Free! 24/7 Live Dealer Chat Support, Staff, and Leads (Case Study 2 Months)

[terrencegordon]

I'm curious as to the percentage of chats after business hours and if it's cost effective to actually have people answering chat at 3am?

Thoughts?

 

[Shereef]

I'm curious as to the percentage of chats after business hours and if it's cost effective to actually have people answering chat at 3am?

Thoughts?

Terrence

We are getting 35% to 40% of the leads after hours, so it does make a lot of sense. Back when I was running dealerships, I always wanted to maximize all opportunities, and make every sale possible. The extended 24/7 coverage we offer our dealers insures that they do not miss any opportunities. We do not charge them extra for the afterhours coverage, so any lead they gain is a plus. We could save nearly 50% on our chat staff if we didn't offer 24/7 coverage, but I would rather insure that no opportunity for a sale is missed for my clients. I guess you have to ask yourself, if a lead comes in at 3AM and they buy a vehicle is it worth it? Below is part of a previous post on this thread where one of the dealers posted their after hours lead info, and my comments.


Only one of our dealers in the case study has been measuring this. Below is what he posted on this thread. He is seeing about 35% of his leads coming in after regular business hours. Many of our clients get over 40% after hour leads depending on where their dealership is located, brand, etc. It makes sense to have 24/7 live chat support coverage with this high of a percentage of prospects online after hours.


Originally Posted by bsutherlin
Total leads that came in between 9pm to midnight = 27.9% or 145 Leads Midnight - 8am 7.37% or 38 leads.

 

[Amy_Pelosi]

January (Week 2) 1st through the 14th

Total Unique Visitors: 796
Total Website Leads without Chat Leads: 2
Lead Conversion % without Chat Leads: .3
Total CarChat24 Leads/Appointments/Queries: 16
Total Conversion % with Chat Leads: 2.0
Total Lead Conversion % increase: 566%

 

[Shereef]

January (Week 2) 1st through the 14th

Total Unique Visitors: 796

Amy

As you know we originally required 3,000 monthly unique visitors, but let you participate even though the numbers you gave us were a few hundred short. I'm not sure what happened to your website traffic, and thought I would wait to see if there was an improvement in January after seeing December's total traffic numbers with Unique Visitors at only 1679.

It doesn't appear there will be any improvement in your January traffic based on your last post, and we will no longer be including MB of Southampton in this case study.

We will complete the study with the two remaining dealers. Thank you for your participation in our case study.

Low traffic websites do not give a clear picture of the data, that is why we originally set the minimum at 3,000. For example in the month of December MB of Southampton showed an increase in lead conversion of 180% and a sales increase of 200%. These results are not the norm for dealers with an average amount of traffic. The realistic increase in lead conversion dealers can expect is between 30 to 60% with a sales increase of 25 to 40%. Below is MB of Southampton's December final results.

Total Unique Visitors: 1679
Total Website Leads without Chat Leads: 17
Lead Conversion % without Chat Leads: % 1.0
Total CarChat24 Leads/Appointments/Queries: 30
Total Conversion % with Chat Leads: % 2.8
Total Lead Conversion % increase: % 180
Total Website Sales without Chat Leads: 1
Total Chat Lead Sales: 2
Total Sales: 2
Website Sales % increase: %: 200

 

[Shereef]

We have had a few inquiries about the percentage of leads created by chat after hours. We just ran the numbers on one of the dealer groups we provide 24/7 managed chat for over the last 30 days, and the results are below.


Dealers main site: 78 Phone, 36 Email, 3 VIP, 26 Service & Parts Queries (63 Outside of Business hours = 44.05%)
Honda site: 20 Phone, 11 Email, 7 Service & Parts Queries (14 Outside of Business hours = 36.84%)
Acura site: 13 Phone, 7 Email, 3 Service & Parts Queries (11 Outside of Business hours = 47.82%)
Kia site: 16 Phone, 4 Email, 5 Service & Parts Queries (13 Outside of Business hours = 52%)


Total leads and Queries: 229 (Total of 101 Outside of Business hours = 44.10%)

 

[Shereef]

Next weekly update will be on January 22nd keep coming back to watch the results unfold.....

 

[bsutherlin]

Week 3 results:

Total Unique Visitors: 5583

Total Website Leads without Chat Leads: 325

Lead Conversion % without Chat Leads: 5.83%

Total CarChat24 Leads/Appointments/Queries: 203

Total Conversion % with Chat Leads 9.46%

Total Lead Conversion % increase: 61.70%

We had a huge week. Sutherlin Nissan 161 new and used cars sold last week. We have increased our advertising spend for this quarter.

 

[Shereef]

Week 3 results:

Total Unique Visitors: 5583

Total Website Leads without Chat Leads: 325

Lead Conversion % without Chat Leads: 5.83%

Total CarChat24 Leads/Appointments/Queries: 203

Total Conversion % with Chat Leads 9.46%

Total Lead Conversion % increase: 61.70%

We had a huge week. Sutherlin Nissan 161 new and used cars sold last week. We have increased our advertising spend for this quarter.

Brett

Those are some strong numbers with nearly 10% total lead conversion! I have a lot of clients, and your numbers are definitely at the top!!


I will be posting a before and after view for the forum members as soon as Henkel posts their 3 week numbers.

.

 

[wfyoung]

January (Week 3) 1st through the 21st

Total Unique Visitors: 2754
Total Website Leads without Chat Leads: 89
Lead Conversion % without Chat Leads: 3.2
Total CarChat24 Leads/Appointments/Queries: 73
Total Conversion % with Chat Leads: 5.9
Total Lead Conversion % increase: 84.4%

I'm a little late with this post but I think, after a terrible last quarter of 2009, we are actually back in the car business!

 

[Shereef]

Next weekly update will be on January 29th keep coming back to watch the results unfold.....