ORLANDO, Fla, —ActivEngage, a provider of proactive live chat for dealer Web sites, has launched ActivConnect, a new service that boosts the effectiveness of live chat by turning Internet leads into phone conversations with a dealership's staff.

The service is an extension of the company's core focus on generating new selling opportunities from existing Web site visitors. ActivConnect turns Internet leads into phone conversations, thereby increasing overall lead response and speed. In some cases, dealers will call consumers while they are visiting the dealership's Web site.

When a consumer visits the dealership website and engages in live chat, the chat transcript is electronically sent to the dealer's CRM or ILM. Now with ActivConnect, an automated phone call is simultaneously sent to the appointed dealership staff member to alert him or her of the new Internet lead.

This call also provides the staff member with the prospect's name, phone number, email address and pertinent information about the vehicle of interest. The staff member can be connected directly to the customer simply by pressing a button on their phone. In fact, the automated phone alert gives the dealer multiple options: press "one" to call the person immediately, press "two" to call the prospect in 15 minutes, etc.

ActivConnect's automatic alerts for incoming leads help dealers better respond to "hot" website leads. The alerts can be sent to staff members' cell phones (or any phone number) to make sure they receive the calls no matter where they are. Further, they can follow-up immediately, armed with valuable customer intelligence without having to be in front of a computer.

"We saw the problem that up to half of Internet leads receive no response. This is a huge loss of opportunity," commented Todd Smith, ActivEngage co-founder. "As previous dealers, we know that sales people always have their phones with them and they always try to answer their calls. So we created ActivConnect to greatly increase both overall lead response, as well as the response time. Furthermore, a phone conversation is much more likely to end in setting an appointment than web communication."