DealerChatMarketShare.com
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Automotive Chat Software Adoption – May 2013
If April showers bring May flowers, then what do April market share changes for automotive chat software bring? More changes!
The May vendor market share data below shows several notable changes in spots 4-7, though none at the top where Contact At Once! expanded their market share slightly. Moving into the fourth spot was BoldChat, eeking by the long-time holder of that spot, Dealer.com, who fell to fifth. BoldChat is a product of publicy traded LogMeIn (Nasdaq: LOGM). We assume that Dealer.com’s loss was Contact At Once!’s gain, based on the recent joint announcement by those companies. Newcomer DealerTrack, another publicly traded company (Nasdaq: TRAK) debuted in the seventh spot.
Check back next month for the quarterly dealer adoption trend numbers.
Automotive Website Chat Adoption – April 2013
April brought changes near the bottom of the list of automotive website chat vendors, as ranked by market share. Moving into the 6th spot was Gubagoo, and falling off the list was Dealer eProcess.
Overall adoption continued to grow, climbing to 26.5% of dealers.
Relevant industry news included a press release by Contact At Once! announcing the issuance of a patent for two-way communications in online advertising. From the press release “Getting shoppers to complete lead forms is hard and getting harder, especially from mobile devices,” says Marc F. Hayes, Contact At Once! founder and inventor. “We’ve built a next- generation lead form – a way for consumers to immediately initiate a conversation with advertisers, right from an online ad.”
In other news, Volvo made website chat co-op eligible as a means to encourage their dealers to license and use it. Volvo joins a growing list of manufacturers doing so, including GM, Chrysler, and Kia. More can be expected to join in, based on the quantifiable ROI that website chat delivers, making it likely that overall adoption by dealers will continue climbing.
Automotive Live Chat Software Adoption – March 2013
Each quarter we stop to take a look at dealer adoption of live chat software. Adoption has trended upward every quarter that we’ve been tracking it, but the first quarter of 2013 produced the biggest jump in adoption yet, as depicted in the graph below. Starting at 23.6%, adoption climbed to 26.0% by the end of March.
The only change in vendor position during March was the swapping of places between Client Connexion and Dealer eProcess.
Relevant news during March included a press release by market share leader Contact At Once! announcing the issuance of a patent for two-way communications (including live chat) in online ads. The patented technology likely explains the company’s prevalence on 3rd party and OEM automotive websites.
Dealer Live Chat Vendor Market Share – February 2013
February data shows a dramatic acceleration in dealer adoption, from 23.9% to 24.8% in just one month. This jump is likely the result of two things…
The first – Chrysler’s decision to put co-op funds behind chat, as described in last month’s post.
The second – expansion of our dealer website URL database, thanks to dealers and vendors alike who continue to add URL’s to our crawler database.
In terms of dealer live chat vendor market share there were no changes in position among the top 7, as shown the chart below.
Relevant news during February included the annual dealer satisfaction awards announced by DrivingSales.com. For dealer live chat, Contact At Once! was selected by dealers as the highest rated for the third straight year.
Next month we’ll feature the quarterly dealer adoption trend data which promises to be interesting.