2025 Cars.com Dealer Awards FAQ

If you received an email telling you that your dealership is “in the running” for a Cars.com Dealer Award, this means that your dealership has met the minimum requirements (as of 9/30/24) to qualify for one of our Dealer Awards.  Assuming you continue to collect & respond to reviews through Q4, your dealership will be eligible to compete with other top-rated dealerships for our Dealer of the Year and Consumer Satisfaction Awards. 

The minimum requirements for being “In the Running” are: 

• Minimum of 15 reviews on Cars.com and DealerRater throughout the first 3 calendar quarters of 2024.

• Minimum of 1 review in each calendar quarter, through the first 3 calendar quarters of 2024. 

• Minimum of 1 “Sales (New)” review in the award category, throughout the first 3 calendar quarters of 2024.  

• An average rating greater than 4.0 (out of a maximum of 5.0) for reviews received during the first 3 calendar quarters of 2024.

To be eligible to win a Cars.com Dealer Award at the end of this year, the following minimum criteria must be met:

• Minimum of 25 reviews for the previous calendar year.

• Minimum of 1 review in each calendar quarter of the previous calendar year.

• Minimum of 1 “Sales (New)” review in the award category during the previous calendar year (only applicable for Dealer of the Year).

• An average rating greater than 4.0 (out of a maximum of 5.0) for reviews received during the previous calendar year.

Once the minimum criteria has been met, a PowerScore will be calculated for each dealership in their award category based on reviews collected in 2024.  This PowerScore calculation considers the following three metrics for reviews in each category: the dealership’s average star rating, the total number of reviews collected, and the dealership’s response rate on reviews received during 2024.  

The Dealer of the Year award is offered at the Regional level, National level (by brand), and State/Province level (by brand).  Dealers who meet the criteria above and have earned the highest PowerScore in their category based on their Cars.com and DealerRater reviews & responses will be named Dealer of the Year for that category. 

The Consumer Satisfaction Award will be awarded to all dealers that win Dealer of the Year, as well as a number of dealers that ranked highly but came just short of winning Dealer of the Year.  Dealers must meet the same minimum requirements as listed above.  The top 10% of US franchise dealers (regardless of make) will receive the award, along with a top percentage of US Used Car dealers, and Canadian Franchise and Used Car dealers.

Review response rates were factored into the PowerScore calculations, starting with last year’s awards.  This metric is being included since it is an important factor in how consumers evaluate dealerships.  Per BrightLocal’s 2024 Consumer Review Survey, “88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all of its reviews, compared to just 47% who would use a business that doesn’t respond to reviews at all”.  The best dealerships treat every review as an opportunity to build loyalty and create connections with their customers.

The Consumer Satisfaction Awards is intended to recognize dealerships that provide an exceptional customer experience, and Consumer Satisfaction awards are given out to a percentage of the top-rated dealerships. There is no limit to the number of dealerships within a certain State/Province or brand that could potentially receive a Consumer Satisfaction Award - rather each dealership is compared against all others when determining Consumer Satisfaction Award recipients.

Similar to last year, DOTY and CSA will both be announced in early March via email. There will be an email campaign to alert the winners. Email recipients will be dealer users who have administrative access to DealerRater.

We do not yet have the final Powerscores calculated, but encourage you to consider your race a close one and push hard to finish the year strong with review collection. Many races are decided by just a handful of positive reviews, so every review counts. If you’re not leveraging your staff to ask every customer to share their feedback on DealerRater, now is a great time to build in a program to encourage them to do so. Review gathering is most powerful when it’s a team sport!