We work with cars.com so we get the occasional chat through contact at once. I'd like to get something on our website but budget comes into play. Any recommendations?
Inexpensive chat services
- Thread starter JesseJ
- Start date
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Jesse,
Very informative info FYI:Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused?
Cheap Chat can piss your shopper off. Nothing is worse than a dead, unstaffed chat. Nothing is worse than a rep in a chat that abandons the chat for an up (ahhh... that never happens
. Lastly, it's managements responsibility to TRAIN staff to not get abused by shoppers. Un-prepared staff will learn to hate chat.
Very informative info FYI:Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused?
Cheap Chat can piss your shopper off. Nothing is worse than a dead, unstaffed chat. Nothing is worse than a rep in a chat that abandons the chat for an up (ahhh... that never happens
. Lastly, it's managements responsibility to TRAIN staff to not get abused by shoppers. Un-prepared staff will learn to hate chat.
- Apr 22, 2009
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- Ryan
Jesse - Joe brings up some valid points. A lot of the super cheap software was mentioned in this popular thread: http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/low-cost-live-chat-software-62.html
- Apr 22, 2009
- 423
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- 6
- First Name
- Ryan
Jesse,
Very informative info FYI:Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused?
Cheap Chat can piss your shopper off. Nothing is worse than a dead, unstaffed chat. Nothing is worse than a rep in a chat that abandons the chat for an up (ahhh... that never happens
Nothing like a 100% commission sales rep handling your service chats...they really go the extra mile
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
Besides; I understand seeking for inexpensive DMS compared with huge cost DMS but inexpensive chat? Chat is innexpensive as it is, chat is inexpensive for what it brings to the table, and--there are many other plaves so save $200 than the one that could be a deal breaked every week.
Contact at Once is only like $100 a month? That's pretty cheap.. Don't want to pay that much either? Go online get a PHP chat script and install it on your website, if you know how to code.. Don't know how to code? You'll end up paying about $200 outsourced in getting someone to change the code on your website to install it.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
If you have the time to screw around with a PHP chat, code, etc to save a few hundred $$$ that means that YOU ARE NOT FOCUSED ON SELLING CARS.
Takes like 20 min to install PHP coding for the chat software; you don't even have to do anything just pay some outsourcer to install it all for you.. 10 years the dealer operates paying people for services like that, that's a total savings of $35K+. Focused on selling cars? How about being focused on not blowing dealership $ on everything and anything.. But then again people like you would be out a job, so of course you'll down the idea. So you tell me, what's better? 1 hour of setting something up and $200 to pay someone to install it all for you and never having to worry about it, or paying $35K for the small add-on with the cost never going away? That $35K could go to a lot of advertising to thus, sell more cars. How about that, interesting how that works.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
I understand your point and I dont own a dealership but as a vendor--I ALSO HAVE VENDORS (Yes!).
When I started the biz 10 years ago we used laser HP printers in the field and I bought extra tonner containers on ebay to drill a hole in the tonner container and refill them. It only took a few minutes on ebay, and a few minutes at the post office, and a few minuets to do it. I can tell you tons of 5 minutes that I wasted like that. I'm worth to my company 10 times the money we saved because I'm not easy to replace nor many people at that time had the knowledge I had in the systems. So I decided to focus in what I'm good at: Build a team of great people. 10 years later--were we are today--is a testimony that i focused in the right areas.
Keeping the conversation to chat since you brought that up. CAO caost $200 so you will save $2400/year if you do it yourself. But you will not have autotrader integration, cars.com integration, every website integration. Back in 2005 they worked with us to integrate it with Craigslist (it worked back them) and it did great things for the dealers that we had using it (and it dodn't cost a dime more). We integrated chat with CL because it is our job and that of CAO to improve our services, perform better, and stay on top of what the dealers need to--SELL CARS.
In the mean time you will save $2000 and you may lose 3-4 dealers a year because is not on autotrader, 4-4 because is not on Cars.com, 3-4 to the competition because your PHP chat doesn't have the web analitycs the new ones do, 3-4 because your PHP is not integrated with Sister Tech videos (yes, they just integrated--for FREE--CAO chat with in their video player).
So it is not $35K, it is $2K. And I see lots of lost sales for those $2K.
I personally believe that all the automotive chat services that I've seen are clunky and intruding. May I recommend:
Olark
$17/month for the cheapest plan. It's a non-intrusive, easily customizable, user-friendly alternative to the crap I've seen at the auto trade shows. Chat doesn't need to be expensive to be good. Olark is the bee's knees. And no, I don't work for them
You can easily set up Google Analytics event tracking to monitor chat behavior and whether or not usage contributes to site conversions.
EDIT: Another plus is that you can get an unbranded chat box. Try to find an auto chat provider that does that
Olark
$17/month for the cheapest plan. It's a non-intrusive, easily customizable, user-friendly alternative to the crap I've seen at the auto trade shows. Chat doesn't need to be expensive to be good. Olark is the bee's knees. And no, I don't work for them
You can easily set up Google Analytics event tracking to monitor chat behavior and whether or not usage contributes to site conversions.
EDIT: Another plus is that you can get an unbranded chat box. Try to find an auto chat provider that does that
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