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Who Chats For Your Dealership?

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Katie

Katie

Over the Curb
Apr 10, 2010
71
0
First Name
Katie
#1
For those of you dealers who handle your own Live Chat function (given that you have the service), do you have your salesmen manage the chats? Or, do you have a designated BDC department/Internet Department handle them?


....and discuss!
 
#3
JoeBrouillette said:
The BDC dept handles chat leads here. They mainly get routed to me because the rest of the BDC isn't very interested in the leads as they can call faster than they can type.
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Understandably. Granted, it's been roughly a year and a half since I've been behind the BDC desk handling chats, but I felt that the reason people were chatting was because they prefer not to make a phone call. We had a fairly decent conversion rate of chat leads back then with Constant Contact, I believe we were using.
 
#5
Justin, you must be very fortunate to have some very qualified trained sales professionals. If it were my decision from the start there is no way in hell I would allow the average sales people to chat but then again I wouldn't allow them answer the phone either, heck lets place Internet leads into the same bucket while we are at it.

I have too many experiences traveling from dealer to dealer, listening to phone ups, reading chat transcripts to know that the average untrained sales person is hindering more than helping your sales efforts during a chat session.

This is the main reason for my slow adaption back into chat arena. I love chat, And I firmly believe and know when done right can produce some of the best quailed "leads". But I also know that a chat session can turn bad really fast and can quickly give the customer a negative impression in going business with your business. Chat NEEDS to left to trained professionals.

In my opinion it's all to easy to say you want the customer to speak with a sales person because they "know the car". Fact is - most sales people don't even know their own inventory any more than an outsourced chat agent reading from the vehicle description page on your dealer website, but at least you get the benefit of someone that is trained to go after the information and appointment.

Perfect situation, you have a complete team of trained sales professionals that know exactly what to say and how to type it and are impeccable during every chat session. Hey, if you have these people hired on your sales floor, kudos to that dealer. You are a 2%'r.
 
#6
We have a designated salesman that only does e-mail & chat. I think it's great to have someone qualified to this, because the typical "car salesman" can certainly close but they are still the old mentality and don't believe in internet leads....yet = ]
 
#7
Jeff Kershner said:
Justin, you must be very fortunate to have some very qualified trained sales professionals. If it were my decision from the start there is no way in hell I would allow the average sales people to chat but then again I wouldn't allow them answer the phone either, heck lets place Internet leads into the same bucket while we are at it.

I have too many experiences traveling from dealer to dealer, listening to phone ups, reading chat transcripts to know that the average untrained sales person is hindering more than helping your sales efforts during a chat session.

This is the main reason for my slow adaption back into chat arena. I love chat, And I firmly believe and know when done right can produce some of the best quailed "leads". But I also know that a chat session can turn bad really fast and can quickly give the customer a negative impression in going business with your business. Chat NEEDS to left to trained professionals.

In my opinion it's all to easy to say you want the customer to speak with a sales person because they "know the car". Fact is - most sales people don't even know their own inventory any more than an outsourced chat agent reading from the vehicle description page on your dealer website, but at least you get the benefit of someone that is trained to go after the information and appointment.

Perfect situation, you have a complete team of trained sales professionals that know exactly what to say and how to type it and are impeccable during every chat session. Hey, if you have these people hired on your sales floor, kudos to that dealer. You are a 2%'r.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I was misunderstood. Only the sales people in my internet dept are allowed to chat. Not the lot sales people. I have 11 in my dept who handle my chats. I am however, very fortunate to have a good group of 11. The chat "ups" are fought over the most. I will hear a phone ring and ring, but a chat is picked up in seconds. I think my guys would consider cha to be some of the best leads outside of maybe online credit ap leads.
 
#8
I used to work with a BDC outsourcing company, and we handled chats for a dealers through Contact at Once, which was pretty decent. Our BDC reps. were trained to act professionally, as they would on the phone. The goal was to get the information so we could either set an appointment or at least get their information to get them on the phone to get the appointment. I would say the biggest downfall was we could only chat during business hours, so it left the chat function "unmanned" whenever we were closed. But the website is always open!

I think the goal of any chat, no matter who handles it, is to convert that person into a hot lead then a showroom visit and into a sale. Chat is a great way to start the process, but you have to deal with the customer verbally at some point or another.
 
#10
I think that it is essential that the chat be covered at all hours. My staff covers is during business hours, and is outsourced after. The chat module has become so popular amongst my staff, that we had it installed on some of their personal laptops and they will chat after hours and on Sundays (when we are closed.) My LMA is sponsoring an outsourced chat product. Throughout the time that this was our sole chat product, I never saw results. We then switched to Client Connexion, which allows our own sales staff to chat, it has produced incredible results. I certainly don't think that you can open chat up to your entire sales staff, but more importantly, I don't think a non employee can convert near as many customers. That is the most important thing to chat...... CONVERSION. The chat has become so highly regarded, that our top salesman in the dept reached that point solely off of chat! If managed correctly and operated properly, chat is probably one of, if not, the highest quality leads in the E-Commerce world.
 
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