Lead counts don’t define the best live chat

Auto dealers looking for the best live chat for their website have to cope with more and more companies making that claim. This quickly begs the question: how do you define the best live chat? There are several metrics, or key performance indicators, that are often thrown at dealers:

• Most chat conversations
• Most chat leads
• Highest sold units from live chat
• Most chat window widgets
• Coolest chat add-on

All of these seem like they could be important, but of them all, the CarChat24 team focuses on most sold units, as that is the statistic on which ROI is based – and bills are paid. So let’s take a look at these categories.

It may seem like a focus on the most chat conversations could be key, but as with all website or even third-party leads, quality is much more important than quantity. A by-product of this focus is the risk of website form lead cannibalization. CarChat24 has scientifically tested its customer-facing software to ensure there it does not cannibalize form leads the dealer would have generated anyway.

Some dealers and chat vendors get excited about the count of chat leads. It’s important that a chat provider generate leads, but here again, quality trumps quantity by far. Anyone who has spun their wheels on high-funnel third-party car sales leads or OEM leads that are shared with half a dozen stores is not only inefficient, but demoralizing.

Ultimately the goal of any digital vendor is to generate a boost in car sales. And that’s why a focus on the most sold units from live chat is our biggest focus – and one in which we lead the pack. Relative to unique visit counts, CarChat24 has the greatest percentage of sold units.

There is a trend for chat providers to race to see who can have the most widgets plugged into the chat window. From inventory to oil change coupons, these plugins look good in a demonstration, but haven’t seemed to move the needle when it comes to selling cars.

Chat add-ons are another whiz-bang feature that chat providers pitch as a key differentiator. But at the end of the day, nifty features like live video transfer to the store may generate more stress for the shopper than sales on the board.

How to research the best live chat

If you’re curious about the effectiveness about these last two categories there are a few ways to find out how well they really work:

1. Ask the vendor to show you random analytics to see how much they’re used
2. Talk to dealers who like and dislike it
3. See if the vendors using these features on their own websites, when applicable

There are two ways for dealers to look at the money spent on live chat. Pure return on investment is critical. If it isn’t selling cars then it isn’t worth the money. The other KPI is to question when a dealer opts NOT to use the best live chat is to ask how many deals are being missed because there is no chat or it is second-rate. CarChat24’s live chat is the best in the business because we scientifically test every facet of the process and software deployment to ensure dealers are selling the most cars. Call, chat, or text today to schedule your quick web demonstration.