Google AIS Custom Search


In order to sell more motorcycles faster, your dealership must embrace new technology.

I know, I know. How many times have you heard that before? You already have a dynamic, mobile-friendly website, you use email in creative ways to stay in contact with your customers and you text-message reminders and notes to your favorites.

But let me ask you this: Does your dealership’s website provide visitors the opportunity to engage in live online chat support with a real human being at any time, day or night?

If the answer is no, you’re not alone. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.

A handful of larger, progressive powersports dealers -- such as Woods Fun Center in Austin, Texas, and Milwaukee Harley-Davidson in Wisconsin -- have already begun incorporating online chats to assist customers and potential customers with questions, concerns or comments. Chats also allow those dealers to establish new relationships, obtain contact information and pronounce their inimitable marketplace superiority.

“Our site gets a tremendous amount of traffic--about 10,000 unique visitors per month--and the live chat gives us another way to engage with customers,” says Alex Van Wey, marketing manager for North County’s House of Motorcycles in San Diego, which has been offering live chats for about a year.

Welcome to the future

Because more engagement means more sales, online chat is the perfect topic on which to begin a series of articles about what I call “T3,” a customer conversion strategy that starts with technology, evolves with a real conversation (talk) and peaks with face-to-face interaction and hopefully a handshake (touch).

Online chat takes the form of either an automated response system or live reps provided by a third party and trained in your store’s products and services. But it should not be used to make a sale. Much like a real-world chat, the exchange of names and establishment of rapport is critical. Online chats open a door; they don’t close a deal.

I recommend finding a company that uses people, not robots, to staff chats. One of those companies is Engage to Sell, based in Eau Claire, Wis. Engage to Sell collectively generates 1 million leads for its motorcycle and automobile clients per year and as many as 40 percent of those leads result in appointments at the dealership. Even if the trained individual on the other end of the chat is unable to fully answer a customer’s query at a specific time, the customer is usually thrilled simply to make direct contact.

Speed is critical, too. If you don’t engage in chat within five or six seconds of initiation by the buyer, your odds of conversion are greatly reduced.

The average percentage of monthly visitors to a motorcycle dealership’s website that opt for online chat remains in the single digits, according to Jody Graffunder, general manager at Engage to Sell. But that’s still two to three times the number of leads generated by a dealership without chat. Online chat support eventually will become a common element of all websites.

While most dealerships promote live chat on their home pages, pop-up invitations initiate as much as 80 percent of all online support chats. Many dealer sites don’t provide pop-ups right away, though. “You wouldn’t run out to the parking lot, open the customer’s car door and ask for his name and email address, would you?” Graffunder asks. “We set up an algorithm in the chat software that pays attention to a specific patterns displayed by the visitor--pages visited, time on pages, things like that--that results in the invitation to chat. These are customized for each site we service,” Graffunder says.

Kind of makes the online contact form seem prehistoric, doesn’t it? Today, such passive old-school communication tactics are for dealers who don’t have relationships with their customers.

Granted, some buyers are more receptive to initiating a chat than others. In transcripts of online conversations Harley-Davidson dealers have shared with me, some chatters resist answering a lot of questions and revealing personal info, while other (usually younger) customers display no hesitation in interacting via chat.  

Transcripts from every chat facilitated by Engage to Sell’s call center for North County’s House of Motorcycles arrive in Van Wey’s inbox at all hours. He then forwards them to the proper personnel to be acted upon. So far, the dealership has been able to close sales on 10 percent of all chats and reports no negative feedback from customers. “You can be very effective with live chat, as long as you stay on top of your emails,” Van Wey says.

Costs for live chat services vary based on current and anticipated web traffic. Van Wey admits the technology’s not cheap, and Graffunder understands that some dealership owners might be hesitant to surrender a key segment of their operation to a third party. “I pay attention to bottom-line results,” Graffunder says. “Are we making dealers money? That answer always needs to be yes; otherwise we have no purpose.”

E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of Automotive Internet Sales - BDC - Free Training Resources to add comments!

Join Automotive Internet Sales - BDC - Free Training Resources

SPONSORS