Are Ford Dealers Online Reputation Management Making A Difference?

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Feb 11, 2015

As Ford dealers try to send a positive message to the public, many are wondering if the company’s online management program is really working out. While online reputation management might be playing an important role in the company’s character, still, one must ask if the dealers are benefiting from this type of exposure.

What is online reputation management?

Online reputation management is the means whereby one manages his or her image or company on the web. A person depends on this type of management online to improve or restore his or her brand standing or name.

Some potential customers face discouragement after seeing bad reviews posted on the internet about a company and thus go about taking their business elsewhere. Paying strict attention to monitoring the company’s image can help in getting rid of many negatives placed on the web by disgruntled customers or even worse, mischievous culprits.

Ford’s new online reputation management vendor

Since July 2014, Ford switched from using their longtime reputation management company to another organization. With this new move in effect, the company’s intention is to give its 3,000 dealers a stronger and positive presence online.

The new Ford online reputation management vendor has the responsibility to ensure that Ford dealers come away unscathed from any harmful comments posted on the internet. In addition, the new vendor will allow dealers to post relevant articles on Facebook and other social media sites.

Ford shares

As Ford moves to protect its online presence better, shares went into a fluctuation mode. Since Monday, shares increased to $15.98 or up 0.76%. This increase came about after BlackRock (BLK) doubled its ownership in the auto giant. The Wall Street Journal reported that the increased BlackRock’s stake in Ford is presently causing it to have a 5.4% ownership.

In its fourth quarter earnings released last month, Ford shares went down but trading still went on smoothly because of improvements in its monthly sales figures, especially in the European and Chinese markets.

In January, China sales went up 19% and showed an increase in comparison to last year’s period. About 112,599 vehicles ended up selling in China during December, thus showing a gain of 13% in the same month and before that in November a 2% increase. There is a B score “buy” rating given to the company by The Street and a thumbs up in their performance, regardless of a decrease in revenue recently suffered.

The Street also reported, “regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 8.9%. Since the quarter of one year, revenue slightly dropped by 3.1%. Weakness in the company’s revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.”

As Ford strives to keep a cleaner web presence through its online reputation management program, it is struggling to keep up performances on Wall Street. The company’s earnings per share declined in the last quarter when compared to the previous year’s quarter. In fact, the company has had to settle for declines in shares earnings within the last two years. In the last fiscal year, lower earnings of $0.78 affected higher earnings of the previous year’s $1.75. Investors are closely watching to see if Ford will rise to the challenge and make necessary adjustments so that its earnings can show an improvement above that of $1.75.

Still, while the stock is showing an improvement on the market, the S&P 500 is not at all impressed. Ford’s stock is an expensive commodity when compared to other companies stocks in the same industry. Yet still, the professionalism and strengths that the company is displaying seems to be the reason and justification for those more expensive price levels. The net income for Ford went down from a stronger amount of $3,039 million to a lesser amount of $52 million or 98.3%, which is a drop in comparison to the same quarter of the previous year.

While Ford dealers are taking their online reputation management seriously and are trying to send the right message to the buying public, investors meanwhile are hoping to see the company shuns any forms of negative performances. Still, these are early days of 2015 and one can only watch to see what the future holds, whether it will be a losing scenario or a win for the company as well as investors on the stock market.