WALTHAM, Mass. — DealerRater and Contact At Once announced the immediate availability of a new chat feature, which enhances the suite of tools offered to DealerRater’s Certified Dealer partners. The collaboration enables real-time chat between automotive dealerships and online shoppers researching a dealership’s reputation on DealerRater.com.

“Our third-party generated dealer reviews and ratings have helped car shoppers to determine and validate which dealerships they would like to do business with,” said Chip Grueter, president of DealerRater. “Since DealerRater Certified Dealers are committed to providing quality customer service, we believe that the integration of Contact At Once! chat will enable our Certified Dealers to connect with in-market consumers in a way that is faster and more convenient than an e-mail or a phone call.”

The Contact At Once! dealer chat network includes third-party listing sites such as AutoTrader.com, Cars.com, CarsDirect.com, CarSoup.com, Edmunds.com, EveryCarListed.com and UsedCars.com.

Once enabled, dealers can respond to consumer chats originating from any place in the dealer chat network using a single set of tools and processes.

“Dealerships are looking for simplicity when it comes to chat,” said Lloyd Hecht, the company’s director of business development. “By embedding our automotive chat solution, dealers can now utilize a single chat solution to manage chats originating from their DealerRater listing, the dealership’s own website as well as the third-party and OEM websites that are part of the Contact At Once! dealer chat network.”  To learn more, click here.