Automotive Chat is a Necessity, Not a Luxury

Website – check! CRM – check! Search marketing – check! Chat – maybe, maybe not. There are certain things that car dealers want for their marketing and there are other things that are requirements. Chat is quickly making the shift from being a luxury item on the grocery list of services to the realm of becoming a necessity.

Car dealers need chat on their websites, period.

Some might say that they don’t really need chat because they have other methods through which their website visitors can contact them. They have a phone number, contact forms, maybe even a social media link or two. If someone is serious about contacting a dealership, they’ll find a way, right? Wrong. There are plenty of consumers out there visiting car dealership websites every day who want to make contact a certain way. If you don’t have the right method available, they simply won’t contact you.

Chat is unique in the way that it functions on an automotive website. Unlike forms, it’s instantaneous. Real-time interaction is becoming more and more crucial for businesses to embrace. Unlike the phone, the interaction is indirect. Believe it or not, there are still plenty of consumers who simply do not like talking to car dealers. Some are intimidated. Others are not trusting of the interaction. They enjoy the idea of chat because it puts them in control of the conversation while getting the benefit of having their questions answered immediately.

There’s another layer of need that’s emerging. Millennials are growing up and becoming car buyers. They’re not all sitting in their parents’ basement playing Xbox and drinking Monsters. They’re getting great jobs and they need to buy cars. Many millennials prefer texting as their primary form of contact. The problem is that they don’t necessarily want to give their phone number to a business. This is where chat comes into play. Chat gives them the same basic type of real-time typed interaction that they’re accustomed to without forcing them to hand over their phone number. These are savvy people. They know what can happen when a business gets their cell phone number and an open invitation to send them texts. Chat is ideal for communicating with millennials.

As you make your marketing decisions for the future, it’s imperative that you shift you’re thinking if you don’t realize that chat is a must-have rather than a luxury item on your list. We’d love the opportunity to show you more.