This is a guest post from my colleague Ed Parkinson, VP of Sales for ContactAtOnce!. Ed has worked with auto dealers his entire career. Although it pains me as a Braves fan to provide a Phillies fan with airtime, I believe Ed provides some very insightful observations about live chat in this video. Enjoy, and comments are welcome.
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Phone UPs vs. Chat UPs
I’m sure we all will agree that the leads that produce your highest closing ratio are your phone up’s. When a customer calls your dealership you already know that they are looking for some sort of help. They might just need pricing information, incentive information or they’re checking the availability of vehicle they saw advertised on your site. It’s usually the easiest time to fact find, build rapport, capture customer information and set an appointment. The same importance needs to be placed on your chat up’s.
When a customer starts a chat with your dealership they are looking for the same answers as a customer who calls in. They just might be in a situation where it is not convenient to pick up the phone. I’ve spoken to dealers who frequently miss numerous chat requests a month. When I ask why they’re missing the chats the answer is always the same, “we’ve been too busy to answer.” If I ask them if they’re missing phone calls the answer is usually no.
Typically, if the receptionist doesn’t pick up then the phone will start to ring to another area of the dealership. Everyone wants to make sure that those valuable phone ups are answered every single time. If a chat up is just as important as a phone up why are they handled in two different ways? Why ignore a chat request and why bend over backwards to answer the phone? If you are truly too busy to answer, there is a solution we call “rollover”. Ask us about it.
Don’t miss another opportunity to speak with a customer. More conversations with customers equal more opportunities to do business. If you start treating your chat ups with the same importance as your phone ups you’ll see an increase in appointments which will lead to more cars sold.
The Funniest Dealer Chat Conversations Ever
We’ve received several questions about sharing/posting actual chat conversations - specifically some (apparently) funny ones.
So long as any personally identifying information is redacted/blanked out, there’s no problem. So….consider this a call for conversation transcripts ….the funnier the better. Post them as comments here and let’s all have some good laughs!
Three Reasons “Live Chat” Succeeds
The following article that I authored was featured yesterday in the Dealer Digest Daily enewsletter. It’s pretty basic stuff that most readers of this blog, by definition, already understand. I decided to post it here, though, because so many sales people who are successful with chat have to occasionally re-justify it to their GM or GSM. Hopefully the following succint points will prove helpful for those that find themselves in that position…
The bottom line is that 2009 is the year of chat. If your dealership isn’t yet utilizing this powerful and inexpensive tool, the time to begin is now. If you’re not convinced, here are three reasons that should convince you!
Consumers Love It
It’s common knowledge that college kids and teenagers prefer text messaging, but did you know that the demographic most likely to contact an auto dealership via chat is a middle-class professional shopping for their next vehicle while sitting at their work desk? Chat is better than a phone call because it is discreet (i.e. it can be accomplished from work without bringing attention to oneself), better than email because it is conversational and instant, and visual with indicators that clearly show when a dealership has someone available to answer questions (or not).
Dealer Tools Have Improved Markedly
Early implementations of chat required the use of an outside call center to answer leads – often because of technology limitations (i.e. the tools were too hard for dealers to learn and use). Today’s tools are easy and convenient to use. The evidence is that thousands are using chat to sell more cars today.
Third Party Sites Have Embraced Chat
Recently Cars.com announced DealerChat, a feature now available at no additional charge to all Cars.com advertisers. Cox Auto Trader’s Automart.com and CarShopSmart.com bundle chat too, as do over 50 other third party sites including many local newspaper sites. This is significant because most shoppers start their search on third party sites and will chat with the dealers they find there.
Men (and Women…) At Work
One of the reasons so many car shoppers use chat to contact a dealership is the fact that chat is discreet - that is, chat allows them to communicate with the dealership without drawing attention to themselves.
Looking at dealer weblogs one can quickly see that many shoppers do their browsing while at work. It follows that, when at work, people are hesistant to call the dealership or be called because a phone call will likely draw attention and expose the fact that one is car shopping instead of working.
Chat, on the otherhand, is just as discreet as browsing. A shopper can get their questions answered and schedule a test drive appointment without drawing any attention to themselves. Check out the following chat conversation transcript which is an actual conversation.
Key tip - It never hurts to ask for a phone number but don’t be surprised if shoppers contacting you via chat are at work and unable to get on the phone. Go ahead and close on the appointment or appropriate next step via chat.
Actual Dealer Chat Transcript
Sheldon’s Wisdom Applied to Dealer Chat
I remember one of my first years in the car business I met a gentleman named Sheldon. He was the best car salesman I have ever seen still to this day. He taught me so much like NEVER make excuses why you should work hard or sell this many. See it was January and everyone was hanging out dipping to the mall and I was following Sheldon. I saw his commission check so I wanted what he had. He was about 40 and I was about 20 or 21 at the time. Sheldon would sell about 30 or 40 cars a month. You say wow that’s a lot. Well it’s more than just a lot because he would take a week to 2 weeks off a month and still did those numbers.
His advice to me was
1) Know the flow of your store - meaning know if your store is a night store or if you have a day of the week that is heavy traffic.
2) Everyone is a prospect…..EVERYONE - meaning never discount the fact that everyone drives and needs a car or wants a new car.
This applies to what I want to talk about, trust me.
So I can tell you now that majority of your traffic to your site is between 10am and 2pm. You may also have a peak between 8 to 10pm. So what does that tell you? Be at your computer and schedule your appointments around those times. You are the manager of your time.
Secondly, every chat is an opportunity to earn business. A lot of Sheldon’s customers came from Service. So if you are taking chats why not take service chats and give them what they want but let them know you are here for them. Take every chat and work it to the end. I even suggest our rollover product because we answer the chats that you don’t get to. So if you can’t be available during those hours or you can’t give every chat the sufficient time to work it to the end, we can. (I know…this sounds like a bump to get rollover, but it is just an explanation of my examples above.)
Seventeen IM/Chat Acronyms Everyone Needs to Know
There are differing opinions within this community regarding the proactive use of IM/chat shorthand when chatting with a prospective customer and that’s fine, but whether you use shorthand or not you can be sure that some of your prospective customers will. Are you prepared? Can you at least understand their messages, even if you choose not to use type acronyms yourself?
This post provides a short list of the most commonly used IM/chat shorthand for auto leads, and a link to an exhaustive list that may prove useful should a prospective customer ever surprise you with an unusual one.
The most commonly used shorthand abbreviations and their meanings are:
ASAP - As Soon As Possible
BTW - By The Way
BWM - Bear With Me
BRB - Be Right Back
CM - Call Me
IDK - I Don’t Know
IMO - In My Opinion
K - Okay
LOL - Laughing Out Loud
OTP - On The Phone
TY - Thank You
TTYL - Talk To You Later
YW - You’re Welcome
- Smiley Face
- Winking Smiley Face
:-0 - Shock and Surprise Face
- Sad Face
Billed as “The Largest List of Text Message Shorthand”, Netlingo is a site that you may want to bookmark just in case a prospective customer hits you with an acronym you don’t recognize.
And if you have a common acronym not listed above, by all means please leave a comment! TY
Engage Maverick………
When I was younger I was told to engage my brain before using my mouth. Today I teach engage your brain before using your mouth, mouse or keyboard.
I have worked with Auto Dealerships all over the U.S. for the last 10 years helping them install or improve processes to drive more customers to their showrooms via their phones and the internet, and when I first saw Contact at Once I was floored…finally a tool to break through the clutter and allow a customer to engage in conversation without all of the usual flaming hoops like enter your age, pin # and social security number and we’ll get back to you soon (with an impersonal auto response I might add).
Since I first saw this tool I have helped many of my Client Dealers implement this tool and without exception they have seen measurable upticks in their business, and in some stores the increase has been huge.
In today’s more demanding business climate I have not seen a better, more user friendly or more cost effective way to increase traffic and sales than the Contact at Once chat software. I recommend it to anyone who would like to have more returns from their internet presence, and I look forward to sharing some of the tips and techniques that I’ve developed.
TK Carsites Integrates ContactAtOnce!
Today we announced a relationship with TK Carsites, a developer of custom auto dealer websites that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO). Thousands of dealers are utilizing TK Carsites-powered websites and so it is a great honor for ContactAtOnce! to have been selected.
TK Carsites customers should contact their TK Carsites representative immediately to take advantage of the improved conversion of website visitors into sale leads that comes from the addition of ContactAtOnce! to a dealer website. The fact that TK Carsites has pre-integrated ContactAtOnce! means the implementation process is simple and easy.
Windows Live Messenger Now Lets You Add Chat to Your Website - Should You Care?
Microsoft announced some new features today that allow the addition of Windows Live Messenger Chat to any website. A nice post about it can be found on TechCrunch. Like Facebook Connect and other similar offerings, this is really just a way to add some social interaction to a website. So why should readers of this ContactAtOnce! blog care and what does it mean for them? A couple of things….
First, in case it isn’t obvious, the type of “social interaction” enabled by Live Messenger and similar software solutions is very different from the shopper-merchant chat interactions enabled by ContactAtOnce!. For social interaction both users must have previously set up userid’s and logged into the Live Messenger service, and the chat sessions are neither measured nor recorded. No reporting. No CRM integration. Etc. So although it is a useful and interesting solution, it is not in any way a replacement for ContactAtOnce!.
Second, this type of announcement highlights the continuing growth of chat usage. Even though it is a different type of chat, the fact that more and more of the world’s population is using chat as a wayto communicate (rather than email or the phone) means only one thing…that businesses looking to sell those people stuff, be it a car or attorney services or whatever, better offer chat on their website and within their web-based advertising. What happens to businesses that don’t offer chat? The shoppers will find another business website that does. Thats’ what!
Chat is changing the way that people communicate with each other socially (Microsoft’s announcement is proof), and businesses need solutions like ContactAtOnce! to capitalize on the chat trend and increase sales .