Background

The multi-faceted, member-based American Automobile Association (AAA) is a massive federation of regional and local clubs. The organization serves over 50 million members across the U.S. and Canada. The Automobile Club of Southern California (Auto Club) provides the AAA brand to more than 20 states.

Auto Club began using Reputation.com in 2018 after Reputation.com acquired SIM Partners, a leading provider of directory management solutions. Since then, the company has used Reputation.com to maintain accurate Google My Business (GMB) listings for 350 branch locations. Results have been significant, with substantial increases in GMB queries, website traffic and conversions.

Challenge

Frequent Data Updates Required Continuous Monitoring

AAA is a 100-year old organization with a legacy online presence that creates unique challenges around ensuring its online information is complete and accurate. Not only does Auto Club have to ensure its AAA insurance and roadside assistant offerings are adequately represented online, it also needs to promote its travel and financial services, discounts and other offerings through digital channels.

“I oversee the digital present of roughly 350 branch locations for which we manage data, in addition to our website and services,” said Jesse McCarl, Digital Marketer at Auto Club. “With so many different storefronts and branch locations, there are constant changes to online data associated with our business — telephone numbers, branch closures or relocations, hours of operation and more. One of our websites might be pulling information from an unreliable data source we haven’t approved, and we have to constantly monitor listings to remediate inconsistencies before they influence how people perceive our brand.”

McCarl’s team had been relying on a directory management solution from SIM Partners to manage its online data for three years. They were introduced to the Reputation.com platform when Reputation.com acquired SIM Partners in February, 2018. “Now all of our branch locations and the associated online data lives in the Reputation.com platform,” said McCarl.

Solution

Reputation.com’s Close Partnership with Google Streamlines GMB Listings Management

McCarl and his team view GMB listings and search results as the front doors to the business — as roughly 90% of its website traffic comes from that source. But historically, Auto Club’s GMB listings were scattered and not monitored or corrected with any consistency.

Now, McCarl’s team depends on Reputation.com to monitor and manage GMB listings for all its branch locations for effectiveness and accuracy. “Because we have such a complex business, traffic to our websites primarily from Google gives us the chance to communicate who we are and what we do,” he said. “Reputation. com helps to streamline the process of keeping Auto Club’s GMB listings up to date and accurate.”

AAA is known for excellent customer service. To maintain its reputation for delivering top-notch CS, it’s critical that that same level of service be delivered across all customer touchpoints. “We’ve really stepped up our game on social media and how we respond to online feedback, so the customer service we deliver online reflects the same quality experience customers receive on the side of the road or in a branch,” said McCarl.

Auto Club uses Reputation.com to monitor and respond to reviews and social comments about customer experiences across the web. McCarl’s team also leverages the platform to request and capture more online reviews. “A lot of businesses focus on dealing with the loudest, angriest voices in the room,” said McCarl. “However, with the resources that Reputation.com offers, we can get more voices that reflect the legendary customer service we traditionally offer.”

According to McCarl, AAA monitors and reports on each of its clubs separately. A group of locations in California may have different KPIs than a group in Texas, for instance. The flexibility of Reputation.com enables McCarl’s team to customize reporting by territory or by individual locations, and see macro and micro trends.

“Although there’s a tremendous amount of data we need to monitor and analyze, we can generate nuanced reporting that enables us to make effective changes by region or location,” he said. “Since implementing Reputation.com, our Reputation Scores and star ratings have been trending upwards, but with the detailed reporting the platform generates, if a problem should arise, we can pinpoint the issue and fix it.”

Results

Inquiries, Traffic and Actions Are Up

Using the Reputation.com platform, McCarl and his team can monitor traffic and where it comes from — either organic or direct from GMB listings. He can also run reports to analyze actions such as map requests and clicks-to-call from listings. Since implementing Reputation.com, year-over-year improvements have been significant:

AAA is known for excellent customer service. To maintain its reputation for delivering top-notch CS, McCarl credits much of his team’s success with using Reputation.com to his dedicated customer service representative (CSM) — one of the key benefits of partnering with Reputation.com.

“Our CSM provides a consistent voice and an analytical mind, and he is always helpful and reliable,” said McCarl. “His consistency has made a huge difference.”