Are leads from live chat really leads?

If you are the general manager of a dealership that has never used automotive live chat service or software, you’re probably wondering the same thing.

The answer is clear though…for real!

The highest quality foot traffic that comes into your showroom or onto your lot is brought in by leads generated from your dealership websites.   Automotive live chat on your dealership website increases the amount of these leads.

Here are 4 reasons why leads from automotive live chat are of the highest quality.

1.      Live chat leads are informed, engaged and ready-to-buy

Nine times out of ten, your website visitors are conducting research on their next automotive purchase.  Live chat serves as a quick and anonymous channel of communication between dealers and shoppers.  By using automotive live chat, you can answers visitors’ questions, build and nurture relationships with prospective customers and capture contact information to be delivered directly into your CRM.  This dealer/customer engagement drives highly qualified leads to your showroom.

2.      Live chat taps into an under-engaged resource of interested shoppers

Without automotive live chat, the amount of high quality leads delivered to your sales people greatly depends on your website’s level of engagement and rate of conversion.  In fact, an average of 96% of visitors leaves your website every day without converting to a lead. They essentially vanish without a trace.

Automotive live chat allows dealers to easily tap into this resource of casual automotive shoppers.  Engaging this tacit layer of consumers provides you an additional opportunity to convert interested automotive shoppers into highly qualified leads.

3.      Live chat develops a relationship between consumers and your brand

The average length of an automotive live chat conversation is 8 minutes.  Behind every chat is awell-developed conversation that builds both the brand in the eyes of the consumer and a brandrelationship with the consumer.  When consumers feel a connection with a brand, they are most likely to take action either in the form of brand advocacy (marketing) or loyalty (sales).

 4.      Live Chat provides consumers instant answers to their questions

Visitors might be leaving your website without filling out a form or sending an email because they aren’t finding the information for which they are searching.  Live Chat allows shoppers to ask questions and get answers quickly while opening them up to being engaged by your sales process.  Consumers that have a positive experience with a dealership using live chat are then even more likely to take action.

Dealer Takeaway

Think of automotive live chat as an extension of your 1-1 sales process.  Chat creates opportunities for personal interaction betwee

n interested shoppers and your dealership.  The leads generated from chat are no different than those generated from a phone-up or a walk-up, if not of higher quality.

ActivEngage live chat converts more than 80% of chat conversations into leads.  Find out what the most trusted brand in automotive live chat can do for your dealership.

Are leads from live chat really leads?

If you are the general manager of a dealership that has never used automotive live chat service or software, you’re probably wondering the same thing.

The answer is clear though…for real!

The highest quality foot traffic that comes into your showroom or onto your lot is brought in by leads generated from your dealership websites.   Automotive live chat on your dealership website increases the amount of these leads.

Here are 4 reasons why leads from automotive live chat are of the highest quality.

1.      Live chat leads are informed, engaged and ready-to-buy

Nine times out of ten, your website visitors are conducting research on their next automotive purchase.  Live chat serves as a quick and anonymous channel of communication between dealers and shoppers.  By using automotive live chat, you can answers visitors’ questions, build and nurture relationships with prospective customers and capture contact information to be delivered directly into your CRM.  This dealer/customer engagement drives highly qualified leads to your showroom.

2.      Live chat taps into an under-engaged resource of interested shoppers

Without automotive live chat, the amount of high quality leads delivered to your sales people greatly depends on your website’s level of engagement and rate of conversion.  In fact, an average of 96% of visitors leaves your website every day without converting to a lead. They essentially vanish without a trace.

Automotive live chat allows dealers to easily tap into this resource of casual automotive shoppers.  Engaging this tacit layer of consumers provides you an additional opportunity to convert interested automotive shoppers into highly qualified leads.

3.      Live chat develops a relationship between consumers and your brand

The average length of an automotive live chat conversation is 8 minutes.  Behind every chat is awell-developed conversation that builds both the brand in the eyes of the consumer and a brandrelationship with the consumer.  When consumers feel a connection with a brand, they are most likely to take action either in the form of brand advocacy (marketing) or loyalty (sales).

 4.      Live Chat provides consumers instant answers to their questions

Visitors might be leaving your website without filling out a form or sending an email because they aren’t finding the information for which they are searching.  Live Chat allows shoppers to ask questions and get answers quickly while opening them up to being engaged by your sales process.  Consumers that have a positive experience with a dealership using live chat are then even more likely to take action.

Dealer Takeaway

Think of automotive live chat as an extension of your 1-1 sales process.  Chat creates opportunities for personal interaction betwee

n interested shoppers and your dealership.  The leads generated from chat are no different than those generated from a phone-up or a walk-up, if not of higher quality.

ActivEngage live chat converts more than 80% of chat conversations into leads.  Find out what the most trusted brand in automotive live chat can do for your dealership.

Tired of trial and error live chat strategies?

ActivEngage has gathered and analyzed data over the past several months on the performance of their products.  The findings illustrate how live chat works for dealers in various situations and how to optimize live chat for maximum engagement and lead conversion.

The findings are currently being compiled and explained in a soon-to-be released ebook titled Automotive Live Chat Insights.  This free ebook will be available to all dealers so that dealerships using live chat can employ a proven and trusted live chat strategy.

The following live chat deployment best practices were developed based on the analysis of more than one million live chat conversations.

1) Avoid chat button styles and designs thatblend in with the content and background of the webpage. Chat buttons should be eye-catching and ‘pop’ from the page so consumers take note of their location and availability.

2) Place chat buttons on the header of each webpage.  If chat buttons are placed at the top of the page, they are more quickly and easily recognized by consumers.  Our data shows that the higher the button’s placement on the page, the higher the conversion rate of that chat invitation.

3) Make sure the placement and design of chat buttons are consistent on all pages.  Consistency allows users to easily recall chat button locations and readily engage in chat without having to search the website.

4) Use the “park feature” for proactive chat invitations.  Invitations that stay on screen while the user scrolls the webpage dramatically increase consumer engagement and chat conversion.  This feature promotes chat interaction as the website visitor consumers your content and presents an open opportunity to seek additional information.

5) Keep visitors on your site while they engage with your social media.  A connectivity toolbar on each webpage will created an integrated social shopping experience for website visitors by allowing them to engage with your social content without leaving your site.  When used in conjunction with “parked” proactive invitations, connectivity toolbars achieve the highest conversion rate on non-inventory pages.

6) Place Chat buttons in inventory details and special promotion information.  This is the most effective strategy for providing the right message at theright moment to prospective customers.  When customers browse your inventory pages, they are deep into the sales process and are moving closer to a purchasing decision.  Placing chat buttons in inventory details and promotional information creates clear and open channels for consumers to gather more information while giving dealerships the opportunity to set appointments with ready-to-buy shoppers.

The implementation these 6 best practices will drastically improve website visitor engagement with your proactive chat buttons and invitations.  Keep an eye out for the Automotive Live Chat Insights ebook which will use our data to illustrate how specific live chat strategies work.

Topics will include:

A profile of the average live chat participant

Which US geographic regions achieve the highest live chat conversion rate

Average conversion rates of a variety of live chat deployment strategies

Stay tuned for more blogs detailing live chat best practices.
Let us know about the results you achieved.  Were you already doing some of the described strategies?

Tired of trial and error live chat strategies?

ActivEngage has gathered and analyzed data over the past several months on the performance of their products.  The findings illustrate how live chat works for dealers in various situations and how to optimize live chat for maximum engagement and lead conversion.

The findings are currently being compiled and explained in a soon-to-be released ebook titled Automotive Live Chat Insights.  This free ebook will be available to all dealers so that dealerships using live chat can employ a proven and trusted live chat strategy.

The following live chat deployment best practices were developed based on the analysis of more than one million live chat conversations.

1) Avoid chat button styles and designs thatblend in with the content and background of the webpage. Chat buttons should be eye-catching and ‘pop’ from the page so consumers take note of their location and availability.

2) Place chat buttons on the header of each webpage.  If chat buttons are placed at the top of the page, they are more quickly and easily recognized by consumers.  Our data shows that the higher the button’s placement on the page, the higher the conversion rate of that chat invitation.

3) Make sure the placement and design of chat buttons are consistent on all pages.  Consistency allows users to easily recall chat button locations and readily engage in chat without having to search the website.

4) Use the “park feature” for proactive chat invitations.  Invitations that stay on screen while the user scrolls the webpage dramatically increase consumer engagement and chat conversion.  This feature promotes chat interaction as the website visitor consumers your content and presents an open opportunity to seek additional information.

5) Keep visitors on your site while they engage with your social media.  A connectivity toolbar on each webpage will created an integrated social shopping experience for website visitors by allowing them to engage with your social content without leaving your site.  When used in conjunction with “parked” proactive invitations, connectivity toolbars achieve the highest conversion rate on non-inventory pages.

6) Place Chat buttons in inventory details and special promotion information.  This is the most effective strategy for providing the right message at theright moment to prospective customers.  When customers browse your inventory pages, they are deep into the sales process and are moving closer to a purchasing decision.  Placing chat buttons in inventory details and promotional information creates clear and open channels for consumers to gather more information while giving dealerships the opportunity to set appointments with ready-to-buy shoppers.

The implementation these 6 best practices will drastically improve website visitor engagement with your proactive chat buttons and invitations.  Keep an eye out for the Automotive Live Chat Insights ebook which will use our data to illustrate how specific live chat strategies work.

Topics will include:

A profile of the average live chat participant

Which US geographic regions achieve the highest live chat conversion rate

Average conversion rates of a variety of live chat deployment strategies

Stay tuned for more blogs detailing live chat best practices.
Let us know about the results you achieved.  Were you already doing some of the described strategies?