How many chat icons are best? ‘Its Complicated’

It seems like the debate will never cease between chat vendors, website providers, and dealers about the ideal number of live chat icons that invite vehicle shoppers to start the conversation. So what is the answer?

Well, ‘it’s complicated’ is truly the correct answer. For some live chat companies, they make their best guess or come up with a complicated algorithm to entice customers to click the chat icon. Here at CarChat24, EVERY SINGLE ASPECT has been split tested again and again. Here is a sample of scope of our tests:

• Two icons vs. Three; Three icons vs Four; Four icons vs Five
• Location of the icons
• Placement of the different elements
• Verbiage on each icon
• Proactive (popup) size and appearance
• Frequency of the proactive (on landing page and subsequent pages)

I recently read a blog post from an industry expert who questioned the necessity of having multiple icons, and I think he is fully correct to question it – if it hasn’t been PROVEN to be effective, as our setup has. If a company is just guessing at the configuration or copying it from a high-performance live chat company like CarChat24, then no, all those different invites may be overkill. But we know each element has been proven to add between 20 and 50 percent more chat conversations, so we are confident when we have a discussion with a dealer. Live chat can make a dramatic difference in car dealer website lead counts, but every facet of the process has to be carefully implemented.