How AI is Impacting the Dealership Landscape

The current dealership landscape

Currently, 40% of the leads from customers who want a vehicle or services from your dealership contact you outside your scheduled working hours – after hours, when you’re home for the night. How can you ensure that this communication and lead management is accomplished after your working schedule?

We're talking about nearly half of the customers interested in your services like buying a new vehicle, trading their current model for a new one, getting mechanical service, or seeking any other kind of assistance through your dealership. It's worth noting that 22% of monthly inbound lead sales also contacted you after hours, so providing dependable service when your dealership is closed can significantly increase your sales.

The existing dealership landscape also shows that 25% (a significant amount) of your leads have never engaged with you. That share of untapped customers should be in line for engagement attempts. That percentage is as high as it is because of the current 2.8 outreach attempts per lead, which is a fraction of the required effort.

To ensure customer satisfaction, your dealership can automatically decrease the number of days that your customers haven’t heard from you with intelligent software that can text shoppers consistently to generate and maintain interest. Additionally, these customers should be re-engaged for feedback on their current interests every so often. Do you have the necessary staff or manpower to meet these standards and make your business competitive in the industry?

What can AI bring to your dealership?

AI can easily automate after-hours activities through consistent SMS messaging that books appointments, triggers calls and sends notifications to your team about the increase in leads, leveraging your existing employees to focus their energy and time.

Remember that 22% of your monthly inbound sales that began their journey as after-hour leads? Well, by utilizing AI conversation and sentiment analysis to sift through lead engagement you can efficiently manage your sales reps to meet with the most promising deals, eliminating the guesswork of which leads want to be engaged. AI will take care of these time-consuming processes, allowing your team to concentrate on closing sales and higher-value tasks to enhance the performance and well-being of your auto dealership.

As your dealership invests in intelligent support for your sales and service departments, you’ll begin to recognize the efficient and reliable advantages AI provides for your dealership as a whole. And with time, the impact of AI in automotive will also become easier to evaluate, question, and improve so that other services can be offered with precision to align them with your dealership’s next goals and objectives.

To learn more about how AI can support your dealership with effective, after-hour messaging, book a time to talk with our team here.