Lost leads for dealers?
DEALERS who do not offer a Live Chat feature on their website are missing out on a prime opp to get leads.
As less than 1 in 10 dealers actually DO offer chat, this means thousands of potential leads are being lost each day to rivals!
GForces says the evidence is clear: websites offering live chat generate 4 times as many leads as those without.
However, only 16 of the UK’s biggest dealer ground offer such interactivity – and by not offering the immediacy today’s customers expect, says GForces commercial director Tim Smith, may well cause customers to click off your side faster than you may think.
‘People who engage with a business through Live Chat are 4.1 times more likely to convert than visitors who don’t,’ he said.
‘This is thanks largely to the speed with which they can have their questions answered.’
This, he says, helps customers by taking them through a similar structured sales process to one you’d conduct live in a showroom – ‘which will hopefully stop them clicking off your side before buying.’ There is also an archive chat facility so you can see both your history and that of repeat customers.
Mind you, simply adding it without having anyone qualified to deal with enquiries is not enough, Smith warned.
Peter Vardy Glasgow, for instance, hired new staff to deal with the online questions generated by installing live chat. Result? Leads generated practically doubled within a month of integrating the feature.
Have you considered adding the edge live chat could give you?
Tags: gforces, internet, live chat, peter vardy, website
July 15th, 2010 at 12:53 am
I agree with Tim and think live chat is a great tool. It’s part of the comms mix and influences conversion but is the issue not more fundamental - lead management? As Tim says “People who engage with a business through Live Chat are 4.1 times more likely to convert than visitors who don’t” may be valid but that’s the user, how effectively do the dealers respond where the channel is Live Chat, web leads, phone ringing etc.
Our Insights & Analysis showed that with a particular brand over a certain period 22% of their dealers took longer than 48 hours to respond to their web leads! Customers won’t hang around that long regardless of the channel!