BoatChat
BoatChat
BoatChat
BoatChatAdvantages and disadvantages of dealer website SMS Text
With so many digital marketing technologies out there you may be wondering why quality SMS Text technology is a key add to your boat dealer website. As a compliment to live chat, SMS Text gives dealers yet another means for boat shoppers to get their questions answered and start them on the road to a sale. For the record, the first SMS Text message was actually sent nearly a quarter of a century ago, in 1992.
In short, a visitor is on your desktop or mobile website because they have an interest in either buying or servicing a boat. While they are on your site, you have two options: you can hope they have enough interest to take the time to fill out an inquiry form or be much more proactive. Adding live chat with SMS Text capability for your website with a popup proactive invite is the digital equivalent of a salesperson walking out on the lot to greet a buyer. It has the advantage of giving a boat shopper contact with a live BoatChat operator around the clock who can provide basic information and assure them a dealer representative will contact them.
Website SMS Text Advantages
Boat shoppers can initiate a BoatChat SMS Text conversation from both desktop and mobile boat dealer sites. There are a few reasons boat shoppers may opt for Website SMS Text on boat sales websites. These include:
- It’s a comfortable communication medium for nearly all buyers. More than 6 billion text messages are sent in the United States each day.
- The conversation remains on the shopper’s phone. They can refer back to the conversation and even continue it any time they want.
- The shopper can carry on the conversation at their leisure. They can begin the conversation and go into class or work and pick it back up when they are free. The proprietary BoatChat live chat operator console shows the operator the entire conversation during each conversation. The conversation can even switch between dealer operators and BoatChat operators if dealers are handling their own chat conversations part of the time.
SMS Text Disadvantages
While there is great potential for SMS Text to help add sales lead counts from a dealer website, there are a few disadvantages, as well. These include:
- The shopper phone number is required up front. Experience has shown that asking a website shopper for their mobile phone number at the beginning of the conversation will cause bounce, as many people would rather not disclose it.
- Limits on text length. While many providers and phones will sometimes allow longer messages using technology to connect the text into one long block, messages are technically limited to 160 characters.
- Messages are limited to text characters. During a live chat conversation BoatChat operators can pass images and videos to the shopper. And with the shopper’s permission, the operator can actually open a requested page shopper’s browser, rather than just send a shortened URL link. This is a strong advantage of chat, rather than text, as website pages like ‘specials’, ‘credit application’, and an inventory page will remain open in the browser after the conversation.
- The technology requires a dedicated phone number for the dealer and fees for each message.
One of the great features of SMS Text from BoatChat is that we require a double opt-in commitment from the shopper. The first is a checkbox on the website, and the shopper is also required to respond to an opt-in question in the initial text message from the operator.
SMS text on boat dealer websites is a strong supplement to live chat, and that is why BoatChat offers it as a supplemental service with 24/7 operators on call.
Give us a call, chat, or text around the clock to schedule a quick web demo.