Every Dealership Should Have Live Chat

Your customers are your life blood. Selling hardware and software solutions is an important part of your business, however, it is not the end all to what you do. Great service after the sale is where you really shine. Great service can make or break a new sale. Great service can define whether or not you will have a good year or a bad year.

With that in mind, you need to find anyway possible to engage your customers they way they want to be engaged.

The most common way to accept service calls is by a trained dispatch person via the phone. This is a very time consuming process and can be very costly because a dispatch person can only handle one call at a time. Since dealerships understand that it is very time consuming, they have offered webforms, email and automated services like eAutomate's e-info.

However, I would suggest there is a better way.

That is live chat. Since I think it is so important, I am going to show you how to do it... easily.

More and more people are are interested in reducing their workload. They don't want to sit on hold and the last thing they want to do is learn your new system. Just like you want to save time, your customers do too.

There are two key advantages for you to put live chat on your website. The first is that your dispatch personnel can handle more than one call at the same time. The second is that your dispatch personnel can transfer a call to a sales rep or receptionist if your client has a sales question.

The key advantage to your client is that they have yet another way that they can communicate with you.

Disclaimer: If your clients don't have a reason to go to your site because the design is bad, the content is static or there simply is no compelling reason to be there, your customers will never use your live chat.

The fact is, live chat is a lot easier to implement than you probably think. The benefits far outweigh the costs. My preference is to use Volusion live chat. If you are interested in only having one person manage the chat, then there is no cost. It is very reasonably priced if you want more than one person to manage the chat.

So, how do you do it?

Step 1.

Download the software from Volusion.

Step 2.

Install as per the instructions.

Step 3.

Log in.

Step 4.

Go to the settings in the top right corner of your admin console and configure the way you want it to look. First, you'll have to click on the "Customize Design" link at the top of the screen. Of course, you can use the default settings, if you like.

Step 5.

After you have configured it the way you want on the "Customize Design" tab, select the "Getting Started Guide" and copy the code and paste into the appropriate location on your website. Of course, if you are running one of our websites, we can help you put it in the right place.

 

Step 6.

Click on the "Go Chat" tab at the top and you are set.

If you would like to test how it works from a customer's perspective, feel free to use the chat at the right sidebar.

He also is the Chief Web Architect for Dealer Marketing Systems, the Editor in Chief for OfficeProductNews.net and provides a common sense approach to business and technology on his blog.

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