CarGurus has announced the integration of WhatsApp to its online used car marketplace, allowing dealers to ineract with customers via the social media app.
CarGurus said that much like the existing managed text/chat functionality, the WhatsApp integration would provide a fully managed communication program where specialists answer questions on behalf of dealers and deliver lead information directly to a CRM system or specified inbox.
Wendy Harris, vice president of European sales at CarGurus, said: “The integration of WhatsApp to the CarGurus platform demonstrates our commitment to continually develop tools that deliver improved ROI for our dealer partners.
“It is especially impactful as it delivers a better consumer experience for car buyers, who benefit from faster response times and the convenience and familiarity of communicating via WhatsApp’s popular messaging service.”
In May, CarGurus hailed online reputation management is a key ‘area of opportunity’ for car dealers during Covid-19 lockdown as its research revealed that half of consumers choose a dealer based on online reviews.
CarGurus’ also says the integration of WhatsApp has the added benefit of freeing up dealers’ time to respond to emails, answer phone calls or manage walk-in customers. Dealers are provided with a full transcript of conversations.
Concerns about personal finances topped the list of Covid-19 challenges for dealership staff in a new CarGurus survey, with 41% of respondents saying they were struggling financially.
WhatsApp has been popular amongst car buyers on CarGurus, with WhatsApp lead volumes for UK paying dealers growing at 10% week-on-week according to CarGurus.
The WhatsApp feature is available now at no additional cost to all paying CarGurus dealers in the UK.
AM Dealer Recommended 2025
In this issue we present the top perfomers in the 2025 AM Dealer Recommended research.
Significant motor retail industry suppliers have been endorsed by UK automotive retail leaders in our research programme.
We surveyed dealers from our audience to find out who they trust most and rely on for products and services in a variety of critical aspects of their motor retail operations.
Almost 30 companies received sufficient support from AM's dealer audience to become Dealer Recommended this year.
Find out who they are and learn from them how they can problem solve in your business.
Read now
Author:
Jessica Maguire
Web producer
Jessica is the event and digital content co-ordinator for all our events.
Until April 2023 she was our web producer.
She started her career as a content writer for a digital marketing agency that specialised in financial services, where she worked for more than two years.
Jessica was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Multimedia Journalism in 2017.
Login to comment
Comments
No comments have been made yet.