Can You Trust Your Car Dealer?

SANTA MONICA, CA--Oct. 10, 2013: Can you envision a world in which you trust your car dealer? Seth Berkowitz, President and COO of Edmunds.com says that if you don't already, you will be able to soon.

"We've asked ourselves why we can't make the following promises to our customers: That by belonging to Edmunds.com — much like being an Amazon Prime customer, by analogy — you will have a substantially easier time at the dealership; you will spend less time at the dealership and much more time in the comfort of your home; you will get what you want, from the salesperson you want, in a manner you can trust," wrote Berkowitz in a blog entry that can be found at Edmunds Technology.

Berkowitz has been leading Edmunds.com through a strategic shift that makes car buying easier. The company, already established and valued as a free car research stop on the road to buying a car, is transforming itself – both strategically and through a site redesign that launches October 15 – into a unique car shopping destination: a place where car shoppers can trust dealers.

"In conjunction with our dealer partners, we offer actual prices on hundreds of thousands of cars – in industry parlance, on specific pieces of inventory. Our dealer partners – in making the Edmunds Price Promisesm – are promising our customers that they will honor that price when presented with a physical or digital certificate for that car, and that promise is also backed by Edmunds.com. We track them to ensure that those promises are being upheld," explained Berkowitz.

Since Price Promisesm launched in February as a pilot and then rolled out to the whole country in June, Edmunds.com has found dealers enrolled in the program have seen their ratings and reviews scores rise by 10%.

"The trust levels and satisfaction levels inspired by the partnership with Edmunds.com are tangible and measurable," noted Berkowitz, who also pointed out that Edmunds.com was named — along with TripAdvisor, Zagat and OpenTable — one of the four most trusted prominent online review sites, according to Maritz Research's 2013 Online Customer Review Study.

The company has enjoyed other impressive results of the Price Promise program:

60 percent more car shoppers are submitting their personal information on Edmunds.com in exchange for Price Promise certificates. These shoppers are looking at 150% more inventory pages One-third of all Price Promisesm deals close within two days of the certificate download Price Promise leads close 15 percent faster than any other type

"We are so inspired by the performance of this product and the difference it is making for our customers that we are working on a suite of 'promises,'" added Berkowitz. "We want our customers to believe they will get, and actually experience, a substantially easier time buying a car, in a manner they can trust."