One of the most asked about ContactAtOnce visual cues is the drop-in and how to set it up to be most effective. In this post I’ll first discuss the placement then the different settings for the drop-in.

Our statistics show that the drop-in is the leading visual cue that is used to start a conversation to the tune of about five clicks to every one click of an IM button. So the more places that you have your site provider place the drop-in the more conversations you will see being initiated.

Where should you place the drop-in? Place the drop-in on the pages where people are going to need help or have questions. The obvious ones are homepage and contact page for general questions, product details for specific questions about a particular offering. The places that a lot of people overlook are the finance application and trade valuation pages. These are pages where people are going to have questions. While it is possible to place it on every page of your site, stick to the pages that really make sense and leave the website visitor to browse the virtual tour of the dealership on their own.

Now that you have the drop-in on the key pages of your website let’s take a look a more in depth look at the drop-in settings.

Template -Using the prebuilt templates you can pick a color or branded drop-in that matches your site and franchise offering. This will help the drop-in integrate into your website.

Position - The position that the drop-in actually lands is more important that one would think. If the drop-in only falls to the top of the page there is a smaller opportunity to catch the eye of your website visitor.

Telephone Number - The phone number that displays on the drop-in should match what is displayed on your website to reduce confusion of your visitors and make the drop-in appear as part of your site.

Delay – By default we set the drop-in to display four seconds (4000 milliseconds) after the page loads. This is a pretty good setting… otherwise we would set it to something else. The thought is that if somebody is looking at the same page for four seconds they may need some assistance. You can adjust this to be more in line with what your experience dictates but the key take away is that you do not want to offer up a contact method until after the website visitor has a chance to digest the webpage.

Governor – I’m just going to make a brief note about the governor. If you have the drop-in on a lot of your site’s pages or it is on the vehicle details page AND you have the IM buttons on the same pages, set the governor count to a value of 5 or 6. The drop-in will be displayed the first five opportunities it has and then be turned off for an hour. By not displaying the drop-in all the time you will not annoy your visitors but you will let them know that they can IM you and they can use a button to initiate the IM.

Interested in customizing the drop-in with your own artwork to match your site exactly? Just get in touch with the ContactAtOnce support team.

Typically, icon selection is a once-and-done exercise completed with the initial setup.  However, some advanced users regularly switch out icons to measure and see which icons provide the best conversion rates.   Changing icons could not be easier (Yes, it is possible to change the icons on your website without even having to ask your website provider!) and the following tip explains the basics.  More details can be found in the help documentation accessible from the customer portal.

First, the user has to be an administrator on the account to make any changes that will affect the entire site, including icon changes.

• Login to the customer portal.   http://portal.contactatonce.com
• Along the top click on SETTINGS, the along the left side, click on Manage Placements.
• You will see the icons that you currently have.  At the end of the row on the one you wish to change, click on EDIT.
• Look at the box that says Edit Placement.  Under presence icon you will see the icon you currently are using.
• Click on Choose Icon  and the library of available icons/dropins will appear.
• Select the new icon you wish to use and click Update to save.  The change is immediate.

Note that you can upload your own icon designs if you want.   If you choose to do this, upload them first so that your custom icons will appear in the library when you go to select one.  You can upload your custom icons from the SETTINGS, Manage Presence Icons menu option.