Today we went live with a new consolidated blog that brings together the content from what were previously two separate blogs and provides us with a solid platform to support our future growth.  The conslidated blog assumes a format that is consistent with and fully integrated with the corporate website and has the URL http://www.contactatonce.com/blog.    

Our previous blogs included a corproate blog, Presence Bits,  and this Auto Dealer Live Chat Tips and Techniques Blog.  All historical posts and content from this blog has been migrated to the new blog and are easily searchable using the site search function there.   The new blog logically organizes content so you may also search using categories - searching posts categorized under the “Auto Dealer Live Chat” or “Tips, Tricks and Best Practices”, for example. 

If you are not yet subscribed, you should subscribe via RSS or email right now!

If you were subscribed to either of the previous blogs via RSS you will need to update the feed URL to http://feeds.feedburner.com/ContactAtOnceBlog.  

If you subscribed to either of the previous blogs via email, you need not do anything.  You will continue to receive emails whenever content is added to the new blog. 

Oh..and if you have not already done so, please follow us on Twitter as another way to stay up to date on all the latest from ContactAtOnce!.

Why outsource all of your automotive dealership instant messaging if you have salespeople working on commission? Think of your chats as you would your telephone calls. If a salesperson is available, they will answer; if they are busy the customer will leave a message or be rolled to someone to take the message. Your salespeople are the only ones who can accurately answer the two main questions customers call or chat in about:

1. Is this specific vehicle available?
2. What is the price?

An outsourced automotive dealership instant messaging company cannot know with certainty if a vehicle is available nor can they negotiate pricing. All they can do is take the lead information and pass it along to your salesperson. Then your salesperson is tasked with returning the call and trying to reach the customer. This is fine for a small number of chats, but not all chats. If your salesperson can answer chats, they can strike while the iron is hot and when the customer is available; not three hours later after they spoke with your competition down the street.

The process for answering telephone calls and answering chats is exactly the same; you either end up with an appointment, a lead, or an anonymous customer. Each dealership has their own procedures for how to work with and follow up with customers; the only difference is how the lead arrived.  So don’t over complicate your automotive dealership instant messaging!

Cars.com announced a webinar to discuss how to reach in-market car buyers with online chat and build effective processes for ongoing success. The free workshop, “Win the Sale With Online Chat,” begins at noon EDT on Oct. 9.

Read the full press release here. It includes a more detailed description and signup instructions.

Today is a new day - a day of dealers focusing more on their own websites versus paying someone else to deliver internet leads to them.  So what does this mean for dealers?  The obvious thing is the need to get traffic to the dealership’s website and convert it into quality leads.  Automotive dealers are in a daze trying to figure out how to make their sites rank well in search engines.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is great for so many reasons but there are a million blogs on SEO so I am going to give you a different spin on optimization – optimizing site layout for conversion.   

• Site layout is important because site visitor tendencies will dominate specific pages or things of interest.  How you display those things can and will determine how successful you are.  Google has tools to help with this in the webmaster tools.  Change your site layout and move things around often to accomplish the most effective conversion.
• Remember “The Fold”.  The fold is an old newspaper term that has been adopted by the web design business.  If you can accomplish showing what’s important above the fold so people don’t have to scroll down you will have better success.  Some people will scroll down but some will not.
• Colors are important….remember “red” means stop, “green” means go, and “black” can mean cold.  Does stop mean stop hear or stay away?  Does green mean go here or keep going?
• Are you promoting too much on the home page?  Too much shows clutter and people need to know what’s important within 2 seconds.  A video will postpone that 2 seconds to 6 seconds so be careful with your use of video.
• Call to action….what in the world do you want them to do?  It has to be a common goal.  (Here is my plug…Chat is perfect because it allows the site visitor to ask their question and gives the dealer an opportunity to schedule an appointment or schedule a follow up action).

All of the above need to be considered when you are optimizing your site.  Conversion is extremely important.  Dealers want shoppers to land on their sites and buy a car.  The shopper has questions and wants to see it, smell it, touch it, drive it, show their friends, compare to others, and once they feel comfortable they buy.  You need a common ground.  Chat is just that. 

Which chat solution?  You need to take a few suggestions from the professionals.  Companies like Cars.com and Carsdirect.com have been researching the most effective chat solutions to convert site traffic to leads.  Take it from the big boys….after examining different chat companies they chose ContactAtOnce!  (I guess most reading this blog already figured that out!) 

And as with all things internet, you’ll need a way to track everything…..I suggest Google Analytics or Omniture.  The price is right for Google (free) but it will be more work and it is all about you and how well you keep up with it.  Omniture is your analytics assistant.  They will share with you information about your site that would take years to learn with Google Analytics.  They are not cheap but how important is your website to your business?  Invest wisely in your website and convert more website traffic into quality leads. 

I hope this helps someone.  Please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I will answer them.

The auto industry and those of us in it are certainly living through interesting times.  Dennis Galbraith of RevenueGuru.com released an impassioned video today entitled “Auto Dealer Pride”.  Start the week and the month right by watching it.

Today we announced that CarsDirect has licensed ContactAtOnce! and is making it available to all dealers with their premium advertising package at no additional charge.   

If  you are already using ContactAtOnce! on your dealership’s website or another 3rd party site, and you use CarsDirect, ask your rep to get you hooked up.

If you aren’t using CarsDirect, give them a try.   From the release:

“CarsDirect has always excelled at connecting consumers shopping for new and used vehicles online with reputable dealers,” said Ken Potter, Vice President and General Manager of Automotive Sales and Industry Relations at CarsDirect. “Adding car dealer chat features to our rich portfolio of products and features makes it even more convenient for our users to ask questions and set appointments and as a result, we are delivering more qualified leads to our dealer partners.”

CarsDirect Screenshot Showing ContactAtOnce!

Last month we featured a post about Dennis Galbraith’s new business, RevenueGuru.    Dennis recently released a new white paper entitled “The Preference-Engagement Matrix” that we’d recommend to anyone involved with dealership marketing.  Yes, there’s a chat angle (Dennis knows from his Cars.com experience that chat helps shoppers engage the dealership in a conversation), but the white paper isn’t about chat.  The following paragraph pretty much sums things up:

Whether advertising is online or offline says nothing about its contribution to connecting the shopper with the store. Contact is a result of preference, for the vehicle and the dealership. Until the shopper has some level of preference for a vehicle at the store or preference for the store itself as the solution for finding a vehicle, most shoppers will avoid contact. For the shopper, searching online or across a variety of print ads until a preference is established makes a great deal more sense than hopping from store to store on an exploratory basis.

Dennis’ analysis is excellent and insightful.  Read the free white paper and get educated about marketing to car shoppers.

We all know how wonderful live chat is and how it benefits the dealership; however, is it being used effectively? Every chat customer is a potential buyer and should be treated that way. Here are a few common sense tips that you already apply in phone conversations but are sometimes forgotten while chatting:

1. Answer a customer’s questions promptly, even if you are looking up information for them. In a phone conversation you’re naturally going to say, “Hang on for a second while I check on that info.” In chat the need to acknowledge the customer is even more important because they can’t hear that you are actively doing something and might think you forgot about them. In the ContactAtOnce client you can use the predefined Status shortcuts to help you out, for instance “Bear with me a moment while I look that up.” Is the very first shortcut in the Status group.
2. Be polite and professional. In a phone conversation, if a customer gets heated and begins to raise their voice, you remain professional and do not raise your voice back. The same goes with chat, you do not have to YELL just because the customer is YELLING. Your attitude could make or break the customer’s experience and could send them, and their money, down the road to your competition. You would never want your receptionist to answer the phone “ABC Dealer, what do you want?”, just as you would never answer a chat “You’re bothering me, what do you need?”.   As your mom said, “Be nice and saying please and thank you can go a long way”. And remember that if you use another application that requires caps to turn off your caps lock when you answering the conversation.
3. Tell the customer who you are. Just as you would on the phone, say “Hi, My name is ___”. Usually the customer will respond with their name, and you didn’t even have to ask. Now that you have their name, it will be easier to get their contact information later in the conversation. For example, if the customer asks if a certain vehicle is available, you can say “Mark let me check on that for you, but it could take several minutes. Can I call or email you when I have the information?” Since they asked the question, they want the answer, and will usually give you their contact information.

Cars.com launched a new blog on Friday.   It includes news, tips and success stories so dealers can improve their online sales, while also providing an avenue for dealers to share feedback and advice with one another - basically the same concept as this blog except with a broader scope.

The blog, dealeradvantage.cars.com, is an extension of the Cars.com DealerADvantage monthly newsletter, Webinar series and local market workshops.

One of the featured posts in the new blog is a podcast entitled “How Can I Use Online Chat to Win More Sales?”.  Check it out.

Many readers will recognize the name Dennis Galbraith.  Dennis has been a promient presenter at industry conferences and an executive at Cars.com.  Recently Dennis launched a new company, RevenueGuru.com and the company’s website is an incredible resource that every GM and anyone that aspires to one day become a GM should tap.  From the RevenueGuru.com website:

RevenueGuru.com is about helping the companies we care so much about to help the consumers we all care about. It offers an ever-growing list of free tips, white papers, blogs, videos, and expert interviews. RevenuGuru.com also provides free, syndicated video and audio podcasts across the internet. We also offer a range of products, training, and consulting services to take your business to the next level of success.

Dennis is a proponent of chat as a means to connect more consumers with car dealers.  For Dennis, chat is not a novelty but rather a standard technology in the same class as the phone and email - technologies that every dealership should be using (and, perhaps with some help from RevenueGuru.com, using more effectively…). 

We highly recommend checking out Dennis’ site and subscribing to the podcasts (new content daily!) and other feeds of valuable information flowing from it.