Is a Car Dealer Chat Service Right for You?

Car dealers often want to know if chat is something that they need on their website. As much as we’d like to say that every car dealership in North America should have live chat on their website in general (and CarChat24 in particular) we realize that it’s not the right fit for everyone. Some dealers simply don’t need it.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when considering whether or not your dealership should have a powerful chat solution on your website:

• Chat is Aggressive – There are plenty of dealers who do not believe that chat is right for them because it is an aggressive strategy for communicating with your website visitors. We hear from some dealers that they would prefer to be more passive with their communication. After all, if someone really wants a car, they should make the effort to contact you about it. Obviously, this is a practice that we do not believe in, but we know that some dealers prefer to let it happen instead of making it happen.
• “Phone-Only” Mentality – One concept that has been emerging with various degrees of success is to focus on driving phone ups only. Internet leads are not the easiest to follow up with, so some dealers are trying to make the phone the only way to contact them about their vehicles or fixed operations. The growing trend of text, chat, and other forms of “finger communication” should make the phone-only mentality go away.
• Avoiding Heat – We’re car people. Our team was built from people who have been in the business. As such, we know that there are those out there who avoid heat cases from customers like the plague. With website chat, your customers will have a venue through which to voice their opinions about their experience. Not everybody wants to hear this, in which case chat is probably not right for you.
• Cost vs Sales – The improvements in cars sales over the last couple of years have most dealers spending more money on their lead conversion, but others are going in the opposite direction. Success can make dealers stop looking at the top line and only look at the bottom line, which means that they believe they can continue to sell more vehicles while spending less money on their digital marketing. Chat is often considered a luxury that only aggressive dealers us, so it’s something that can be cut by some dealers.

Clearly, those who want to sell more vehicles tend to lean towards a car dealer chat service in order to get aggressive and generate more leads on their websites. They also realize that good customer service starts with communication and the ability to communicate directly with unhappy customers rather than waiting for them to post their concerns online is a benefit.

Again, we know that it’s not for everyone. If you’re aggressive and you want to allow your website visitors to communicate with you better, you’re probably a good candidate for website chat.