Company Press Release

DealerRater to Implement Changes to the 2015 Dealer of the Year Award Program

DealerRater announces planned changes for its Dealer of the Year Program for the 2015 awards. With the planned changes, more dealers are anticipated to become eligible for the 2015 Dealer of the Year Awards.

WALTHAM, Mass.  - December 16, 2013 - DealerRater, the world’s premier car dealer review web site, today announced planned changes for its Dealer of the Year Award Program for the 2015 awards.    This highly competitive annual award program recognizes a select group of car dealerships in the United States and Canada for outstanding customer satisfaction as expressed through consumer reviews posted on DealerRater’s web site for the previous calendar year.

The criteria for the 2015 DealerRater® Dealer of the Year Award Program will include the following:

- Average minimum star rating of 4.0 on DealerRater (calculated quarterly); with 5.0 as the highest possible rating

- Minimum of 25 reviews on DealerRater for the 2014 calendar year

- At least one review on DealerRater per quarter during the 2014 calendar year

The Dealer of the Year awards are given to car dealerships that have the highest PowerScore™ in their brand category, both at national and state/provincial levels. For the 2015 Awards, each dealership’s PowerScore will be calculated using a Bayesian algorithm that considers the dealership’s average DealerRater star rating (now calculated quarterly as opposed to a monthly calculation in prior years) as well as the total number of reviews written about the dealership during the calendar year.

“With the planned changes to the 2015 program, we expect more dealers to become eligible for the Dealer of the Year Awards,” said Chip Grueter, president at DealerRater.  “Having zero reviews in one particular month will no longer put a dealership out of the running as they will be able to make up for that zero score during the quarter. We look forward to an intensified competition next year.”

In addition to the criteria changes, DealerRater will introduce quarterly reporting tools during 2014 on the company’s Dealer Panel account management hub to enable DealerRater Certified Dealers to track Dealer of the Year Award eligibility and performance throughout the year.

For more information, visit www.DealerRater.com, call 800-266-9455 or visit DealerRater Booth #7013 at the 2014 NADA & ATD Convention and Expo, January 24-27 in New Orleans, Louisiana.   At NADA, DealerRater will also announce the winners of the 2014 Dealer of the Year Awards at a press conference on Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 1pm EST.

Tags: dealer of the year, powerscore, nada, certified dealer