Website Chats That Fail, and How to Fix Them

By Steve Baylis

If you ask 10 different boat dealers at a show what the chat on their website does, you’ll get three answers. Most stores are running one of the three. Very few are running a fourth kind, the one that sells boats, and it is worth knowing what it looks like before the next vendor walks in.

I spend my weeks on both ends of these chats, buying the ads that send customers to them and building what answers on the other side. Here is how to tell which one you have.

The Chat That Doesn’t Work

A customer on his lunch break finds a center console on your site and asks whether the twin outboards are this year’s or last year’s. The chat says: “Great question. Can I get your name, number and email so a member of the team can reach out?”

It cannot answer, so it collects. It does not know your boats or your show, and it was never meant to. It was built to produce a phone number, because the phone number is what its vendor invoices on. Nothing is broken. It is doing exactly the job it was sold to do, which is not the job you thought you were buying.

This one loses the customers who wanted a conversation and keeps the ones who would have filled in a form anyway. It is the most common chat in the business.

The Chat That Really Doesn’t Work

This one talks, and it talks well. Ask what your trade is worth and it tells you, confidently, a number for a bowrider it has never seen, with an outdrive it cannot hear and a hull it cannot walk around. Ask whether the bank will say yes, and it says “Probably.” Ask for a service slot before the freeze and it books one your shop does not have.

Every one of those answers is a promise, and the store has to keep it or take it back. Taking it back is worse than the first chat’s silence, because the customer now believes the store tried something on. The first chat wastes a lead. This one spends your name.

It is the newest kind, it demos beautifully, and the line between what it may state and what only a person may promise was never written down anywhere. So the machine draws the line itself, differently every time.

No Chat at All

The third store has no chat on its website. In most cases, it did have one at one point. It tried the first kind, watched it collect names that went nowhere, and decided chat is a line item that does not earn its keep. Sometimes it simply never made it to the top of the list.

Either way, a customer at nine at night with a question about a boat has nowhere to ask it. They can fill in a form and wait for the morning, or open the next dealer’s site. In show season they open the next site, because three other stores caught the same family on the drive home, and whoever answers first gets the boat.

The store that switched its chat off was right about the chat it had. Switching it off fixed the invoice. However, it did nothing for the family at nine o’clock.

What the Fourth Kind Needs

The fourth kind is not a better script. It is four things working together, and a dealer can check every one of them before signing anything.

It answers after the store closes, and it answers the question that was asked. Every chat responds in seconds now. The test is whether the reply is about the twin outboards or about your phone number.

It can see the store. The boats on the floor, the show this weekend, Saturday’s hours, the service book. Ask any vendor what their chat is connected to. If the answer is your website, it can only ask for a number. And it only stays useful while the store keeps what it sees current.

It has the line on paper. On one side, things it might say include price, availability, hours and the show. On the other, it has what only a person may promise: the trade, the approval, the discount and the service slot. Ask to see where that line is written down. Software can hold the line, but where it goes is the store’s call, and a vendor who has not asked you has drawn it for you.

It hands over the whole conversation. When the customer says Saturday, a named person hears about it before Saturday and can read every word that was said, so the call picks up mid-sentence instead of starting again.

A good demo is built to show the first two. Ask to see the last two on a real store, on a lead from last week, because those are the two that decide whether the boat gets sold.

What to Take to the Next Demo

Write the four on an index card. Answers the question. Sees the store. Has the line on paper. Hands over the conversation. Tick them off as the vendor goes.

If they can show you all four on a real store, you are looking at the fourth kind. If they cannot, you already know which of the three you would be buying.

Steve Baylis has owned advertising agencies for 25 years and markets for marine, RV and powersports dealers. He builds Diablo AI, the Revenue Engine for dealerships.