Car Dealership Chatbot: Answer Visitor Questions From Your Website
Visitors to a dealership website ask the same practical questions: what are your opening hours, where is the service department, how do I book a test drive, what documents should I bring, do you accept trade-ins. Many ask in the evening or at weekends, when the showroom is closed. A car dealership chatbot built on your own website can answer these questions at any hour, show where each answer came from and leave a message for your team when it cannot help. It does not quote prices, offers or financing, and it does not take bookings or payments. This guide shows how to set one up in five steps.
Step 1: List the questions customers ask most
Open your inbox, enquiry form messages and notes from the sales and service desks for the last few months and write down the questions you answer most. Typical ones are opening hours for sales and service, location and directions, how to arrange a visit, what to bring to a visit, the services you offer and how to reach the right department. Write each in the visitor's words. Sort them into questions with a stable answer, which suit a chatbot, and questions about a specific vehicle, price or deal, which need a person.
Step 2: Put the answers on pages the chat can read
The chat can only answer from what it can read. Make sure each answer is written in plain text on a public page of your website: departments, opening hours, location, services, FAQ. You can add a PDF or Word document, such as a visitor information sheet, as a file. Create your chat, enter your website address and choose the pages it should learn from. Pages behind a login cannot be read. Each answer comes with a numbered source next to the sentence, so a visitor can open the page behind it, and the chat never states a price, date or policy that your pages do not state. Ask it about a vehicle your pages do not describe: it should say it does not know.
Step 3: Write exact answers for the things that must not vary
Some answers must never vary: opening hours, department phone numbers, how to arrange a visit. For these, write a saved answer on the Knowledge page. Add the question the way a visitor would ask it, add up to five other ways of asking it, write the answer and choose "Reply with this answer exactly". A saved answer is live as soon as you save it. For questions about specific cars, prices or deals, write a saved answer that sends the visitor to your team.
Step 4: Decide what happens when nobody is available
Decide what the chat does when it cannot help. Without handoff, it can show a contact form, which needs an email, so you can reply when you are back. Human handoff is off until you turn it on for an agent. With it on, a visitor can ask for a person, but only within the opening hours you set and while someone on your team is online. Outside those hours, or with nobody online, the visitor leaves their details in the contact form.
Step 5: Add it to your site and review what people ask
After you go live, OneType shows your script line, which goes just before the closing body tag; the same line works anywhere you can add custom code. Open your published site in a new tab and look for the chat button in the corner. OneType shows when your site first loads the chat, with your site's address. The chat loads only on the domains you allow. After a week, open the questions the chat could not answer: they are grouped by meaning, with a count, so you can see what to add. Put the missing information on a page or write a saved answer, and it is live from the next conversation.
Try it on your website
Learn how saved answers keep key facts exact, see how the chat is trained on your website, or start free.