Not sure where you got your numbers from. http://dealerchatmarketshare.com/ reports that 30% of dealers currently have live chat on their websites. That does not include the many more that use it on third-party sites like AutoTrader.com and Cars.com that do not have it on their websites. Might want to check your numbers. It's interesting that you would attack chat, a proven source for dealers selling an additional 5-30 more cars per month. There are too many obvious holes in your argument. You might want to rethink this negative marketing approach.

Hi Aaron, thanks for your comment! - We are aware of the numbers on dealerchatmarketshare, but decided to collect the data via our own web crawler. There is no argument that chat can help sell additional cars. Its a great tool when used correctly. All we are doing in this post is examining why the significant majority of dealer websites don't use live chat. Even if the number is 30% that would mean that over 2/3 of dealerships don't use this technology. We set out to understand why...

Hi Justin, You are very right on a few things. But most of them change from vendor to vendor. Its important to realize that Live Communication can also be a part of the same system if you can address the issues you pointed out in your slides. Yes, most of the live chat providers are very cheap and irritating. Old fashioned and use blinking buttons, moving banners and what not. Its ridiculous to see why even 30% of dealers give into that stuff. Its important to look at the future, see how web technology has evolved over the years and keep your system coherent with that. Complete conversations with canned responses and not actually providing any helpful information is a loss for both the dealer and its customer. We try to address all these issues with our product: PROLiveChat I hope to see more people like you here on drivingsales.com

Justin I understand the need to create blog titles that grab attention but there are two things about your post that get under my skin. You listed some of the reasons dealers do not have live chat but failed to list the barriers of education, perceived "work" related to chat, chat product knowledge, failed/rushed implementations, staff turnover, lack of chat communication training, etc. which are more likely the reason why chat is not being used or was cancelled. I have spoken with hundreds of dealers that utilize chat and they find it one of their top lead sources. I have never heard a dealer cancel chat service because of "chat spam" or complaints from their customers. Some dealers cancel chat because they feel that if the outsourced chat agency can't answer every question perfectly, then they don't want chat. This decision, although it sounds right, does not hold water when you listen to phone calls or read email response from existing dealership staff. There is no perfect, sustainable response system when people are involved, in scale. 24x7 managed chat is a very practical "option" if a consumer wants to engage in chat. A NJ Hyundai dealer I know gets over 700 chat leads a month with a high closing ratio, and you will not see them canceling chat anytime soon. Contrary to your slide 12, chat does sell cars. Of course, there is a balance of pushing chat pop-up boxed in the consumers face compared to leaving it available in a prominent place. Any technology can be abused. I would rather you presented a solution to compliment existing communication channels rather than your choice to present biased research. That is the second issue I have with your slide deck. You offer no positive examples of dealers using chat, nor make any suggestions on how to create a better chat experience. You are throwing the baby out with the bath water. The end of your research is that there is a better solution...that you sell. I understand the need to market products to dealers. I would suggest that a blog post with no documented research, incomplete facts, and research that is completely biased that ends with a sales pitch be left to a paid advertisement banner that you can purchase on DrivingSales.com

Do you have a teenager? Ever tried to call them on their phone, but they never answer - however they will text you back? Just one of the reasons you should have chat... The younger generation is more comfortable with communicating via text and chat. It doesn't matter whether you understand it, but as a dealer trying to sell to all generations, you need to be prepared to accommodate how your buyers want to communicate, whether is is phone, email, or chat. Chat is also highly used by shoppers who are at work and don't want to be heard on the phone shopping for a car. I could continue, but as a dealer, I am pleased to see that the majority of dealership websites fail to understand this and continue to operate without live chat - please continue...

Hi Brian, Thanks for your comment. There are plenty of posts out there that show the benefits of live chat (several of which I agree with). However, after seeing that so many dealers do not use this technology, we were curious to understand their reasoning. From this standpoint, you are correct in saying the visualization is biased because it only comes from the perspectives of dealers not using live chat. Additionally, I think you make good a point around additional reasons that live chat is not used including education, perceived "work" and knowledge. Attending to these reasons using adequate training and keeping the experience pleasant/simple for the operators (in addition to the customers) is important to ensure the success of communication tools. With so much of the car purchase process migrating online, online conversations with customers are simply too critical to ignore. For this reason, it is important to take a step back and simply understand where different tools are falling short so that we can provide customers with the best experience and of course, sell more cars. It is great that drivingsales.com provides us with a forum for healthy debate on the issues that are confronted by dealers every day. These discussions help us move the world of auto forward- thanks!

First...I really like the SaleMove product and their chat/video interface. Second...this blog entry was clearly trying to grab attention like Brian mentioned and came across confusing but it did get a discussion going! For anyone who isn't having success with chat, I suggest to continue to train your staff or outsource it for a few months and train your future sales/chat associates using their transcripts. Our demographics are NOT tech saavy and most do not have smartphones, yet we still get anywhere from 10 to 25 chats a day with a 1,000 unique visitors/day. I applaud SaleMove's innovation with the chat/video interface and Brian's dedication to one of the most important tools of the trade!

Justin, Looks interesting. Is this simply live visitor tracking or is there more to the offering? Is there a limit to the number of beta users you'll be taking on and how long before it comes out of beta?

Hi Eric, Thanks for the comment! The offering is much more then visitor tracking- we focus on replicating the showroom experience. This means co-communication & co-browsing within the browser (no install or popouts). For the beta we are going to take a max of 15 dealers, as the pricing will be significantly lower than the full release. In terms of timing, we will open the beta up around mid summer.

Justin, I'm looking forward to seeing your product, but I need to provide some clarification for our readers regarding the story told in your presentation. 1) Only about one in three buyers of a new vehicle ever submitted a request for quote during their shopping process. It was roughly one in three ten years ago, and it has been a pretty steady number over the years. 2) Most of the people who submit a request for quote buy a vehicle. It often isn't the same vehicle they requested the quote for and it is not always in the same month they submit the request. However, they are in market and many dealers buying leads are not going to ever know the customer is in market if they don't buy the lead. 3) Improvements are always welcome, but chats are helping dealers sell vehicles today. You can say you have something that will work better, but you can't imply the current systems don't work. Most successful new marketing products provide incremental improvement over what was previously available. That's progress. The pace of change is fast, but it is still more evolution than revolution. Automotive retail is a tough business with low margins. Even a 10% efficiency improvement in just one area can be a big thing. I hope your product will prove to be one of those success stories. Thanks for introducing us to it, and please help us chart your progress.

Dennis, First off I appreciate your response & insight. One thing I love about the automotive industry is there are such great analytical people that are happy to engage in a discussion. I agree that leads submitting a request for a quote are indicative of potential customers that are in market for a vehicle (even if they originate from an aggregator). While these leads still have some value the issue is the shotgunning. Once the same lead is sent to four dealers, these dealers start competing (mostly on price). This counterintuitive both in terms of time and effort as well of a lowering of the overall gross margin on lead. So although they won't know about those leads unless they purchase them, the question really is.. should they?(especially when they already have ~5k people on their website every month). One of our closest advisors is actually the founder of one of the largest aggregators out there...he actually left before they started shotgunning and is not the biggest proponent of the practice. In terms of live chat, I am not implying that the current live chat systems are not effective. Dealerships & other industries are using live chat for generating some sales today. However, live chat was originally designed for customer service not sales. Other than the auto industry, live chat is generally relegated to the customer service section of a website. But, what if it was designed for auto sales? As for improvements over previous products, we have heard from dealerships that they convert roughly 50% of the leads that walk onto their showroom. We know that a 50% conversion is not likely online. But if we can truly replicate the showroom online we know that current conversations will increase. We are happy to discuss our progress on Drivingsales! Also if you have some time and are interested, it would be great to get your feedback after a demo. Feel free to PM or email me- justin@salemove.com

Car dealerships have evolved from humble garages to fully fledged facilities. More so, that they have marked their presence so much, that a customer need not visit the brick and mortar showroom anymore. One can access all the information, select model, variant, color etc, and get the car delivered at home. The same is also with used car sales. Especially with portals like http://www.automotix.net/bargain_cars.html one can choose from a variety of used cars which are priced according to anyone’s budget.