Customers Texting Dealerships?

[Alex Magnan]

We all know that mobile apps and mobile sites is already an important piece moving forward in our industry. Currently our store is using ContactAtOnce for our dealer chat and also on Cars.com and Autotrader where we advertise our vehicles. I've been looking into the Mobile Text Connect that ContactAtOnce came out with. Which has additional chat features where customers can start contacting you through texting. It adds a mobile site chat feature and also customers being able to contact you from sites like DealerRater. Has anyone who is on with ContactAtOnce used this yet? I'm curious to see if anyone has seen any additional traffic from customers texting dealerships. I know the plus is that it captures good contact information to stay in touch with customers. But I'm curious to hear any feedback.

 

[Agrrip]

We use a text feature at our dealership and we sell at least 3 - 4 cars a month from it...99% texts, 1% coming in to sign paperwork. Not bad for $200. It should be noted that we've only had it for 3 months now.

 

[cmjerry4531]

I haven't used that program, but we added an additional 90 leads a month by adding a text lead form on our mobile site. We are still working out the kinks, but we were able to sell a couple vehicles this way. I've been encouraging people in our dealer group to add this to their mobile sites.

 

[carlotmobile]

That's kind of like the service we offer, except we generate the database from customers who've actually been on site and looked at a vehicle.

 

[Agrrip]

Here is a screenshot of how we use texting. The text comes across as an email that my internet team can respond to. Their email response is then texted back to client. As I said above, we sell at least 3 - 4 cars a month without physically talking to the client until they come in to sign the paperwork.

Needless to say, I'm a believer. The only downfall is that you have to keep your response to a max of 160 characters. So, no BS...just quality direct responses to the client's questions.

 

[Alex Magnan]

Joe,

You mention your doing 3-4 sales a month from it. Day to day how many hits through texting would you say your team is handling?

 

[Agrrip]

Joe,

You mention your doing 3-4 sales a month from it. Day to day how many hits through texting would you say your team is handling?

Looking back at my reports we got just under 20 leads last month and sold 4 of them. So, almost 1 a day. It's not high volume, but they are higher quality. The key is not trying to get their number to call them. We answer their questions as directly as possible and set the test drive appt all by text.

 

[mcampo2501]

Joe,

What service do you use for this? I really like how they interface with the VDP page on your website. I would imagine it also optimizes the efficiency of your mobile website.

 

[Agrrip]

Joe,

What service do you use for this? I really like how they interface with the VDP page on your website. I would imagine it also optimizes the efficiency of your mobile website.

We have it through our website provider, AutoFusion.

 

[ryanlucia]

Just FYI, it's pretty simple code and can probably be implemented on any website like the screen shot above, using any text technology. More up to the site provider than the technology company.