Car Dealerships Gain a Competitive Advantage with Live Chat

Today the vast majority of the car buying process is conducted online and includes less visits to dealerships, later in the process. It makes it more challenging for car dealers to engage in-market shoppers and compete in a crowded marketplace. This paper asserts that a full-featured live chat solution provides car dealerships with a competitive advantage, allowing them to gather valuable leads and convert more prospects while building long-term customer loyalty.

It used to be that the purchase of a new car started and ended at the dealership. Now consumers complete increasing amounts of their buying process online. Not only are they viewing dealer websites, buyers continue to spend most of their time on third party sites and social media is also being used by prospective car buyers.

This investment is considered over a period of months. In fact, it lasts an average of 24 weeks in Europe and takes place while using various modes of communication to gather their research. Tariffs combined with other political and economic influences are only expected to drive prices up. This, in addition to the longer life of the average car, means that dealerships are competing for a smaller pool of potential buyers than in years past.

With car shoppers waiting later in the buying process to visit dealerships and the number of dealership visits dropping to an average of two, how do dealerships engage in-market car shoppers across all modes of communication throughout the buying process? A full-featured live chat solution provides car dealerships with this ability, allowing them to effectively compete in a crowded marketplace. Dealers who leverage chat have more opportunities to gather valuable leads and convert more prospects while building loyalty to retain them on the long term. That’s why today’s car dealerships need live chat.

The new car buyer journey creates challenges for dealerships

In the past, car dealerships were the main source of information for in-market automobile shoppers. Potential buyers would gather glossy print brochures, sit in actual vehicles, present questions, negotiate pricing and finish their purchase at dealerships.

Today, the car buyer journey is completely different with more than 60% of consumers deciding on brand, model and price before visiting a dealership. Plus, this gathering of information is a multi-platform process conducted on various devices and lasting up to 24 weeks in Europe.

This journey includes third party sites such as Edmunds, Autotrader and Kelly Blue Book, social media and dealership websites. Prospective car buyers get input from friends and family concerning which automobile to buy. They take virtual tours of the interior of potential vehicles, read reviews, get pricing and even apply for financing online. Research revealed that 75 percent of car buyers and 68 percent of service customers find social media and review sites most helpful compared to dealer sites. Plus, dealership visits are happening later in the buying process and have dropped to an average of only two per in-market buyer.

The fact that today’s consumers expect to have a seamless personalized experience from platform to platform makes it even more challenging for car dealers. These buyers don’t want to constantly provide context during inquiries. They expect you to already have this information based on previous interactions. In addition to that, consumers are impatient. In fact, 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person during an online purchase is important so they don’t need to wait for a response.

Each of these platforms provide opportunities for automotive brands to engage with and influence prospective buyers individually. Doing so allows dealerships to capture these leads earlier in the process and build the relationship, in hopes of ending up on the prospective buyer’s short list. But, how do car dealerships engage with in-market auto shoppers on all these platforms while providing continuity throughout the entire car buyer journey?

www.LiveGuideChat.com www.LiveGuideChat.com

A complete live chat platform is a competitive advantage

Car dealerships have the ability to be present in all the digital places in-market car shoppers visit to complete their research and should. This increases the odds of prospective buyers considering your brand and dealership during their selection process. However, if you’re going to be present in search advertising, social media and third party sites, shouldn’t you be available to answer their questions there too? If you’re not, they’re likely to look elsewhere for answers, causing you to miss many valuable opportunities to the competition.

Live chat makes it possible for you to answer questions when shoppers have them while capturing valuable data around prospects at the same time. It offers car dealerships many benefits that provide a competitive advantage, allowing them to engage more prospects earlier in the car buyer journey. These benefits of live chat include:

Making dealerships available wherever prospective car buyers are online. A full-functioned live chat platform enables your dealership to be available on social media, internet ads and email as well as on your own website.

Providing responses when consumers want them, which is usually immediately. As mentioned above, today’s car buyer is impatient and wants answers to their questions immediately. If they can’t get them from you right away, you put yourself at risk to lose that opportunity to engage a hot prospect and start building a relationship with them. Plus, live chat provides instant answers with no need to hold on the line to speak with a sales agent or to wait for an email response.

Making communication effortless and discrete. When you’re available everywhere the in-market car buyer goes, they don’t have to redirect to your website or pick up the phone to obtain answers to their questions. You make it easy for them to communicate with you. That attracts them while increasing the odds that you’ll be their dealer of choice. Not only does this make it effortless, it provides them with a discrete method of communication. This is beneficial if they’re researching while at work or anywhere they wouldn’t want to make a call, with no need to wait for an email response.

www.LiveGuideChat.com

Gathering lead data along with other key metrics. Through customer intelligence collected by your live chat platform, you’ll know more about site visitors before they ever engage with you. You’ll be able to see what search terms they used to find your site, providing deeper insights around what they may be seeking. You can also track how long they’ve been on your site and know what they’ve viewed while there. When combined with previous chat history it allows for more personalized interactions while eliminating the need for site visitors to provide context relating to previous inquiries. This creates the desired seamless experience and that’s a big deal with 70% of consumers saying that connected processes are very important to win their business. Geographical information, captured by chat solutions also allows chats to be routed to representatives with the right language skills, preventing the difficulty of a language barrier.

Increasing trust, loyalty and customer retention. Today’s consumer is concerned about security. A secure live chat solution builds trust with your audience by protecting and encrypting sensitive online interactions. It also allows you to easily share your privacy policy to ensure GDPR compliance. In addition to connecting you with potential new car buyers throughout their buyer journey, live chat makes it easier for existing customers to communicate with you as well. In fact, research shows that consumers feel that moving steps in the service process online improves the experience. Live chat has been found to be the preferred method of communication over phone and email. This results in a superior customer experience. According to research, 80% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. The same study showed that much of this experience is rooted in trust with 95% of customers saying they’re more likely to be loyal patrons if they trust a company.

www.LiveGuideChat.com www.LiveGuideChat.com

Live chat applications for car dealerships

Regardless of where your prospects and customers are online, live chat can be there. It’s effective on your website, online advertisements or on social media sites. This includes advertisements on third party sites, in social media, in search engines and more. Plus, don’t forget to include it on dealership social media pages and your emails. You want to be everywhere your audience goes for easy access.

Live chat allows dealerships to interact with in-market car shoppers and existing customers in various ways. Here are a few examples:

Proactive chat allows car dealer representatives to virtually greet site visitors or those lingering on one of your ads, as they would when customers visit your dealership. Proactive chat can be set up to initiate engagement based on any criteria specified and anywhere a dealership has a digital presence. It’s an effective way to offer assistance and let them know there’s an agent ready when they have questions. This is an excellent way to keep visitors on your site or to entice them to click on a link in online advertisements.

Audio and Video chat makes it possible for prospective and existing customers to seamlessly transition from text to audio or video with the click of their mouse. No need to hold for an agent. The audio and video options make it easier to answer more complex questions. Plus video chat enhances the experience by emulating the in-person experience without the customer physically visiting your dealership.

Chatbots allow dealerships to make the most of their staff by assisting more customers more efficiently. These intelligent bots are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). They’re able to answer routine questions, help prospects locate what they’re looking for and connect them with a live agent for further assistance. Plus, they don’t take any time off, allowing you to offer 24/7 guidance and support. This, in turn, increases customer satisfaction. You only need to include an option to complete a request for additional information during off hours so your staff may respond as soon as they’re available.

www.LiveGuideChat.com

Co-browsing and file sharing allow dealership staff to browse your website with a customer and to securely share files. This makes it possible to visually answer questions by allowing the customer to show specifically what they’re inquiring about. It also enables your staff members to show customers what they’re seeking. In fact, it’s been found that using co-browsing boosts sales by 16.8%. Both of these functions are also quite helpful when handling financing and the fact that live chat file sharing is secure facilitates the exchange of sensitive information involved in the process.

Remote control allows your staff to view the customer’s computer screen with their permission via a small executable program on both the agent’s and customer’s computers. Your agents are then able to navigate your site on behalf of the customer and assist them with the completion of forms. It shortens resolution time and improves the quality of the experience for your customers.

www.LiveGuideChat.com www.LiveGuideChat.com

What’s included in a full-featured live chat solution?

When selecting a chat solution for your dealership, there are many options available. To help you identify the best live chat platform to meet your needs, look for one that includes the above-described features of:

Î proactive chat Î audio and video chat Î chatbots Î co-browsing and file sharing Î remote control

In addition to these features, your dealership should also be sure that your live chat platform has the following characteristics and functions:

Mobile ready

For dealerships to compete in today’s marketplace it’s essential that your chat solution is mobile ready since many prospective and existing customers browse websites from various devices. If your chat software doesn’t have this option, many chat opportunities will be missed. So be sure that your chat solution functions regardless of what device or operating system your site visitors are using.

Social Media and Email

A chat solution function on social media and email allows you to meet your customers where they are, engage with them and lead them to your website. If you don’t have this functionality, you’re missing out on many opportunities to interact with prospects and customers. Don’t make them work harder to reach out to you. Be sure you include this capability in your live chat solution.

Scalable

The live chat platform for your car dealership needs to grow and evolve with your organization. Make sure you have one that your company won’t outgrow – one that accommodates an unlimited number of chat agents. And, be sure it includes multi-language spell check so your staff can confidently communicate with customers without the challenge of a language barrier.

www.LiveGuideChat.com

Secure

Today’s car dealerships need a chat solution built with the level of security expected by financial institutions to allow all staff members to use it. There are so many risks associated with online communications today and chat security provides your customers with the confidence to engage with your agents. For optimum security your platform should include 256-bit SSL encryption. And be sure that your solution is also hosted within a secure data center for an additional layer of security to protect the privacy of you and your customers. Plus, a data masking feature means targeted information is never shown and can never be stored. This takes security and privacy compliance to the next level.

Tailor-made

Your car dealership is unique so why use an off-the-shelf chat solution? Make sure that your platform can be customized to create the specific chat experience you desire for your customers. Tailoring it in such a way allows for click-to-chat buttons and proactive chat invitations consistent with your website and branding. The ability to customize based on specific campaigns as well provides different experiences for different types of visitors. And, of course, CRM and API Integrations further tailor the chat solution to your organizations specific needs while increasing the value it delivers.

Extensive Reporting Capabilities

Don’t let a shortage of reporting options limit your ability to monitor staff and campaign performance. Shouldn’t your chat solution allow you to do so with the detail and analytics of your choosing? Exportable reports simplifies sharing of reports with key team members too. Shouldn’t you have the benefit of these deeper insights into customer behavior and the ability to improve contact center efficiency? Extensive reporting capabilities make it easy, so make sure your solution provides you with the information that you need.

These elements can make all the difference in the value your chat solution delivers to your dealership. Be sure to carefully consider each one when selecting your live chat solution.

www.LiveGuideChat.com www.LiveGuideChat.com

Conclusion

With car shoppers visiting dealerships less frequently than ever before, and later in their buying journey, it’s increasingly difficult to engage and influence them. With greater amounts of the buying decision occurring online, it’s critical to dealership success to meet in-market car shoppers where they are. Connecting with them in social media, search engine ads, third party sites and your dealer website makes it possible to do so.

Existing customers are no different and conduct increasing amounts of business online. As a result they prefer to deal with organizations that offer digital communication options.

Live chat facilitates and encourages these interactions, while collecting valuable lead data, enabling dealerships to gain important insights and increase sales. It’s been found to be the preferred method of communication, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and retention. This makes live chat an essential tool for your dealership to compete in today’s marketplace.

www.LiveGuideChat.com

www.LiveGuideChat.com

REFERENCE LIST

Cox Automotive. (2018, January 29) 2018 Car Buyer Journey Study

Facebook IQ. (2018, January 12) How mobile is changing the car buyer journey in Europe

Morgensen, David. (2015, November). Think with Google. The 5 auto shopping moments every brand must own.

Bain & Company. (2017, September 13). The future of car sales is omnichannel. Ryan Morrissey, Klaus Stricker, Raymond Tsang and Eric Zayer.

Digital Air Strike. (2015, November 3). 5th annual Automotive Social Media Trends Study.

Forrester Research, Inc. (2010, June 4). Making proactive chat work. Diane Clarkson with Carrie Johnson, Elizabeth Stark and Brendan McGowan.

Salesforce Research. (2018, June 5). State of the connected customer 2nd edition 2018.

Cox Automotive. (2019, January 9). Cox Automotive’s 2018 Service industry study phase 2.

Aberdeen Group. (2012, January). Customer experience management: using the power of analytics to optimize customer delight.

LIVE GUIDE CHAT

Live Guide Chat from Netop is easy to use for both agents and administrator. It is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solution hosted and maintained by Netop. The solution is therefore completely hardware independent and requires only a very limited implementation and education effort.

A subscription-based delivery model makes it possible to minimize the initial investment, predict the current cost level and scale the capacity of the solution needed.

Live Guide is SSL encrypted, complies with all applicable industry safety standards and rules for using cookies and storing data. It is also based on an open API, which makes it easy to extract statistics and customer information.