ALPHARETTA, Ga. -

Revealed today, Edmunds.com has chosen a live chat solution to connect dealers to car shoppers researching their next purchase on the site.

Selected by the company as its dealer chat provider is Contact At Once.

Contact At Once will provide live chat functionality across Edmunds.com’s consumer-oriented web properties, officials explained.

Commenting on the news, Edmunds.com senior vice president for dealer initiatives Donna Sechrist, said,   “There are obvious benefits to giving car buyers access to real-time text-based communication with dealers as they conduct research online.

 “Contact At Once offers our users a secure, intuitive chat solution that lets them communicate directly and easily to our dealership partners,” she added.

Highlighting the solution in greater detail, the Contact At Once chat solution is used by over ten thousand dealerships, officials noted.

“Using a single set of tools and processes, dealers can respond to consumer chats originating from anywhere in the Contact At Once dealer chat network," they continued.

Also, the company shared that dealers using the chat software have seen increases of at least 25 percent in the number of online shoppers that contact the dealership.

Shoppers can connect with dealers via icons and personalized photo greetings placed on websites, the company explained.

“Adding live dealer chat to Edmunds.com makes the site more effective,” said Skip Dowd, vice president of business development at Contact At Once.

“Choosing Contact At Once means easy to use solutions for dealers,” Dowd concluded.