Dealership Phone Systems? From apps to CRM Integrations, what you got?

[Todd Thompson]

We sell and support a small range of telephony products and they're all backed by Twilio.
Using them as the SIP trunks, SMS channels, etc is not only easy, but highly reliable and cost-effective.

The reason you don't see more dealers taking that approach is because the in-store component is tough - dealers still want a phone on their desk, BDC functionality, phone activity on a TV in their office, etc. These things are all possible with Twilio, but require dev work or a heavy customization of the Flex system. Alot of what we do now is an open source phone server running in the dealership - all the SIP trunks from Twilio go into the server and then the server goes into a switch, which powers all the phones in the dealership over PoE. Everyone still gets a phone on their desk, a paging system, voicemail emailed to their inbox, but the backbone is all Twilio services.

There are only a couple areas where we don't pay Twilio:
- Call recording - it's cheaper to record on the server than pay them to record and transfer
- Voice intelligence - again, with our own recordings on linux boxes we don't need to pay them to process calls

Great info/use. thanks for sharing.

 

[Andrew Hobdy]

Sorry just seeing this. Do you mean

Never heard back from you on this one. I'm going to guess your sim provider isn't able to allocate area code specific. Thats the crux. Some weird phone area code from india is what they typically look like. No one will pick that stuff up.

@Todd Thomspon I am sorry I just saw this-yes sir, we can absolutely make the area codes the same-usually we attach the person's desk phone to their cell via virtual SIM

 

[craigh]

Sorry just seeing this. Do you mean

The call comes into Twilio - are you just using Flex after that point, or are you attaching it to a SIP trunk and sending the call itself to the dealership?

 

[Collin Pedersen]

@Todd Thomspon what are you using for the in-store infrastructure?
Are you sending every call to something in-house like Asterisk/PBX or are you just using a custom web client to handle the calls?

I built this solution for the last dealership I was at. I used the elastic SIP trunking to pass between an internal CRM to FreePBX onto VOIP phones. Was pretty slick and allowed "whispers" to the sales/service/office about the customer as they took the call. Maybe I should reboot that tech for the DealerRefresh crew!?

 

[craigh]

I built this solution for the last dealership I was at. I used the elastic SIP trunking to pass between an internal CRM to FreePBX onto VOIP phones. Was pretty slick and allowed "whispers" to the sales/service/office about the customer as they took the call. Maybe I should reboot that tech for the DealerRefresh crew!?

This is essentially what we're doing now - FreeBPX server goes into a PoE switch that powers all the phones in the dealership.
Everyone has a physical phone, paging, transfers, etc but the whole backbone is Twilio.
The setup works well, but I would like to look at a more pure Twilio approach, especially for those working outside the dealership.

 

[Dan Sayer]

This is essentially what we're doing now - FreeBPX server goes into a PoE switch that powers all the phones in the dealership.
Everyone has a physical phone, paging, transfers, etc but the whole backbone is Twilio.
The setup works well, but I would like to look at a more pure Twilio approach, especially for those working outside the dealership.

Do you have a dedicated WAN IP for the voice gateway to manage quality and priority to voice over anything else?

 

[craigh]

Do you have a dedicated WAN IP for the voice gateway to manage quality and priority to voice over anything else?

It depends on the client and their setup. We prefer to use a dedicated WAN IP for simplicity's sake, but externally it doesn't make a difference when it comes to QoS.

 

[craigh]

I've been impressed with Invoca. They aren't a complete phone system. but are a call-tracking provider that can provide some actionable insights, especially if you have a centralized BDC.

Invoca | Automotive Call Tracking & Conversation Analytics

Invoca's automotive call tracking helps marketers drive more calls, showroom visits, and sales. Track calls from your automotive marketing and convert more callers to sales.

www.invoca.com

Their product looks good, but I can't say my demo / sales experience with them has been great.
May still give it a shot, but.. for a call quality company, the calls were terrible.

Also of note, I'm having a hard time making their cost make sense with alternatives like Volie.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Their product looks good, but I can't say my demo / sales experience with them has been great.
May still give it a shot, but.. for a call quality company, the calls were terrible.

Also of note, I'm having a hard time making their cost make sense with alternatives like Volie.

I'm not sure who you were in contact with, but I would reach out to @Zhendrix, he's Invoca's new head of automotive.

Agreed on pricing though - it is certainly a premium product. Although Zach has shared, they are looking to offer packages more appealing to the average tier 3 dealership.

 

[craigh]

I'm not sure who you were in contact with, but I would reach out to @Zhendrix, he's Invoca's new head of automotive.

Agreed on pricing though - it is certainly a premium product. Although Zach has shared, they are looking to offer packages more appealing to the average tier 3 dealership.

I am looking at Invoca + Five9 for some of our remote BDRs - it's quite costly.
Comparing it to an all-in-one solution without the AI reporting, they all come in significantly cheaper.

Now, being me, the dilemma is can I make my own AI sentiment analysis tool for less than the difference in those prices.
There is also the option of getting telephony + transcripts and using something like TalkWalker as well.