In this segment of CBT News, Jim Fitzpatrick sits down with Wesley Miller, Director of dealership sales and Therese Aleman, Senior Director of marketing at Contact At Once!, a leading customer engagement, mobile messaging platform, to discuss their new offering, Apple Business Chat.
Benefiting both dealers and customers, Apple Business Chat will enhance the consumer experience by integrating another point of access to Contact At Once!’s messenger platform that will be available across a myriad of Apple-supported applications.
Wesley explains, “When consumers are shopping online for a car, 76 percent of them, actually come from a third party site. So, we want that one more interactive point, and now we have it through Apple Business Chat.”
Consumers will also have a lot of opportunities, when using this platform, to communicate with dealers or manufacturers including:
- A user-friendly set-up
- ‘Pick lists’ shared by dealers, where they can then choose whether they want to look at new cars, used cars, or schedule a service appointment, among other things.
- A built-in scheduling service that can arrange things like test drives, various appointments, and service calls.
- Messaging capabilities to send and receive texts, videos, and PDF documents through the messages app.
So, what is the cost for dealers and manufacturers to opt-in? Apart from Contact At Once!’s overall Tango platform included in their large scope, additional costs to use Apple Business Chat are only incurred if dealers want to customize the app or experience for their specific market.
However, you don’t have to be a direct customer of Contact At Once! to use Apple Business Chat. You can use their Connect web-based app, which has the platform capability to connect people with the Apple feature. Although, there is a caveat to using Apple Business Chat as a stand-alone business messaging service. Apple is concerned about the consumer experience and wants to make sure that a live company representative is there to facilitate 
the conversation with the customer.
If dealers don’t think they can provide that level of service during or after business hours, then they should consider using Contact At Once! as a back up answering service. Research shows that customers want help from a live advisor, and Contact At Once! can handle Apple Business Chat on your behalf.
Therese elaborates, “So, when a dealership is using Apple business chat through Contact at Once!, the consumer will be able to go into any one of their entry points Siri, safari, maps…if I go in and search through maps, now I will have a messaging icon, and when a consumer clicks on that messaging icon, that’s how they get connected to a dealership through Apple Business chat.”
Apple and Contact At Once! understand how important messaging is for rich media and conversational commerce. With the addition of Apple Business Chat, dealerships can now make those meaningful connections instantly through every Apple device.
To find out more about this new offering from Contact At Once! click here.
