As dealership systems become more complex, customer information can end up spread across multiple platforms and communication channels. But Mike Gilson, CEO of Conversica, joins us on today’s CBT Live segment to break down how AI can help bring that information together so dealers can better understand where each customer is in the vehicle lifecycle.
While dealers now have more customer data than ever before, it’s often fragmented across various systems. The challenge, Gilson said, lies in connecting this information to identify real-time revenue opportunities. Therefore, Conversica’s Ignite AI-native revenue tool is helping dealerships surface these opportunities throughout the sales and service lifecycle, such as loan expirations, lease maturities, payment swaps, internet leads, lapsed service customers, and open recalls. Gilson notes that it also tracks customer and vehicle lifecycles, allowing dealers to prioritize opportunities effectively.
Gilson notes that AI must build a customer’s context before recommending next steps. So, he said Ignite combines sales and service history, financing, household relationships, past conversations, communication logs, mileage and repair records into one view. Dealers can use the tool to weigh a repair against trade-in value, equity and replacement payments, identifying payment swaps, lease options or purchases tailored to each customer.
Once dealers identify an opportunity, Gilson says they need to move quickly from insight to action. AI can use a customer’s history and vehicle lifecycle to tailor outreach through email, text, BDC calls or sales conversations, rather than sending the same message to everyone. That could mean having 1,000 different conversations for 1,000 different opportunities, with AI sustaining an intelligent two-way dialogue as customers respond. So, Gilson sees speed and personalization as central to the intelligent dealership of the future, as the same customer and vehicle lifecycle data can also help dealers spot service defection and intervene before customers take their business elsewhere.
