From inventory to appointments to leads: 5 ways you can leverage AI in your dealership today

Over the years my son has gotten into the habit of asking what the weather will be like in the afternoon. This, of course, is so he knows if he can wear shorts to school and still be allowed to go outside for recess… in the dead of winter! I used to flip on the TV or pull up my weather app to find these details, but now… all he has to do is say, “Hey Alexa, what’s the temperature going to be today at 1 p.m.?” On the drive to school my daughter jams out to a new curated playlist from Alexa seemingly every day. TV apps and social media also use algorithms to show us the content we’ll enjoy and engage with the most. You might have even tried your hand at a GhatGPT prompt or two. I know I’ve been dabbling with it a bit.

Artificial intelligence improves our personal lives in so many ways. Have you stopped to consider the impact it could have on your dealership? Your productivity would increase, your staff would have more time to focus on other priorities, and complex tasks could be made simple.

Let’s break down some ways you can use AI in your dealership:

 Engaging Your Internet Leads

Let’s look at some numbers:

• The average car shopper submits five to 10 leads on the internet during their shopping process. 
• Almost a quarter of a dealership’s internet leads don’t receive follow-up within 24 hours. 
• 13.3% of sales prospects don’t make it into the CRM. 

This tells me that timing is crucial when a customer drops into your CRM as a new internet lead. If your sales team doesn’t jump on that opportunity, another dealership will!

But it’s frustrating and feels like a waste of time when a meaningful percentage of those leads don’t respond to calls or texts about next steps. So how does your team balance this need for immediate follow-up with an unknown prospect with their other priorities that likely have a better return?

Artificial intelligence tools can engage internet leads with conversational texts while your sales team focuses on the customers in the showroom. Large language models can help drive the customer to action through great dialogue and ultimately set an appointment.

Once a lead has committed to an in-person or phone meeting to discuss their interest, your sales team can step in, increasing sales opportunities at the time when the customer is most likely to buy.

This approach allows your team to capture and engage those internet leads quickly without wasting their time and effort.  

Optimizing Your Phone Call Follow Up

When a customer makes the effort to pick up the phone and call your store, the topic of that call is extremely important to them.  Part of your job is making sure each call is handled appropriately.  But reviewing calls each morning is extremely time consuming.

AI can optimize your phone call follow-up by serving you hot cases for follow up each morning and providing quick summaries of calls to help you determine which need reviewed.

Artificial intelligence is able to transcribe every call, create a brief two or three sentence summary, and then tag each call with a category based on the conversation – think upset customer or ready to buy.  You can then filter on those tags for a prioritized list to review and follow up on. You can also leverage these items for identifying coaching opportunities.

 Enhancing Your Online Inventory

Merchandising your used vehicle inventory effectively is a never-ending art form. Even if you have all the vehicle’s features and information, manually creating a description or copy and pasting one takes time and you have no way to test if it converts well. If you have more than one person writing descriptions, you might have some in all caps presenting only a list of features. Others might be in sentence case telling a story. Inconsistency across vehicle descriptions can cause consumers frustration during the process, and they may give up on your site entirely.

If your photos have a busy background they can look unprofessional or distracting, but it takes software, skill, and most importantly, time, to update them.

You can leverage AI to enhance your online inventory with smart tools and data that limit the manual effort required for listing your vehicles. Uniquely generated and impactful vehicle descriptions can help your team build online listings quickly, and key vehicle features can be automatically pulled from the VIN based on what’s most likely to interest customers.

AI can also help with photo enhancements like background removal and replacement for more professional photos, as well as automatically incorporating graphic overlays for consistency. There is a lot of time sunk into vehicle merchandising that you can eliminate with AI.

 Pursuing Your Best Opportunities

Prospecting ranks in the top three hardest parts of a salesperson job. Just pulling a list of your customers who are in a positive equity situation can result in a long list with little return.  It’s also no longer enough information to create a compelling offer to get the customer to act. You need to know:

• Who has a high propensity to buy, regardless of equity.
• What they are likely to buy. 
• How they are likely to buy it – finance, lease, or cash.

Artificial Intelligence that uses a unified AI data layer is able to find prospects who are ready to buy using all three types of data – demographic, behavioral, and transactional – even the ones that may not be obvious. With the help of AI, you don’t have to waste time working through a long list of prospects that are nowhere near purchasing another vehicle, you can focus on pursuing your best opportunities.

Scheduling Appointments Over the Phone

Picture the last time you scheduled an appointment over the phone with a live person. You were probably transferred at least once, if not more. You likely waited on hold for a few minutes. You probably had to repeat your information. Then, finding time on your calendar and theirs that worked was like playing Guess Who. Needless to say, it can be a frustrating experience for both ends of the phone. 

Artificial intelligence that is connected to your DMS can handle the appointment schedule for you with 100% accuracy. This creates a hassle-free experience for your customer with an easy step-by-step guide for finding time, documenting the reason, and providing their information. All the while, your service folks aren’t tied up on the phone. Instead, they are working the service lane, upselling, and getting work approved. 

Unlock Your Full Potential with AI

The unknowns of AI can be a bit scary (especially if you watched too many sci-fi movies growing up). But the reality is, small doses of AI are being used in our personal lives already, and they can easily translate into efficiency and productivity gains in your dealership too. It’s often a win-win for your customer and your dealership: the customer gets an easy, seamless experience and your employees are freed up to do more productive work. Are you ready to explore AI in your dealership?