Are leads from live chat really leads?

If you are the general manager of a dealership that has never used automotive live chat service or software, you’re probably wondering the same thing.

The answer is clear though…for real!

The highest quality foot traffic that comes into your showroom or onto your lot is brought in by leads generated from your dealership websites.   Automotive live chat on your dealership website increases the amount of these leads.

Here are 4 reasons why leads from automotive live chat are of the highest quality.

1.      Live chat leads are informed, engaged and ready-to-buy

Nine times out of ten, your website visitors are conducting research on their next automotive purchase.  Live chat serves as a quick and anonymous channel of communication between dealers and shoppers.  By using automotive live chat, you can answers visitors’ questions, build and nurture relationships with prospective customers and capture contact information to be delivered directly into your CRM.  This dealer/customer engagement drives highly qualified leads to your showroom.

2.      Live chat taps into an under-engaged resource of interested shoppers

Without automotive live chat, the amount of high quality leads delivered to your sales people greatly depends on your website’s level of engagement and rate of conversion.  In fact, an average of 96% of visitors leaves your website every day without converting to a lead. They essentially vanish without a trace.

Automotive live chat allows dealers to easily tap into this resource of casual automotive shoppers.  Engaging this tacit layer of consumers provides you an additional opportunity to convert interested automotive shoppers into highly qualified leads.

3.      Live chat develops a relationship between consumers and your brand

The average length of an automotive live chat conversation is 8 minutes.  Behind every chat is awell-developed conversation that builds both the brand in the eyes of the consumer and a brandrelationship with the consumer.  When consumers feel a connection with a brand, they are most likely to take action either in the form of brand advocacy (marketing) or loyalty (sales).

 4.      Live Chat provides consumers instant answers to their questions

Visitors might be leaving your website without filling out a form or sending an email because they aren’t finding the information for which they are searching.  Live Chat allows shoppers to ask questions and get answers quickly while opening them up to being engaged by your sales process.  Consumers that have a positive experience with a dealership using live chat are then even more likely to take action.

Dealer Takeaway

Think of automotive live chat as an extension of your 1-1 sales process.  Chat creates opportunities for personal interaction between interested shoppers and your dealership.  The leads generated from chat are no different than those generated from a phone-up or a walk-up, if not of higher quality.