Chat Questions

[benstewart]

First, allow me to briefly introduce myself. I recently finished my first year as the Internet Sales Manager at a dealership in Minnesota. I have a marketing background but no previous automotive experience. I maintain the Internet marketing presence and have developed an email marketing process that has taken our GM 3rd Party close ratio from a rather low 2%-4% to a recent closing ratio of 15.6% coming from a very similar number of potential buyers. I also do video and have signed on with DealerFire to gain different abilities and strengths than Cobalt provides. Now that I'm done sounding arrogant.... (if you really want to know more about what I do you can feel free to ask, but having lurked this board for about a month, I am not the smartest person here and learn from many of your examples).

Anyhow, I have to ask... we are currently using a chat program called Engage to Sale, fairly commonly used among dealership here in the upper Midwest. I sell an average of 7-9 cars per month specifically using their chat. I believe this is due to the urgency people feel when chatting - like they are prepared to buy soon because they are able to communicate faster with a person and weren't particularly comfortable surfing our Cobalt site to find what they needed. As mentioned previously, we close around 7-9 cars per month off around 70 leads.

This chat program runs around $1,000 per month and is fully manned. I can take my time to construct good email campaigns, do videos, follow up with salespeople, write comments or whatever.

The problem I have? The chat box pops up and some people find its presence annoying. The chat box also attracts people who are looking for cars under $8000 (just an average number there) which we have very few.

I am not saying I don't want those leads. Rather, I am wondering if any chat programs exist for roughly the same price that either wait in the wings like a Facebook chat or pop up at more opportune moments?

I am building the DealerFire site around a better user experience. I would rather let people shop and get the lead when they are ready.

Now that I'm done typing a whole book....

 

[joe.pistell]

Heres my chat study and my findings Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused? It's a rich study and it may give you some interesting perspectives. For example:

...I see the chats fall into common classes.+

1. Credit Questions
2. Trade-in Questions
3. Search Help Needed
4. Purchase Intent
5. Miscellaneous

HTH
Joe

p.s. My ol' Site: Syracuse's Used Car King | New & Used Chevrolet
Stats:40k uniques p/mo. 1,000 chats p/mo., 99% with contact info.
Shopper Visits to chats = 4:1
# Chats vs # Cars for Sale: 1:1
Chat Closing Ratio: 15%

 

[Kelly Wilson]

I think chats help with those shopping at work that can't talk, quick questions from people that don't want to risk caller ID and those Joe mentioned.
I don't know about the provider you are using, but my CarChat24 lets me set the number of seconds a visitor needs to be on the site before the pop up engages them (I think you can do number of clicks too but not 100%) and the forward intervals if desired as well as set different rules and displays depending on the source of the entry to the site. They have a fully managed chat, a hybrid and a free version if you just want to get into the back end to look around.
I haven't really worked with any other providers beyond the AT/cars integration with Contact at once.

 

[TomLaPointe]

ben - great question.

what Kelly said. in many cases, the proactive invite (popup) can be programmed. but DON'T GET RID OF IT. we test everything, and typically, 80% of the chats come from the popup, and you want it on page 1. as for the $8k car search, I can relate. I was the internet guy for a bmw store with few cars in the 4-digit range. I had friends in the business around town who I knew would treat people well where I would refer the buyer - even buy here / pay here places some people need. in some cases I got a small referral and others I didn't, but I stayed in touch with the shopper because eventually they could afford more or would send their friends to me.

 

[rlamb]

First, allow me to briefly introduce myself. I recently finished my first year as the Internet Sales Manager at a dealership in Minnesota. I have a marketing background but no previous automotive experience. I maintain the Internet marketing presence and have developed an email marketing process that has taken our GM 3rd Party close ratio from a rather low 2%-4% to a recent closing ratio of 15.6% coming from a very similar number of potential buyers. I also do video and have signed on with DealerFire to gain different abilities and strengths than Cobalt provides. Now that I'm done sounding arrogant.... (if you really want to know more about what I do you can feel free to ask, but having lurked this board for about a month, I am not the smartest person here and learn from many of your examples).

Anyhow, I have to ask... we are currently using a chat program called Engage to Sale, fairly commonly used among dealership here in the upper Midwest. I sell an average of 7-9 cars per month specifically using their chat. I believe this is due to the urgency people feel when chatting - like they are prepared to buy soon because they are able to communicate faster with a person and weren't particularly comfortable surfing our Cobalt site to find what they needed. As mentioned previously, we close around 7-9 cars per month off around 70 leads.

This chat program runs around $1,000 per month and is fully manned. I can take my time to construct good email campaigns, do videos, follow up with salespeople, write comments or whatever.

The problem I have? The chat box pops up and some people find its presence annoying. The chat box also attracts people who are looking for cars under $8000 (just an average number there) which we have very few.

I am not saying I don't want those leads. Rather, I am wondering if any chat programs exist for roughly the same price that either wait in the wings like a Facebook chat or pop up at more opportune moments?

I am building the DealerFire site around a better user experience. I would rather let people shop and get the lead when they are ready.

Now that I'm done typing a whole book....

check out ClientConneXion - Live Chat, SEO, SEM, Response, Social Media , cool product, and less expensive than what you are paying now. based on what you described it will give you the same functionality you have now and then some. They have their share of "annoying" chat boxes but offer a pretty non-invasive one as well, or they will let you create your own.