Using AI in your Dealership
Part of the dealership experience is the warm greeting, one-on-one attention, and closing hand shake at the end of a good deal. Those personal touches are important when a customer is in your store. But… What about before and after?
Most consumers inquire with a dealership about vehicle availability before making the trip. Of course this has been gaining popularity for years as people tend to shop online and do extensive research before deciding on a make, model or dealership. In today’s fast-moving market, they want to make sure the car is actually still at the dealership, and they may want to limit unnecessary contact with others.
As you know, as a result, the leads can really pile up. They fly in from every direction -- calls, webforms, emails, chats, third-parties, etc., and dealers, especially those without BDCs, struggle to stay on top of every lead that comes through their virtual doors. This means deals get missed, appointments don’t happen and less money gets made.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a great asset for any business. While it’s a newer technology, there are lots of pros to using AI/virtual assistants in your dealership.
Give customers a human-like interaction without tying up an actual human.
AI is smart enough to handle real, live interactions with leads. It has the ability to ‘feel out’ a potential customer and meet them on whatever level they’re on. Whether they are looking to buy today or 6 months from now, AI follows up with them consistently.
Free up time for employees to focus on more qualified leads and in-store customers.
Letting technology handle menial tasks, allow employees to pay more attention to the customer in front of them or the guy on the phone who’s trying to make a deal.
They can assist with service appointments.
AI can set appointments from incoming calls, and it can also make outgoing calls to schedule appointments for regular maintenance and recalls. They can even warn customers about upcoming warranty expirations to encourage them to come in for one of those 700-point inspections. (haha) A virtual assistant can also call/text/email appointment reminders. This creates a seamless experience for customers and saves your service writers hours of work, so they can focus on selling jobs.
A virtual assistant never clocks out (or quits).
Obviously employees are more important than robots, but AI can make their lives easier by reducing staff burnout for both the sales and service, a problem you don’t want to have when there’s already a labor shortage.
No leads fall through the cracks with automated follow-ups.
Keeping up with a monumental amount of contacts can be tedious, and employees often have to keep reaching out to prospects over and over again. You can set automated follow-up through your virtual assistant, making sure that each person gets a touchpoint from your dealership in some form consistently, so you stay top-of-mind throughout their purchase decision.
AI can automatically collect feedback.
Want to increase your positive online reviews or collect negative feedback before it hits Google? Automations through AI can handle that too by reaching out to customers after a purchase or service appointment. Customers will no longer feel ghosted after leaving your dealership.
Ok, but will this really work?
Although AI can do a lot of things, it relies heavily on data. It is what turns the gears and produces predictions to create a seamless experience for customers and prospects. The data is vital for it to be successful.
Sure you have thousands of customers in your CRM, but is all of the data complete? How many entries are “joe - sedan” with a phone number? The truth is dealerships may not have enough data (or enough completed data) for the algorithms to work properly and give accurate information. If you want to use AI in your dealership you must get your staff to buy in on entering complete data. Like anything else, what you get out of it is only as good as what you put into it.
Ultimately, while it’s likely a major investment, AI is a time saver and a money saver, and isn’t that what every business needs? “Work smart, not hard” is a fitting expression here. In areas where human touch isn’t necessary, dealers should consider letting technology do what it does best, and allow your employees to focus on more important, money-making tasks.
