It is not hard to see that in so many ways, the Internet has changed the way that dealerships interact with their customers. It has made the most profound change to dealership operations since the creation of the F&I department. Some statistics suggest that more than 65% of dealerships today utilized some type of Internet lead management tool. Even more, some have expanded their leverage of the Internet to assist them with managing floor and service traffic through the use of a CRM. Many of those have incorporated Business Development Centers to manage all the different ways that customer are now communicating with their stores. As the Internet continues to evolve, so do our customers and how they buy. One of the most recent tools to come to the forefront is interactive chat on dealer websites.

Chat is not new. In fact is has been used for years, mostly internally within applications supplied to dealership as a way of supporting those applications. However, now Chat is being leveraged to expand the access of customers to the dealership by opening up a completely new venue for communication. Originally utilized only for customer service, it is now coming into its own as a selling tool. Chat now has the potential to reshape how dealers communicate online with their customers by moving it from an email conversation to an interactive real-time online conversation.

Of course, everyone can see how chat can enhance customer service on your dealership website. That’s easy! You need assistance. You want to speak with someone. You click a link and chat with someone right away. But, how does Chat help increase sales? Well, you wouldn’t allow someone to walk into your store and not be approached by a salesperson, would you? In fact, would you allow someone to walk through the store and leave without ever making contact at all? Well, that is what people are doing by having an unmanned web site.

Odds are, your customer has visited the web prior to coming into, or even calling your store. They’re doing research on their car of interest, pricing, and even your dealership. Your website is your virtual showroom. Most dealer websites are an extension of the dealership so as a customer, you can do most of the things that you would have done traditionally only at the store. You can search inventory, price a car, apply for credit, secure financing and more. You can even negotiate the price of a car over email. So, if someone comes to your site and is not engaged, then it is just like having someone walk in to your store, walk around and leave.

By using Chat to engage your customer during his or her browsing session, you are telling the customer that someone is available to help. If a customer becomes stuck on a page you can offer them guiding insight as to what to do next in the process. You can also present offers specific to their search criteria or even the pages have been viewed. Once you are communicating, you can move to acquire customer information just like you would in the store. Identify the anonymous browser. Now, you can track the visitor, through the lead to the sale! And, use that information to enhance your web presence and marketing.

You can include Chat buttons in your email campaigns to customers. What happens when a customer receives an email campaign items right now? They will likely research the information in the campaign. They are already engaged on the web, so it is not that difficult to do this. However, the research can be complex and many customers will just give up. Some may call the store, and this is good. But, many will not want to be bothers with getting through the automated attendant and waiting on hold to get to someone. Now, imagine that the customer can click a button in the email itself and be connected to someone immediately, but that someone already knows what the communication will be about. That is because the data from the campaign was provided when the button was clicked. You could have dozens of campaigns, and easily track the response through Chat to each one, and speed the effective rate of communication as your customers make contact.

Right now, there is a fairly small contingency of dealers that are utilizing Chat on their websites. And though it is having a noticeable effect, there has not been enough consistency in the way that the chat has been deployed to be able to offer any significant statistics. The biggest issues with Chat are the same as those that exist for handling phone calls, consistency and effectiveness in deployment. Knowing how to handle the communication and conversation in this new medium will be the key to its success

Managing a conversation on the phone and on chat is very similar. However, there are two major differences. The first is that time to respond is inclusive of typing out the response. A conversation can frustrate a customer quickly if chatters are not able to deploy a response quickly. The other major difference is the documentation of the chat itself. Each customer will have a transcript of each conversation. So, it becomes more important than ever that these conversations are managed to be consistent, with forethought and specific scripting.

But, make no doubt. This is definitely the direction of the future because frankly, customers prefer it. Global exchange Services deployed Chat on their site and now states that compared to the ROI for inbound sales calls, chat definitely has higher ROI. “It’s outrageously more. It’s an order of magnitude more. “ Says Niles Booth Global e-Campaign Manager. Earthlink found that 15% of shoppers who interact with the chat pop-up wind up converting to buying services during their session, according to Donald Berryman, EVP of Customer Support. A significant increase from the anonymous visitor, prior to utilizing Chat.

Today’s changing customer demands and increased expectations of how we handle the sale of a vehicle all point to utilization of tools that will help the dealership achieve their business goals without burdening the dealership staff with just another thing they have to do or monitor daily. The Internet has rapidly changed how we conduct business and will continue too be a catalyst for change into the foreseeable future.