NEW YORK — Hop off the R train, walk underneath the Gowanus Expressway and past shopping and food complex Industry City and dodge potholes to find Porsche Brooklyn.
“It’s the opposite of a suburban environment where you can drive, you can park” and not worry about your car, said Sean Johnson, general manager. “Those are your just normal challenges of being in an urban environment.”
The dealership, which has made 334 new-car and 101 used-car sales as of late November, initially struggled to overcome the challenges of an isolated and industrial area when it opened in July 2022. It’s off the beaten path — literally, as the roads are torn up from commercial traffic in parts of Sunset Park.
Johnson said there had not been another Porsche dealership in Brooklyn for decades.
The store had a good vibe and great employees, he said, but that was not enough.
“You’re starting from scratch” and competing with other Porsche dealers in the tri-state area that already have loyal customers, he said. “You’ve got to acquire your own business.”
In a bid to keep marketing expenses low but generate more visitors, Johnson encouraged employees to ask customers to write reviews on social media. That wasn’t working. It was awkward, Johnson said, and customers just weren’t following through.
He said roughly 1 in 10 dealership visitors would submit a review, so the odd negative rating skewed the store’s overall score.
This summer, Johnson met with Podium, a customer review management company that sends customers text messages to solicit reviews. He watched a demo and launched a trial to see the results that other stores received.
“Every day, ‘ping,’ you see reviews coming through all the time,” he said.
Johnson learned that responding to a text prompt such as those sent out by Podium and other services including Birdeye and Reputation was a frictionless way for customers to leave feedback.
He subscribed to Podium for $318 per month, and the reviews started to roll in.
“A faucet turned on,” Johnson said. We “got reviews every day almost.”
Now, the company has 118 Google reviews and a 4.7-star rating. Since the dealership got Podium, Johnson has seen a 20 percent increase in the service department’s number of repair orders.
“They come in and they say, ‘Hey, I found you’ ” through “your Google reviews,” Johnson said. They say, “‘Let me give you guys a shot.’ ”
The dealership has a goal of staying above a 4.5-star rating across platforms. But review management software only goes so far, he said.
“You’ve got to still keep your specials fresh, you’ve got to have good content on” your website, you’ve got to have inventory, he said. “You can’t get a good review and then you have nothing” for new customers.