ActivEngage vs ContactAtOnce vs CarChat24?

[Jeff Kershner]

3) Whomever you go with, please review their managed scrips to make sure they work with and fit your needs. If you are not having the chat managed, make sure your employees know the tool and strategy you want to take inside and out.

Great advice Kelly.

I always encourage any dealership that's considering hosted chat to ask for several transcripts of live chats between their service and the customer.

Be sure to get transcripts from multiple days with multiple dealerships and if the service provides after hours chat, be sure several of those transcripts are included as well.

Of course this shouldn't be your only deciding factor as transcripts can obviously be cherry picked. I would pay attention to how long it takes for the provider to get you some examples.

 

[Chris Atwater]

We're implementing a chat service at our dealership - these are the top three from what I can tell. Can you all point me in the right direction with a vote or comment for one?

1. ActivEngage
2. ContactAtOnce
3. CarChat24

With your vote, please include why you prefer that particular dealer chat service. Any additional information around your opinions and experiences with either of these services would be greatly appreciated!

Please keep responses around these 3 chat services only.

I would prefer to hear from dealers ONLY. No vendors.

I'm from a Dodge dealer and we've been using ContactAtOnce for over 3 years with great success. It's simple to use and readily available from any desktop. When away from your desk you can also communicate from your smart device and never miss a lead. After the conversation is complete you will be emailed a full detailed description of the conversation you had with the customer for your review and records. We have ContactAtOnce set up with AutoTrader.com and Cars.com also to keep everything on one source. It works great with our CRM and has a pretty decent interface. I'm not familiar with the other two sources, but highly recommend ContactAtOnce. Good luck with your decision!

 

[Agrrip]

We used contact at once for 2 years and the service was only okay. I think we can tie maybe 2 sales to it last year. We recently switched over to Client ConneXion. I absolutely love their service and product!

Pro's

• They have great managed chat and they are staffed by car people. They provided us multiple transcripts to view
• They will give you 30 - 60 days to try their full product for free to see if it works for your dealership
• Their product embeds into your website and monitors every person looking online at your site
• They identify each person as a returning user or new
• They can tell you the keywords used to find your site, what engine they used and if you paid for the click
• They track the IP address of each person on your site and provide you the city, state and company (or home) they are in. If their name is registered with their service provider, they provide the name too
• You have the ability to initiate chat with anyone browsing your site
• Allows you to see when your competitors are trolling your site
• They have amazing reporting!
• They have great customer service and they give you pointers when they see that you are not using the chat to it's fullest capabilities
• You can chat with other sales members that are signed into the service and live monitor all chats going on (your site and team members only)

Cons:

• They are about $100 more per month than Contact At Once (w/managed and after hours lead handling)

I hope this helps. We have sold 5 cars in a month and a half solely through Client ConneXion chat. In my opinion, it's well worth the investment!

 

[SeanLyons]

I only have experience with Contact at Once, and to this point have absolutely no reason to consider any other service. The customer service I receive from both our rep, Kim and anyone else I may need to speak to there is TOP NOTCH! The software is very easy to use and customize, and the results for our BDC are impressive. Looking at all of the responses, all of the pluses and negatives are fair, but the fact that the software works as advertised and the level of support and training available make Contact at Once our only choice.

 

[Sarah Udelhofen]

I have used Contact At Once for probably the last 5 years or so. I think there's a lot to be said about it since Toyota stores have made in mandatory (in my region at least) to be used by all of their dealerships. We don't just use it for our Toyota store but also use it for our other stores & sites. We use CAO for all of our websites as well as Autotrader & Cars.com. It's an inexpensive way to boost sales and caputure more leads! I'm big on customer service and I have to say not too many companies offer great customer service, I must say my CAO rep is amazing! She's always there & easy to reach. There really isn't a whole lot you need to change! I would def recommend CAO!

 

[Dan Sayer]

For what it's worth, we were pleased with ActivEngage on our own marketing sites and their support was excellent BUT they don't integrate with Cars.com, AutoTrader, and Kia. SO instead of continually managing two vendors, logins, reports, training etc we were able to reduce our group cost by $600 a month by narrowing down to the one vendor. We had a rough launch with the number of stores and users but are now running on it. So far, pleased with the switch. IF you don't have AutoTrader, Cars.com, and your OEM doesn't require one or the other, I would recommend ActivEngage first and then CAO.

 

[Alex Magnan]

I've never used anything except ContactAtOnce and its been great. I recently downloaded their version 2 mobile app for my iPhone which allows me to be away from desk and still answer chats. The mobile app still gives you all your shortcuts, ip locations , and the ability to push the conversation back on to your computer if you choose. CAO works well with sites such as Cars, AutoTrader, and DealerRater. We've also signed up to start using their mobile text message feature on our mobile site. The tech support has always been great, their portal is very easy to get around, and I highly recommend them as a chat service.

 

[yves laberge]

We went with CarChat24 on a recommendation from another Mercedes-Benz dealership. CarChat24 made the initialization process painless and turnkey. We are about to move to their 2.0 software which will have nearly 1,000 invitations; this will help keep things fresh on our site. Once their icons are up, I can change size, shape, placement or even timing of an invite through CarChat24 without having to go through my website provider. Service is VERY personal and partner-like.

 

[Shereef]

We used contact at once for 2 years and the service was only okay. I think we can tie maybe 2 sales to it last year. We recently switched over to Client ConneXion. I absolutely love their service and product!

2 sales maybe in 2 years? Does this post sound believable to anyone?

Lot's of happy customers posting here for all the companies mentioned. If you are looking for software or a chat provider, do your research. Talk to the clients of the companies you are considering. Look at the cost and the measurable results, and pull the trigger....Having chat from any of the companies mentioned here will benefit you and increase your leads and sales

Here is a link that may be helpful
http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f65/auto-dealer-chat-advice-dealer-refresh-2867.html

 

[Kelly Wilson]

Joseph, your numbers on C@1 seems really off, I did better than that with google chat back only being logged in for a few hours a day over a 3 month period. That by definition had no support or back end tool.

Did you have managed chat during that time or were the 2 sales in two years from having in house staff field the live chats?