One of the big reasons managed chat appeals to car dealers is that you don’t have to worry about staffing your chat window, making sure your response times are within prospects’ patience thresholds, or frustrating prospects by going offline when you close your dealership doors. Managed chat means that call center operators trained to answer queries about your inventory and turn them into leads are always available to answer questions and engage with prospects 24/7, 365 days a year. In today’s world, people don’t have time to leave the office or get away from work long enough to give a dealership a visit or a call, and they want to be able to call or reach out over live chat any time of the day or night, or while they’re at their desk. That’s something dealer-managed chat can’t offer, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t benefits to dealer-managed chat.
One of the major shortcomings of fully-managed software becomes clear in the auto sales industry in particular; cars are big ticket household purchases and there are too many negotiables for call center operators to seal the deal. A call center operator at a live chat company like Gubagoo can offer a prospect:
- information about your inventory, such as whether a certain model is available,
- links, photos, and videos of advice that can help potential customers make up their mind and compare different makes and models,
- credit applications through the window so that prospects can save themselves some time when they finally do visit the lot,
- and schedule an appointment for a test drive or servicing, or retrieve contact information so that a salesperson can contact them with further information.
It’s a great system for generating leads, but when you have someone who’s done the research and is a lot closer to testing out a car or even making a purchase, you want to clear away any obstacles to their conversion. That’s where you need to introduce new communication tools for car dealers that combine the best features of fully-managed chat with direct involvement from dealer salespeople.
How can your salespeople get involved when call center operators are already handling everything, including responding to queries within seconds and pushing your dealership’s integrated inventory? With the RESQ app, developed by Gubagoo and integrated into their live chat system, your dealership salespeople have access to all of the information operators gather about the lead when they follow up, but they can also watch chats as they happen. With real time notifications, the salesperson can keep an eye on things, communicate directly to the operator, and even jump in themselves when the conversation reaches the limits of the operator’s knowledge. Involving your salespeople means you can streamline the conversion process and get closer to closing the deal.
If you’re still relying on meeting, greeting, and qualifying on the lot, you’re being left behind by the industry and your sales will suffer as new consumer habits come to dominate. Car buyers are visiting fewer car dealers than ever before, sometimes only visiting the one where they decide to buy, and never before doing extensive online research. Car dealer chat is your chance to connect directly with shoppers and qualify before they step foot on the lot; research shows that younger car shoppers don’t like going to dealerships, hate haggling, and prefer doing as much shopping as possible online. Stay in business by making car buying easy for a generation of consumers who prefer to go online.
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