I was talking about Automotive Live Chat with someone the other day covering some of the normal questions people have when considering adding the service to their website. Just so he doesn’t remain anonymous, we will call him Steve. He said “If we put Live Chat on our site won’t incoming website leads and calls suffer because people can just ask the agent to give them what they need?”. This seems like a reasonable question and usually my answer shocks people…. My response: “The reality is, not only does it increase leads but, they are much higher quality than many of the leads you are currently paying extra for.”
In the Automotive Industry an internet lead (form fill) from your website is the highest converting online lead you can get. Most times a lead from your site comes in on a specific vehicle. And since it’s from your site you know they either sifted it out of stack of vehicles on a third-party site like Cargurus, Cars.com or Autotrader.com, or they were directly on your site looking for a vehicle that would work for them. To be clear, I am not saying we shouldn’t use third party listing sites. I’m just saying in most cases, the highest quality leads always come from the Automotive Dealers website. And since Live Chat is housed within your site, the leads that come from Live Chat are at minimum equal to, but in most cases higher quality than, a form fill from your site.
In an earlier post called What Automotive Live Chat Has to do With Fast Food, we talked about how your website traffic is “hungry customer” (in the market). You know they are hungry because they are in the drive through (on your website). And hungry customers want food (answers) given to them as quickly as possible.
When customers are shopping online, they want quick easy answers and they want them now! And since people generally look for the path of least resistance, prefer to text, or pre-conditioned by social media, it’s easy to just type or verbally ask a question when they have one. They don’t have to call, they don’t have to go through a receptionist, they don’t have to speak to someone…. But, when they take the time to ask and they get a quick pleasant reply it is slows them down and starts moving them closer to the sale.
Once customers have taken the small step towards asking a question and the dialog is flowing, they are likely to set up an appointment to see a vehicle or give you their contact information for follow up. In our experience, none of the dealers we have worked with suffered any loss in leads from the site or phone calls to the dealership. They captured customers that were coming through the drive through and looking at the menu. Only in this case they had someone on the line to greet them and take their order so they pick up new customers and new sales.
