MDS Brand Blog

You did it. Everything is set up and ready, the boat show has begun, and people of all kinds are entering your booth by the dozens. Ideally, each and every adult there could become a lead but it can be a challenge to A) gather a person’s contact info if they didn’t walk in already planning on giving it to you, and B) get in contact with quality leads who are truly looking to buy.

As a dealer, participating in your local boat show is a no-brainer. The trick though, is to be the shining beacon in a sea of other booths that your customers (and hopefully others) flock to when they arrive. In this article we will be sharing some important tips, gathered from veteran boat show participants, on how to have the best booth at a boat show.

Live chat services entered the business realm in 2002 with the launch of LiveChat. This program allowed customers to communicate directly with a representative in the company through the website, no phone calls necessary. The concept was slow to gain traction among companies as it was commonly thought of as unnecessary and not worth the cost. Customers were still more accustomed to picking up the phone or going to the store to have their questions answered.

Over the past ten years the growth and development of online sales and marketing has evolved to suit the demands of fast pace internet users. There is plenty of increased availability that helps to access many brands that would not have been previously seen in the mall or shopping center down the street. There is more to the available online store than the purchase. Customer support has become accessible through the internet as well, and has since grown into a necessity for business. Live chat is one form of online support that has become a favorite among users in recent years. Instant messeging businesses? Who would have thunk it?

We are so proud to announce that Marine Dealer Solutions
is now a Certified LiveChat Expert!

Thanks to technology, the way we do business has changed tremendously, altering the customer support field along with it. Customers can now contact businesses by phone, email, social media and now, live chat. Offering a live chat feature on a website has resulted in exponential growth for those businesses over the last few years. Gaining in popularity, more people are using the platform to get in touch with businesses. The marine industry has also not been left behind in adopting this form of communication. We have it on our own site, and is here to stay.

Is live chat software for boat dealers really important for your dealership? The answer is a resounding yes. Visitors invited to live chat are 6.3 times more likely to become customers compared to those who don’t offer the feature.

There have been tremendous advancements in technology and buyers now expect immediate attention throughout the buying process. Therefore, instant messaging is booming. Also, customers love having the option to be able to reach businesses in multiple ways. 

One major issue with online shopping and browsing is that often times customer’s questions are not able to be answered immediately and or correctly. A quick and easy solution to this problem is to integrate a live chat feature into the website. Live Chat allows the customer to shop and browse at their own pace, while still being able to receive answers to their individual questions.

Automated Chat Service is exactly what it sounds like. It takes the representative out of the Live Chat experience and replaces it with an automated response program. Using an Automated Chat Service takes the human element out of the experience. These programs respond only to the capacity of the data that is imputed. Often times, a person will have a question that is beyond that data and therefore is not answered correctly, damaging the users experience on the site. The following was a conversation held with an Automated Chat Representative.