Traveling across the United States visiting dealerships has taught me many lessons about using chat to engage website visitors and sell more cars. From the dealerships that do it themselves to dealerships that outsource the whole operation, I have identified five key “Must Do” things to make chat work for you. Chat is not for every dealership, but for those dealerships that are looking to build better rapport faster with online shoppers and engage more website visitors and convert them into leads there is not a tool out there that is better than chat. I have come to realize chat is like the phone in that it can add a higher level of sales, service and support for your dealership or it can ring and ring and ring and produce poor results. Lets take some time and go over just how to leverage chat to actively engage your website visitors and, more importantly, turn them into sales for the dealership.

1. Online And On Time- As I speak with people that don’t seem to be getting the most out of using chat, the first thing that I usually uncover is the limited amount of time they spend in front of the computer trying to engage shoppers. To make this work you will need to operate at least 60 hours per week. In our experience 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday is the optimum time since the vast majority of your dealership’s internet traffic will occur during this time frame. The second part in the Online and On Time piece is that people online are incredibly impatient—similar to a small child. The Internet is a place where fifteen seconds feels like an eternity. If you don’t believe me, time it for yourself. To be successful chatting with online shoppers you need to reach them with a personalized response in five seconds or less. This is the benchmark that we continuously strive to hit and for you to get the most out of using chat you will need to do the same. Yes, five seconds is your window—any longer and the potential for that individual to abandon the chat goes up exponentially. Let’s recap—you have to make sure you are covering enough hours during the week to actively engage shoppers while also making sure you do it at lightening quick speed. The best part about using chat is the ability to see people shopping your dealership’s website and insert yourself in there shopping process.
2. Direction Equals Succes- I have the great privilege to review hundreds if not thousand of chats and I can assure you that you need to direct your shoppers using a chat script to make it work no different that how you manage and direct customers through a systematic process for a phone up. When a customer gets on a chat and starts asking questions and you just start answering them, who is in control? Not you and that not the position you want to be in, so you must gain control back by offering information yet asking questions to gather the customer’s information. Control on chat is one of the most critical parts of making it work at your dealership, while ensuring your shopper has a great first experience. Chat only works when your staff can direct your shoppers through a series of questions and web pages, moving the customer through an online sales process all the while satisfying the shopper by giving them snippets of useful information to make their purchase experience better.
3. Knowledge is Power- The more information and data you have readily available to understand the customer’s needs the better you can address them. Plain and simple. You need access to previous chats the visitor might have already had plus the previous click path to get inside your shopper’s head to anticipate his or her needs more effectively. Also knowing the approximate location of the shopper using GEO-IP can establish if this is a shopper in your local market. Make sure your chat system can deliver this information and more at the click of the mouse. To be successful using chat you need knowledge and combining that with action will result in more dealership sales from your website.
4. Service & Parts Matter Too- Not all the people that want to chat will result in sales leads. Get used to it—your dealership doesn’t just sell cars it services them too. Chat can be super effective at booking online service appointments and also to dampen heat cases before they become a fire. Using your dealership’s website as not only a sales generation machine but also as a customer service and support system is critical to building customer rapport. We found it incredibly useful to have an online service appointment scheduler tied into your website. We are able to either walk the customer through the process or do it for them while they just give us the information. It creates a great first impression with your service department and that matters in the competitive business we all operate in. We have sold tires, brake pads, mufflers and everything else by engaging shoppers at just the right time with the right message.
5. Location, Location, Location- Placement of your chat icon is critical to engage the maximum amount of shoppers. The top right hand corner of your website is a great place to have help available since it seems to be the same universal spot to seek assistance all around the web so placing your chat image in the top right can help make sure your customer know where to go when they need help. We have had dealerships place the chat icon at the bottom on the page on the sides or just on the homepage. I can assure you each of these store had limited results because they chose to ignore common web practices. Also look to extent your placement on all electronic marketing. Your website is not enough. Try placing your chat icon on your e-newsletter, email marketing campaigns, MicroSites, landing pages, email signature file and anywhere else you can think of will help generate more leads, and more sales.

By now you can really see the power of using chat to sell, service and support your shoppers and customer alike. Taking your website to the next step of interactivity is critical to meet the growing demands of automotive shoppers. There is a very real process that can turn even a poor chat operator into a powerful lead generation machine for your dealership. I challenge you to embrace chat at your dealership and leverage the technology to sell and service more vehicles. In a tough economy your dealership needs every competitive edge it can get and chat is emerging as the competitive online edge of 2009.