[PPC, PPI, SEO, SEM can get you to the website, but then what!?] We all know that just about every angle has been looked at or thought of when it comes to lead generation and all its guises. Many sectors of the online lead generation industry claim they have the holy grail to lead conversion. A little of this…a little of that and poof you have site visitors surfing your site. Great. Now what!? Just because a paid advertisement or a bunch of well written articles are placed in key areas, doesn’t mean much toward TRUE conversion. The potential lead goes to a site, but that doesn’t constitute anything beyond them clicking onto the site. It definitely doesn’t guarantee that they won’t just bounce off immediately. It’s a gamble, which is why so many companies are leery of SEO/SEM campaigns. One aspect that many sites lack is humanization. Meaning, someone goes onto the site and they have questions especially at nighttime when the business maybe closed and there is no one there to help them. Read more over at Here’s an interesting question…Would you open a store without sales representatives helping out and talking to the walk-in traffic? Of course not! Then why do most sites STILL not have any live interaction? It’s a mystery to us at LiveChatAgent.com. Live chat software has been around for quite some time, however for the most part, it’s been licensed software that users need download onto their computer and monitor themselves. But what happens when there’s a lunch break, bathroom break, or when the business closes up for the evening? For the amount of time and effort companies put into their websites, you would think that this angle would have been better thought out. Most people surf sites when they pause for lunch or when they are home from work. No one wants to be on a site for longer than they have to. They want to get on, get the info they need and then get off. A website shouldn’t be JUST a business card. It should be the best employee that works 24/7/365. Online lead generation can be tough to convert. It used to be that you had roughly a week or so to contact that John/Jane Doe about a sale. Throw that theory out the window. I’m serious, if you wait a week to contact someone, you’re going to be out of business in less than a month…especially in this economy. But if there is someone there at the “point of sale” or “moment of truth”, where they may literally decide whether or not they want to do business, then there will be a higher rate of conversion. Written by: Andrew David Baron

Ok so you have a website with all kinds of traffic coming to it. Now What? We'd like to invite all of the GM’s, GSM’s, Internet Managers etc., at dealerships out there in DrivingSales.com-ville to comment on our blog to help us get a better grasp of how companies like LiveChatAgent.com and others on this forum can help you improve relations with customers and improve the perception that car dealers have with the general public. Let’s face it with all the news about dealers across the country closing, manufacturers including some big name imports having recall issues and so on, everyone is getting their butts kicked around. We would like to hear what you guys and gals in the showrooms, in the service departments, on the front lines dealing with the public are doing to win customers over to your dealership. What kinds of things are you doing or looking for someone to do for you in order to improve your levels of customer service, customer communication and so on? Is it, Better faster turn around of internet leads? Better 1st line of communication and phone skills by the staff answering phones? Are you talking to your customers on your websites? Are your sales people following the sales process correctly? We would like to hear from you. Everyone knows you’re spending a lot of bucks on driving traffic to your websites right? I know the SEO/SEM folks are all doing a great job of bringing the numbers to your site, showing strong click through rates, lowering your cost per lead and so on! A lot of you are doing traditional media with Direct Mail, Print Ads, Cable TV & Radio..it’s all geared toward what? Driving traffic to your websites and the dealership right? Of course we all want as much traffic to our websites but what then? So we ask you, What are you looking for your website to do? What is your website set up to do when all this traffic comes rushing to it from your ad dollars being spent? Are  visitors brought to the home page and have to start the journey searching through a sea of pages? Are they brought to a landing page based on a key word search such as “Pre-Owned Nissan Sedans”? Do visitors have to search out your “Contact Us” page and submit an information request? Do you have Submission forms for Credit or Vehicle Locator on every page? Do you have live chat? If you do is it done in house by dealer staff or is it a staffed solution? Just during business hours or 24/7? What are you doing when someone calls the dealership? Do they speak with a warm friendly voice or get lost in a horrible automaton voice mail system? “Thank you for calling Impersonal Motors please listen as our menu has changed, again! Press 1 for the sales department, press 2 for someone who has their phone set to do not disturb, press 3 to go through our entire system and have your call dropped. If you know your party’s extension please press star 75 then the extension then star pound and you will be transferred next week? There really should be a live human being answering the phones for the 1^st form of contact. I know, budgets are tight, a lot of dealers cut the receptionist but if the sales staff is put on a phone rotation and someone calls for sales, hmmm they’re already talking to a sales person. If they are looking for service, well a receptionist would have to transfer them anyway. Many dealerships already have a direct line into service…problem solved! Ok I think I’ve made my point here…what we are trying to accomplish is to get some of the dealers here to interact with us vendors, let us know how we can help you improve your customer contact, increase your level of customer service and to let us know what you have been doing along these lines. If you’re thinking “maybe we should have a crochet seminar at the dealership?” you may want to keep that idea to yourself! Otherwise we’d like to hear from you… (Mark Crosby also contributed to this article.)