Chat Challenge: Show Me Your Chat

[GoAuto]

Our department provides customer service for our 30 car dealerships. We handle all phone calls, emails and chats. Adding chat has opened up a large market of consumers for us. For example last month through our department about half of our car sales came from online chats with customers. I would highly recommend adding it.

We have tried a couple chat providers and I notice a difference in them. The one we found the best was CarChat24. They were able to customize the software for our specific needs and we can use our own custom made graphics which works well for our company's marketing plans.

 

[Shereef]

What makes for great chat software or managed services in the automotive industry? I want to know. At Dealer Authority, we don't offer chat, but it's becoming more of a concern as we work with dealers across the country on their general digital marketing needs. I'm not a chat expert, so I need help from the community.

Whose chat works well? Whose does not? What are some best practices? I'd like to hear from dealers AND vendors on this one if possible, please

I'd also like to offer a challenge. To any chat company willing to show me your statistics, case studies, pitches, whatever, I'm willing to listen. The goal is to find out who we (and anyone else) should recommend. Is anyone really the best or is chat just... well, chat?

Please let me know if you're up for the challenge. Dealers, please comment about your experiences as well.

JD

I would love the opportunity to walk you through our dealer chat software, managed chat processes, and back-end, so you can see our results. I think if you do the same with the others you will see some distinct differences. Call or email me and let's schedule a tour.

 

[Shereef]

Todd any stats on how the Chat box in the search bar performs? I find that placement highly intuitive as well as imaginative.

Dan

I agree that it is good icon placement based on the available room in the banner, but assume this was a custom request from the dealer. AE would more than likely have recommend an icon with a operator image on the initial install with a good call to action (I am assuming AE would recommend an icon with an image based on what I have seen from them over the years). Many dealers don't give chat the real estate in their page banner they should. If the dealer is seeing a strong increase in leads from AE chat why not bump it up a notch with a better performing banner icon? I have tested several static banner chat icons with and without images and measured the results. The icon with a good operator image always wins by a large margin.

 

[Shereef]

Our department provides customer service for our 30 car dealerships. We handle all phone calls, emails and chats. Adding chat has opened up a large market of consumers for us. For example last month through our department about half of our car sales came from online chats with customers. I would highly recommend adding it.

We have tried a couple chat providers and I notice a difference in them. The one we found the best was CarChat24. They were able to customize the software for our specific needs and we can use our own custom made graphics which works well for our company's marketing plans.

Leanne

Very Happy to see Go Auto here on Dealer Refresh! I am glad your team is maximizing the use of our chat software, and you have helped us improve it along the way

Thank you!

 

[autodealerchat]

JD,

We have responded to you already on DrivingSales and have reached out via email. You are not the first to ask this question - who is the best. 13,000 dealers, OEMs, Website Providers like Dealer.com and all the major third party search sites in the automotive industry asked the same question. They did their research. Each chose Contact At Once!. We'd be happy to discuss with you why that is.

Aaron

 

[joe.pistell]

I'd like to see a chat provider roll up their sleeves and do a deep study and create a new chat experience.

I am on the record of being Chat's biggest fan. But, It has a dark side. I visit dealers sites doing research and that chat box is always interrupting my shopping workflow. It can be so "pushy" that is pisses me off and makes me leave the site early.

98% of your car shoppers are stealth. They don't complain when you piss them off, they just leave.

 

[joe.pistell]

From a car shoppers POV, aggressive chat boxes are a lot like photobombs


It's hard to concentrate on the main topic when...

 

[joe.pistell]

I love Chad's homebrew Chat UI:
Anderson Ford Lincoln Mazda Kia Mitsubishi Lincoln, Grand Island, St. Joseph New, Used Car Dealer

Great color contrast, clear CTA, it complements work flow, not tries to interrupt it (aka photobomber).

 

[ErikJonker]

First off I am very new to Chat and I am just implementing fully managed chat on my website after experimenting with Olark and in-house operators.

I think based off my secret shopping competition websites that a Fully Integrated Chat "in" the website is a very important part of the equation. Just like Facebook would have when chatting with your friends. Most Chats I have seen pop up in a separate window that I lose amongst the 3-4 windows that I have open at the time and disappear behind other windows.

I'm not a consumer shopping experience master so I don't know if more people have done what I do but, This is my experience:

go to xyz Ford Dealership:
1. start chatting with Photobomb Chat invitation......
2. While waiting for replies, I re-engage browsing the xyz Ford dealership (chat window disappears behind open window)
3. I click on the open browser windows chat now function on whatever page I am browsing now and it opens new chat window and old chat cancels and all previous chat and progress disappears and chat starts over with possibly new operator.



Is there a reason that carchat24 & activengate & CAO & almost everyone in CHAT has a separate window open?

 

[Daniel J. Mondello]

Dan

I agree that it is good icon placement based on the available room in the banner, but assume this was a custom request from the dealer. AE would more than likely have recommend an icon with a operator image on the initial install with a good call to action (I am assuming AE would recommend an icon with an image based on what I have seen from them over the years). Many dealers don't give chat the real estate in their page banner they should. If the dealer is seeing a strong increase in leads from AE chat why not bump it up a notch with a better performing banner icon? I have tested several static banner chat icons with and without images and measured the results. The icon with a good operator image always wins by a large margin.

Shereef and I have gone back and forth on proper chat icon placement many, many times and I'm still not 100% convinced that we have it right. Nor am I sold that any one CTA is the absolute best CTA.

Shereff you once shared with me some information concerning highest converting Chat Agent name and avatar. I had always assumed it would be the seductive blonde with the black thick rim glasses (Jessica or Samantha...?). I think the refresh community would love to see this data posted. How bout it?