The car-shopping marketplace unveiled the winners of its annual Dealer of the Year Awards (DOTY)to the top automotive dealers. Out of the more than 50,000 U.S. and Canadian auto dealers with profiles, 987 were honored as Cars.com DOTY recipients based on more than one million online consumer reviews submitted in 2023. Winners were selected based on average star rating, total number of reviews and dealer response to those reviews — all key drivers of repeat and referral business.

“Local dealerships are central to vehicle buying, and our DOTY Awards highlight the many local retailers who take pride in their reputation, striving each and every day to provide a five-star experience for their customers,” said Jamie Oldershaw, vice president of reputation at Cars.com. “A consumer submits a dealership review every 27 seconds on Cars.com, providing dealers with valuable real-time feedback and shoppers with firsthand information about a dealership’s customer experience.”

Award-winning dealers earned 21X more consumer reviews than non-winning dealers, highlighting the importance of online reputation and how it helps build long-term, trusted relationships between a customer and dealer. Year after year, high levels of responsiveness and individual dealership employee accountability are the most reliable predictors of dealer success in the DOTY Awards. Eighty percent of honorees respond to consumer reviews compared to only 41% of non-winning dealers, and about half respond to 90% or more of their reviews.

Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of DOTY winners leverage Employee Profile Pages for their dealership staff, which allows car shoppers to ask questions and connect directly with salespeople before ever stepping foot on the lot. More than 195,000 dealership employees received over 1.4 million individual ratings last year, an 8.5% increase from 2022.

This year’s Cars.com Dealer of the Year Award winners include:

A full list of winners can be found here.