Tackle Car-Buying Pain Points with Live Chat

“The car-buying experience is infamously frustrating to American consumers and especially to millennials, who want to handle as much of the process as possible online,” says Dale Buss, an auto business expert. How can you make your auto dealership stand out as a pain-free place to buy a car?

Research by Hyundai found that all a brand has to do is address four pain points with solutions, and 84 percent of consumers will visit that dealership rather than the competition. Want an easy way to knock out three of those four pain points? Add live chat to your website. Live chat for car dealers helps you defeat the pain points of lack of transparency, lack of test-drive options, and a complicated purchasing process.

Lack of Transparency

As an auto dealer, what do you point out when you first meet a customer? Your high prices? Your additional fees? Probably not. But a trend in sales may say it’s wise to rethink this.

“This practice, known as transparent pricing, has been gaining hold among a select group of retailers, who say that it appeals in particular to millennials—who often want to know not only the provenance of the goods they are buying, but also what, exactly, they are paying for,” says Kyle Dean Reinford, a New York Times reporter.

Car buyers want you to be transparent with them from start to finish, not just about pricing but about every aspect of your cars. Start by being straightforward on your website and in person, and then train your live chat agents to do the same. Live chat makes it so easy for clients to get answers to all their burning questions, and it gives your business a reputation as an upstanding entity that truly cares about its clients.

Lack of Options for Setting Up a Test Drive

Hyundai’s research found that car buyers find it frustrating and inconvenient to set up test drives. To combat this, make the process easy and convenient for your clients by using live chat.

Live chat itself is convenient, but the simple fact that it adds one more method of communication also does wonders. It allows your clients to choose how they’d like to get in touch with you, making the car-buying and test-driving process smoother.

Complicated Purchasing Process

Not only is buying a car expensive and time-consuming, but many buyers find the whole process confusing as well.

“Six out of 10 car buyers are undecided from the onset,” said Paula Skier, a customer experience expert. “To narrow their options, buyers check a wide range of information sources, including manufacturer sites, dealer sites, auto review sites, blogs, forums, social media and third party shopping sites. . . . To complicate matters, vehicle information—packages, pricing and inventory, for example—are often inconsistent across different sites.”

He also says looking at qualitative feedback and not just transactional data can help provide real insights to who your customers are and what they are experiencing.

Live chat give you invaluable qualitative feedback. Live chatting from the comforts of home takes the pressure off, and may help customers be more honest online than in person. When live chat is an option for your clients, you’re more likely to learn what their specific pain points are and then be able to fix them.

Live chat helps you soothe your clients’ pain points: lack of transparency, lack of test-drive options, and a complicated purchasing process. Add live chat to your business to see how it can soothe your pain points.