Live Chat. What's The Best Way To Handle It? A Few Questions

[kcar]

- Should you let the customer chat first or send them a personal invitation yourself. I have the personal invitation set to 20 seconds, but are you guys sending another one with a more tailored message to what page their one?

- If they don't respond to the first or second message, should you stop messaging them? Clearly they aren't interested in talking..

Obv, I have my own thoughts on these, but want to see what you all would do..

That's about it.

 

[kcar]

Also has anyone noticed lead #'s go down with livechat? I feel like livechat might make the customer think.. "Hey they have live chat, I don't need to submit any info right now, I can always come back later whenever I want and chat"

 

[yagoparamo]

Also has anyone noticed lead #'s go down with livechat? I feel like livechat might make the customer think.. "Hey they have live chat, I don't need to submit any info right now, I can always come back later whenever I want and chat"

Oh wait; they have phones, I don't need to call right now, I can always come back later whenever I want and call.

Oh wait; they have emails, I don't need to email right now, I can always come back later whenever I want and email.

Oh wait; they have birds, I don't need to contact them right now, I can always talk to Mike Tyson whenever I want and send a flying pigeon.

 

[Shereef]

Also has anyone noticed lead #'s go down with livechat? I feel like livechat might make the customer think.. "Hey they have live chat, I don't need to submit any info right now, I can always come back later whenever I want and chat"

I doubt anyone has seen a drop unless they have to many pop ups, and are alienating the visitors. Below is a link to some results of case studies that were done here on Dealer Refresh. These results clearly show no drop in original conversion and a huge increase in leads from chat.

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/...t-staff-leads-case-study-2-months-505-23.html

You are welcome to give me a call to discuss timing and best practices to gain the best results.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Agree with Shareef. I've read countless studies and have tracked the performance myself - chat doesn't cannibalize your other points of conversion.

Too many "pop-ups" - this could cause a higher bounce/exit rate but keep in mind consumers looking at your inventory are more likely to be in a "shoppers state of mind" rather a "browser state of mind". Not too many consumers are on a dealers website leisurely looking at vehicles.

 

[kevinfrye]

Agree with Shareef. I've read countless studies and have tracked the performance myself - chat doesn't cannibalize your other points of conversion.

Too many "pop-ups" - this could cause a higher bounce/exit rate but keep in mind consumers looking at your inventory are more likely to be in a "shoppers state of mind" rather a "browser state of mind". Not too many consumers are on a dealers website leisurely looking at vehicles.

The good news is that a good chat provider can work with you to control where you have "pop-up" chat boxes.

Overall, it's about providing an outstanding shopping experience on your website and chat is a key feature that provides a convenient form of communication for many - and it is also a winner when it comes to conversion. In today's market where so many of our shoppers are searching while at work, chat is a must for those who are anxious to communicate immediately, but cannot use the phone because their co-workers will hear what they are doing...

 

[joe.pistell]

kcar,

See Shereef's threads here. Very helpful IMO.

Also, here's my chat findings FYI: Is Your Dealership Website Chat Used or Abused?

 

[merritt]

We've done some case studies because that was the question that was first brought up to us when we started our Managed Chat product. On average we see website leads double when a managed service is answering all of the chats and converting those into leads. We're currently at 99% Answer Rate and an 80% Lead Conversion and offer the only service that's fully integrated with the dealership's live inventory. Typically 80% of chats for a dealership revolve around the active inventory. I can throw out a ton more stats and bore everybody on this Monday afternoon. :p

 

[Shereef]

We've done some case studies because that was the question that was first brought up to us when we started our Managed Chat product. On average we see website leads double when a managed service is answering all of the chats and converting those into leads. We're currently at 99% Answer Rate and an 80% Lead Conversion and offer the only service that's fully integrated with the dealership's live inventory. Typically 80% of chats for a dealership revolve around the active inventory. I can throw out a ton more stats and bore everybody on this Monday afternoon. :p

I would love to see some of those case study facts and figures (Dealer Name, Stats before Chat, Stats after Chat, etc), as apposed to referencing numbers out of the blue. Have you done any live case studies online with unbiased volunteer dealers (Unbiased meaning not current clients)? Are you willing to share your case study data here on dealer refresh? If you are willing, I think the more data the better to help dealers learn more about what live chat can do for them.

We see an overall increase in conversion from our 24/7 managed service case studies from 40 to 100% (as seen here on dealer refresh), but with all our clients we see a 57% average increase. We don't see anywhere near 80% conversion from all chats? We see 44 to 46% of all chats, and 67 to 71% of sales related chats (The only time these numbers were much higher was during cash for clunkers). We see almost 45% of the chats as not being vehicle sales related. We have been doing this for a long time, so I am curious to how the numbers you are mentioning could be so different from what we see? Are you guys on the service and parts pages? Also just curious, is the integrated inventory with any client, or just for the clients using your websites?

 

[yagoparamo]

I would love to see some of those case study facts and figures (Dealer Name, Stats before Chat, Stats after Chat, etc), as apposed to referencing numbers out of the blue. Have you done any live case studies online with unbiased volunteer dealers (Unbiased meaning not current clients)? Are you willing to share your case study data here on dealer refresh? If you are willing, I think the more data the better to help dealers learn more about what live chat can do for them.

We see an overall increase in conversion from our 24/7 managed service case studies from 40 to 100% (as seen here on dealer refresh), but with all our clients we see a 57% average increase. We don't see anywhere near 80% conversion from all chats? We see 44 to 46% of all chats, and 67 to 71% of sales related chats (The only time these numbers were much higher was during cash for clunkers). We see almost 45% of the chats as not being vehicle sales related. We have been doing this for a long time, so I am curious to how the numbers you are mentioning could be so different from what we see? Are you guys on the service and parts pages? Also just curious, is the integrated inventory with any client, or just for the clients using your websites?

So the answer is that every dealer is going to present a unique set of parameters and that the results will be unique to that.

What it important to note in response to the original post is that cat doesn't not cannibalize leads, that it actually has shows in many studies by several different companies to produce a lift in the overall number of contacts created from the website.