A potential customer comes across a digital ad, and their interest is piqued. But what happens next? With a live chat, you can follow up immediately and convert them to a warm lead, or even a sale.
At 3C Online, we have extensive experience of helping car dealers convert prospects to leads through two key forms of customer support. Firstly, in a collaboration with Den Norske Bank (DNB), we take Swedish and Norwegian car buyers through the financing process after clicking on digital adverts. Secondly, we help traditional car dealers with chat support directly on their websites.
Dealerpad Chat – turning ad clicks into concrete leads
In our collaboration with DNB, we are right there the moment a customer clicks on a digital ad and arrives in the purchasing portal. This is a point where a range of questions tend to arise, and some customers start to feel overwhelmed – naturally, considering buying a car is a big decision.
But it’s also a crucial point for the car dealer, because a prospect who moves on at this stage might never come back. They might search for the same car again, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll land on this particular page. In a worst-case scenario, they immediately Google a specific question and a sales agent at a different dealer establishes contact.
With a response time of less than 30 seconds, our Dealerpad Chat ensures that they’re never left alone for long enough to let the hesitation get the better of them. We answer any questions they might have about interest rates, financing terms, deposits and trade-ins, and help them book a test drive. To date, 16% of our support chats have resulted in warm leads for the car dealers, with a number of direct sales on top of that. In the first six months, this represented 400 direct conversations with customers, 62 of which became concrete leads for the car dealer.
Website live chat – a human presence in a virtual shop
In our work with traditional car dealers, we act as a first point of contact when prospects arrive to their websites. Think of it as that first hello when you walk into a shop, a friendly face who can answer any initial questions or direct you to whomever has specific expertise. We are there, available within 30 seconds or less, every day from 8am to 10pm, so that those browsing from the couch after work or on their smartphones during their lunch break don’t need to pick up the phone to get help.
Surveys repeatedly show that a majority of customers prefer a live chat over phone support, and websites with chat functions typically experience growth in every aspect of their operations: the customer loyalty goes up, along with conversion rates, revenue and average order value.
We know it, and research shows it: chat support works
Much of the power in live chat functions lies in the immediacy of them. A lot can happen in the space of a few minutes in the mind of a person who is considering a purchase. If they have a question, they’re not going to want the answer in a few hours or tomorrow – they’ll want it now. Without a helping hand and some expert advice, it’s often easier to just leave the page and continue browsing as soon as a moment of uncertainty hits.
More than four in ten customers have come to expect live chat support on websites, and it’s a support tool that’s expected to grow significantly in the coming year alone. By setting up a live chat tool on your site, you can be there for your customers exactly when they need you, and reap benefits including increased sales, more leads, higher customer satisfaction and a shorter sales cycle.
Why ignore them and risk losing them when being there for them is a win-win situation?
