness score and above all how active they are on the site. On that base, members and browers can make their own informed decisions as to quality of review. Hence the brand name Whose View?

Every review will have a "report" button, which we are just putting final touches to. Members can already vote on the trustworthiness of a reviewer from their profile page. We are going to operate zero tolerance in this regard. We want to educate our members on how to spot fake reviews and we will be introducing algorthims to weed out the dishonesty. Not easy, hence the reliance on the community. Here is a link to our blog, where we talked about this recently http://www.whoseview.com/customer-reviews/?p=248

As you can see from our home page and category pages, we emphasis the rants as well as the raves. Freedom to post opinions are important. Unfortunately there are review sites out there that are selective in what reviews they post. For some review sites the commerical interests overshadow the essence of what the site should be about - transparency, trust and community. As a result they lose focus. Our revenue model is such, that if a local business that is advertising on our site does not like a review, we will have no hesitation in allowing that business walk away.

Boards.ie have been very kind to give us a thread over at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1239. If you would like to give us feedback, we have a thread on this. Alternatively keep the discussion going here.

Also, to mention, forgot to mention this guys; we are running a competition for boards.ie members, giving away a €100 voucher for funny reviews. You can read thread here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2055628960

Kind Rgs
Michael

Gary ITR

Michael I have temporarily locked this until we discuss this forums position on Commercial Reps with the Community Managers. Feel free to PM me if you have any issues