TRED Test Drive Prompt

✋ What is it?

This is a pattern found in TRED (a used-car online market place). When a potential buyer is inquiring about a listed car and mentions "test drive" or similar terminology, the chat will prompt a "Schedule Test Drive" call to action.

🤲 How does this interaction or solution work?

TRED is a peer to peer online used car marketplace that enables secure buying and selling of vehicles. The platform takes over the pain points of buying/selling a car (like paperwork and car history check) and provides features for discovery and communication.

One of those features is a secure, anonymous chat that allows buyers to make inquiries about listed cars. The platform also provides functionality that helps buyers and sellers to schedule test drives.

These two features are closely related, especially since it's likely that most buyers will first check with the seller before scheduling a test drive.

When the buyers mention "test drive" (and possibly other trigger words), the chat automatically prompts a call to action button in the body of the conversation that invites them to schedule a test drive.

🙌 How does this interaction or solution work?

Discoverability, Visibility, Just in Time and Inferring Context

TRED's goal at the start of the customer's journey is to ensure a smooth, positive experience between potential buyers and sellers. Test driving a car is for many people a critical moment to decide whether to buy a vehicle or not.

By creating mechanisms that increase the visibility of their features like scheduling a test drive, TRED is growing the possibility to enable positive interactions that can lead to a sale that is satisfactory to all the parties (TRED, buyer, and seller).

In this particular case, contextually showing the "Schedule Test Drive" prompt in the body of the chat (in response to trigger words like "test drive") not only creates a more direct path to the desired functionality but it also teaches unknowing customers about a helpful feature.

Fact: This solution got popular with the rise of chatbots. The goal of many of these chatbots is to extract context from the end-user and provide convenient options through a familiar interaction mechanic (typing text.)

An increasing number of chatbots are designed to show "just in time" call to actions that allow the end-user to take particular decisions that are relevant to the context of the typed conversation.

One notable example of this solution was the M virtual assistant by Facebook -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_(virtual_assistant)-