The DealerRater Dealer of the Year Award Program was initiated in 2009. Through this award program, a select number of car dealerships throughout the United States and Canada are awarded for outstanding customer satisfaction as expressed through customers’ online reviews posted on DealerRater’s website.

DealerRater’s Dealer of the Year awards are given to car dealerships that have the highest PowerScore™ in their brand category at both the national level as well as the state/provincial level. In addition, one U.S. dealership and one Canadian dealership are recognized for being the overall national Dealer of the Year by outranking other brand-specific Dealer of the Year winners.

The number of brand categories represented in the Award Program has grown every year since the program was initiated. There is an award category for every brand that has at least one qualifying dealership.

Award Criteria

In order to qualify for a Dealer of the Year award, a dealership must meet the following criteria:

• Minimum of 25 reviews on DealerRater for the previous calendar year.
• Minimum of 1 positive review in each calendar quarter of the previous calendar year.
• Average rating greater than 4.0 (out of a maximum of 5.0) for reviews received during the previous calendar year.
• Must not have been blacklisted during the previous calendar year.

Determining the Winners

To rank dealerships and determine the Dealers of the Year, a PowerScore™ is calculated for each dealership on DealerRater.com. The dealership with the highest PowerScore for each award category (by brand for each State/Province, as well as nationally) will receive a Dealer of the Year award.

How does the PowerScore™ work?
A dealer’s PowerScore is based on its average star rating and number of reviews. We use a Bayesian algorithm to determine an eligible dealer’s PowerScore each quarter of the year. The average of the quarterly scores gives us an overall score for the year. This score is then weighted against DealerRater site averages. Effectively, this means that the winning dealership must score highly on each of the three award criteria: number of reviews, average score, and consistency of positive reviews. Simply having the most reviews, or conversely having the highest average score on a small number of reviews, is not enough to guarantee that a dealership has the highest PowerScore.