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Which review KPIs do importers set for dealers?
The details differ per brand, but the pattern is strikingly consistent. The star rating is the most visible: importers want every dealer to stay above a floor, because the brand rides along on every location review. The response rate measures whether you respond at all. A dealer leaving half his reviews unanswered is, in the importer's eyes, leaving half his customer contacts on the table. The response time measures how fast it happens, and the bar there is increasingly set at 24 to 48 hours. Why that window is no arbitrary choice is in responding to Google reviews within 24 hours.
Some importers also measure through their own satisfaction surveys alongside the public reviews. The two do not always move together. A workshop can score fine internally while sliding on Google, because only dissatisfied customers leave something there on their own.
Why do importers steer on reviews?
Because the customer does. The Deloitte 2026 Global Automotive Consumer Study shows that transparency about price and work performed is the most important service aspect for consumers, and that quality of work and trust are the main reasons to choose a service provider. Strikingly, consumers trust the dealer that services their car more than the manufacturer itself. Reviews are the public proof of exactly that workshop relationship. For an importer, the review section of its dealer network is not a marketing detail, but the place where brand trust is visibly built or broken per location.
Add to that: an unanswered complaint under a dealer name also reflects on the brand. An importer steering on response time is protecting its own brand as much as the dealer.
Why do dealers often miss these KPIs?
Rarely out of unwillingness. The problem is scale and fragmentation. A dealer group with eight locations and multiple brands easily has more than ten Google Business Profiles, sometimes one per brand per location. Autobedrijf Nieuwendijk, for example, manages thirteen across eight locations. Reviews come in at moments when the location is full of customers, and the person who happens to have the login details is not the one who knows what happened with that customer. The familiar pattern emerges: one location responds neatly within a day, another has a three-week backlog, and at group level nobody sees the difference until the importer reports it.
That last part is the real pain point. The importer measures per location, but many dealer groups cannot look along per location themselves. You cannot hit a KPI you cannot see. How Nieuwendijk solved that is in the Nieuwendijk case.
How do you make importer KPIs achievable per location?
Start by measuring at the same level as the importer: per location, not as a group average. A group average of 85 percent response rate can hide a location at 40 percent. Then set a target per location that at least matches the importer norm, and make one person per location responsible for handling, with a group-level backup for holidays and busy periods.
After that, automate what does not need to be human work. Positive reviews without a substantive complaint can be answered automatically or with an AI draft, so your team's time goes to the reviews that really matter. In Repmanager you set the KPI targets for response rate, response time and star rating per location, and the dashboard shows immediately which location is on track and which is not. That turns the importer norm into an internal steering number instead of a surprise afterwards. How to read those numbers as a growth metric instead of an obligation is in response time and response rate as growth metrics.
What is a realistic target per KPI?
Do not set the bar at the importer norm, but just above it. Aim for a 90 percent response rate and you dip below the norm in a busy month; steer on 100 percent and you keep margin. That 100 percent is no theory is proven by Terwolde, which hits a consistent 100 percent response rate across all locations. Read how in the Terwolde case and in what is a realistic response rate for multi-location. For response time, within 24 hours is a norm both customers and importers recognize. For the star rating: the average rarely rises through better responses alone. It rises by actively asking satisfied workshop customers for a review, so the silent majority becomes visible too.
So treat the importer KPIs not as an external obligation but as a free benchmark. The importer tells you exactly where the market sets the bar. Sit structurally above it and you benefit every day, in the showroom too.
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