At ActivEngage, it’s no secret that we’re strong advocates of quality conversations. And we know our managed chat team does it best. But, if you're considering building a self-managed chat team at your dealership, you’ll need a team ready to build relationships with online shoppers. That’s why today, I’m sharing four essential live chat skills you should look for and build upon when managing your team at the dealership. Here we go:
4 Key Live Chat Skills Your Dealership Team Needs
1. Website Familiarity
The ugly truth is dealership websites are still not navigable enough to provide a no-hassle user experience. Many times, your shoppers are lost and need chat reps to guide them to the right pages on your website.
This is a big reason why your chat department should know the ins and outs of your dealership website. When a shopper chats in to ask for the towing capacity of your 2015 Chevy Silverado, your chat rep better be able to find that answer at lightning speed.
Today’s shoppers don’t have the time or patience to wait forever and day for chat responses -- after about 30 seconds, their attention meter will be at its limit, and they won’t stick around. They’ll move on to a dealer who can answer their questions faster.
Having a chat team that actively reviews your pages and knows the quickest way to access things like your specials, finance application, and critical information on inventory pages will go a long way in guiding your online shoppers from your website to your brick-and-mortar store.
2. Fast, Accurate Typing
When it comes to chatting, time is of the essence. None of your chat reps should be one-finger typing! Set a benchmark speed you want your chat team to type at, and hold them to it.
Also, be sure to hold your team accountable for their typing accuracy! Yes, the occasional typo may happen. But if your chat rep is constantly leaving out punctuation marks and words, failing to capitalize letters at the beginning of a sentence, or misspelling names, it can leave a sour impression on your shoppers.
3. The Right Tone
While a face-to-face encounter allows your staff to be polite, reassuring, and friendly, live chat requires a bit more work from the chat representative to emote these qualities in written form.
Make sure you hire a representative with emotional intelligence and other essential live chat skills. Your chat reps should:
- Understand how punctuation affects emotions. Too many question marks or an exclamation point at the wrong time could result in a lost opportunity.
- Pay particular attention to humor in text form, as it can get lost or be misinterpreted by your customers. Encourage them to be friendly, but mindful of their word choices!
- Let the conversation flow naturally instead of using canned responses and trying to cut the conversation short.
4. A Solid Focus on Chat
As a customer, there’s nothing more off-putting than chatting with a representative that isn't paying attention to me.
Having a chat agent that’s doing ten different things at once could be detrimental to your chat conversion. While your chat rep might be busy doing important things (i.e., handling phone calls, setting appointments, etc.), customers don’t care. They want quality customer service with the sole focus on them and their problems.
A professional rep will pick up chats in 10 seconds or less, quickly respond to shoppers questions, and expertly assist your customers.
Let your chat team focus solely on chat. This will allow chat reps to connect with shoppers’ wants and needs, to assist them quickly and efficiently, and ultimately get more leads for your dealership.
How to Keep Your Chat Team Accountable:
Keep your chat team in tip-top shape by monitoring their chats in real-time, encouraging them to take online typing tests, and reviewing their chat transcripts regularly to ensure your dealership’s name is held in high regard (and that it’s spelled correctly, too!).
And remember: Establishing clear expectations on what chat conversations should look like, providing live chat training and setting benchmarks for your team will help your team hone their live chat skills and have quality conversations that create lasting impressions on your shoppers!
