thnx JD, looking forward to your call.

Another "Game Changer": L2

Brian Hoecht brought out Lithia Motors L2.com

What makes L2 different?
-Shopping Cart purchase.
-One price, no negotiating
-One trade-in price, no negotiating.

My Take:
Love the clean design and layout and the intelligent "shop by payment" system, but, thats not a Game Changer. L2 has taken dead aim at the car shoppers dis-like of the Car Shopping Game and is trying to "turn on the light" to help show that it's playing a NEW GAME.

Want Proof? Take a look at L2's Beware the 4 Square.

IMO, customers are GRINDERS. They are TOUGH NEGOTIATORS. Lay downs are a rare breed these days. Collectively, customers want a simple pricing model, but, just watch them negotiate hard if things don't go their way.

Brian's been pounding the table telling us all that shoping cart systems to sell cars is coming! L2's model is confirmation that he's not alone! Maybe add in some "GetAbby" technology to make it even less personal! hahaha...

Ahem... Sorry, I'm still old school on this, folks like to touch, feel, smell to motivate them to "pull the trigger & take the plunge".

Hey! I think I can make this shopping cart thing fly!
If you had a clearance area on your site and it had a "dynamic" price where price dropped for 1 hour (when scheduled i.e. midnite sale). Hmmmm... the Shopping Cart system is alive and well! (to collect deposits) Hey! I like this "dynamic" price idea!!

Damn.. add yet another idea to my "to do" list!
Joe

"Game Changers" is right. It's these forms of outside-the-box thinking that will separate the players in auto sales.

I am a little familiar with AuctionDirectUSA from an SEO point of view. Their tactics have been strong for a few months now.

CityAuto rings a bell, but I didn't find them on my watchlist. They're on it now.

Regardless, these are the types of concepts that people are looking for, whether they realize it now or not. The Internet (rather, the people using it) is fickle and people have a short attention span. It is so important to find gems like these, innovate them, localize them, and turn them into money-makers as soon as possible.

Great post, Joe. I'll be calling you today.

I certainly agree with "Redsearch" (interesting name). Most research is skewed, which is extremely frustrating. Even health research and environmental research. The big oil companies ALL pay "research" companies to show how global warming is a "myth" and a natural occurrence. However, with time for purchasing, we actually took a years worth of data out of all of our stores and ran them against DMV records (Polk did it for us) to see when and what the leads ended up purchasing. What we found was of the 60%ish of the leads that actually bought within the 1 year time period, 54% bought within 1 week, 67% had bought by the end of week 2 and 84% were by the end of 4 weeks.

The fly for us in Google's research is the fact that of all of our leads, only 60% bought in the first year. Which means, nearly 40% were either bogus leads, people who went out of the market for some reason other than purchasing or perhaps just stole a car (I'm sure at least one of 'em did - we're outside Baltimore). So, I can't fully agree with them looking at "ALL" people searching, but I would say of those that are going to buy, they do quick!

Google Research comment...

Jeff you give great information, and I love the site. I hope my comments are seen as supporting, and cautionary, and not argumentative.

I am not saying I agree or disagree, but what I would like to do is make a recommendation to all readers to not assume everything you read with a "research" tag, coming from a specific company, or research paid for by a company, is fact. Don't always believe all the "research" you read from a company that is eager to get advertisers to start spending money in their medium. Of course they want buyers to think the results will come sooner rather than later.

In my opinion, there are just way too many variables to a dealership's adWords (or any PPC) campaigns, for turning clicks into sales, to put a blanket statement on when 70% of searchers will buy... seasonality, market, market location, competition and so forth, are just a few of those factors that would move that percentage and that times frame significantly.

Example:
I worked for one of the three top major travel websites. Just like everyone else, I saw the TV ads, with the "independent" research firms, talking about 50% less than Expedia, or 33% better than Travelocity, or 25% better than Orbitz.... What I learned is that those websites PAY the research firms to do a study on the website's selected markets, that they know they have worked deals to have better rates. They know they can't lose.... but people take it as fact because it is "research". What it is really is marketing...

Ok, I had a little eye juice on that one! Geez...I am mentally making a list of all the people I want to say something to and all the things I want to do before I die!

And as a comment to the Google Search, our Polk lead scoring model showed us very similar results. We had always guessed it, though our internet managers wanted to believe they were all "early" shoppers and that's why they never heard back from the customer. And now our response is, "No, your message just wasn't compelling enough for that customer and they went elsewhere and BOUGHT elsewhere."

Idealistic, futuristic and very cool Mr. Will Robinson...

But after much thought since this article was written, still believe people sell cars, not technology and that will continue for quite some time.

Intuition plays a big part in reading a customer through email messages, or the first 20 seconds on the phone. Just my opinion on phone scripts:

- A phone script can make anyone average
- Add personality to the script and one is above average
- Script outline (not word for word), plus personality, plus car savvy-product knowledge is A++ master appt setter

Abby could still be beneficial for product knowledge, model comparisons, and diverse languages we encounter.

Neat articles and ideas Alex, keep 'em coming!

Great article Alex. Well written and speaks the truth about this exciting new product that’s just around the corner from being then next big thing. I was at that meeting and was just blown away by the many applications Abby could be used for. Much like many of you on this Blog who are bucking the industries norm of being two years behind the curve, this is just a foundation of what’s yet to come. Can’t wait to see what’s next, and glad to be part of this innovative field. Thanks for all the great information on this blog site.

Oooohhh....that would be amazing! Heck - we can barely get REAL LIVE salespeople to understand their competitive comparisons. I think I love future Automotive Abby. Also, think if Abby could educate consumers on the major services their car needs, what it entails and why it is important...another win. Then, perhaps Abby could help us interview candidates for Job Positions - I saw that the ALICE site has a "personality" tester: "CLAUDIO." So many possibilities.

i was thinking about this on the drive home actually - in fact, in the near future off the shelf would probably be more like 'Audi Abby' who would be able to answer everything Audi, but may not know what a 'Toyota' is... and 'Automotive Abby' would probably be something custom, where Abby would be able to compare vehicles for the consumer, and explain differences between OEM's engines, for example - which is what the Checkered Flag's of the world would be interested in... right Alex?

My first ‘comment’ addresses a number of the products currently ‘off the shelf.’ Now, what products will be off the shelf in the future? Wow, great question. The interesting thing about Abby is that she gains intelligence by interacting with people. So within a couple years she will be able to answer nearly all of the ‘common’ questions people ask when purchasing a vehicle, for example; and within a couple years she will be able to answer tons of questions concerning medicine – since Abby is currently entrenched in the automobile and pharmaceutical industries. So a very ‘near future’ off the shelf Abby product would be something like ‘Automotive Abby’ - who is essentially a genius when it comes to vehicles, dealership operations, & prospective car buyers.

This is so fascinating! I am dying to hear example of ABBY handling calls. I went to both websites (Get ABBY and the Alice site) and tried interacting with the avatars and I wasn't impressed. They were way off base in about 3 lines, but I guess handling a phone up wouldn't be too chatty and more standardized.

The Alice site is super budget and I don't understand it at all. It's nothing about Alice handling calls, it's more about Alice being an avatar on your site. But, she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed even if she is an award winner. The other avatars on the site were uber freaky. I think one of them is anorexic. Avatars in general freak me out though. They are so ugly and I can't get over the mouth being out of sync.

I am not totally ruling out dating one, as long as its mouth didn't move. Actually, that's how I feel about most guys come to think about it!

It was great speaking to you too, Alex. I'd love to meet you on your next visit to NYC. I am off to Digital Dealer/AAISP thing in Vegas. I'll keep everyone posted on anything interesting that may come up. Not sure if it will be anything groundbreaking, but I'll probably have some good US Weekly style gossip to share.

There ya go Jeff - if she ever talks back, just reprogram her. No need to ever lose another argument again! The ladies could program it to say intelligent things....I think world peace may be near.

Greg - thanks for joining in on the conversation and shedding a little light on Abby's programming. I think the people reading this thread will be interested in the "off-the-shelf" products Abby will be able to provide down the road - care to mention what some of those capabilities will be?

Ashley - thank you for your time the other day. You helped to reaffirm some of my thoughts and it was a pleasure speaking to someone who is on her game!

As well for ladies, excuse me.

Do they have an Abby we could program as a girlfriend?

From what I have heard from customers and staff, Abby is a real time saver. She is able to give customers relevant information such as price quotes immediately and in the event that someone needs to be transferred to a rep there is a press 1 connect option.

as I mentioned to Alex: FYI - Abby is not 'keyword' based, but rather grammatically based - since she breaks apart each sentence into subject, noun, verb, and adjective – in order to capture the true meaning and references required for normal conversation. It's actually the same philosophy that is being used for 'google on the phone' and for the latest 'voice search technology' that is being put into beta this week for searching the web. Both methods are consistent with Abby's because all came out of CMU within the last 5 years.

I've had a good bit of experience with Abby technology – all of it very positive. Abby is currently helping dealerships:
- follow up with leads (through unique calls that educate consumer’s on the car of interest)
- remind consumers when they are due for a service appointment
- survey consumers to ensure high CSI ratings
- she can collect email addresses from consumers and deposit them into a DMS or CRM
- she can inform consumers when their car is ready to be picked up from the service department – and I’ve heard she will soon be able to accept payments over the phone
- she can inform your salesmen when an Internet lead has hit, and connect your salesmen with the consumer in under 2 minutes
- she can exist on the web as an avatar, and do live instant messaging with consumers… among other things.

Now, of those described above surveys and email collection involve relatively simple speech recognition - however, if you want to have Abby answer open ended questions, schedule appointments, check the availability of a particular vehicle, give directions… GetAbby (Eidoserve) will develop a custom solution for your dealership, and it’s going to cost 'big boy' dollars. But the technology is currently capable of handling these sorts of tasks.

FYI – Abby does NOT use AIML…

"We have been using Abby for a little over a month in our stores."

Have you surveyed your customers and staff members to see if it really is handling requests and saving time?

We have been using Abby for a little over a month in our stores. Not only is it groundbreaking technology that is already being successfully used in other industries, but Abby has yet to call in sick, be hungover, have bad cramps or a negative attitude.

I am getting the impression this article is being taken as me advocating GetAbby (Eidoserve), and that was not my intention. I just re-read the article, and can certainly see how someone would develop that assumption. Yes, I am looking into things deeper, and I appreciate you helping me with that Brian. The intention of this article was to educate the readers on what the future will bring....whether that future is next week or 20 years from now I do not know. Whether that future will be Abby or HAL is also unpredictable.

All the features I noted were pretty compelling as actual things GetAbby will be capable of doing in the future....according to the CEO. Whether it was a canned presentation, or vaporware, is inconclusive in the spirits of this article. This article is for awareness.

Thanks for asking the question Greg. I am the founder of Ai-Dealer.

Ai-Dealer's product that we are in the market with is a shopping cart that dealers add on to their website to help raise website conversion levels, generate incremental website leads and facilitate direct sales (almost most are still happening from human follow up on unsold shopping carts)... which is our model.

We do use an avatar and have some AI capabilities, but Eidoserve is in different areas trying to monetize in different ways (i.e. they don't have a shopping cart), so I don't consider them to be a competitor.

If what they were touting were a commercially viable product, it would help my company's business since we do have an avatar in our shopping cart program and do have means of doing AI chats (although we don't do anything commercially with that part).

But I do know enough about the technology involved to know what is up and so shared what I know... which is the point of a blog.

Whether someone has integrity or a secret agenda can be difficult to discern on a blog, so thanks for the opp to say the above.

But no one has to listen to me... sign up for it and see what gets delivered. If it comes up short, just don't blame the technology.

I heard about this from some of the people who were at the same demonstration as Alex. These people aren't people who get excited too easy but they were all about this thing. I don't think we're ready to drop the money on this yet, but I can certainly see how a super aggressive dealer (like Alex) would be all about this.

Brian - I don't know what you do - I only know you are with Ai Dealer, but would something like this be your competition?

Thanks for pointing out Dealer Refresh Alex - I'm still trying to catch up on all the old articles!

Abby is from a company called Eidoserve.

They use an Artificial Intelligence routine based upon the open source Artificial Intelligence markup language (AIML).

And whle AIML is quite good at recognizing typed inputs and after quite a bit of time can even be tuned to a specific user's voice (like with Dragon Naturally Speaking) as well as synthesizing answers that are relevant to the recognized input...

The rest of that post is pure marketing vapourware. All Abby is going to be able to do any time soon is speak pre-recorded talk tracks.

Multiple languages? Local dialects? Heck, accents confuse these programs beyond all hope still.

I like the story... I'll be the first in line when their is a functioning prototype that can do more than read a canned speech (like in their demo).

Go to www.alicebot.org to get some sense of reality around what is possible.

As heard back in late 2000, "Please Lord, just one more bubble..."

Alex... dude... the Ai in Ai-Dealer is for Artificial Intelligence... but only because I don't have any real intelligence of my own...

If you want the real skinny on Eidoserve, call or email Dr. Richard Wallace who is the CEO of the Ai-Foundation. You'll find him on the Alicebot site. His "ALICE" won the Loebner prize (annual contest for most human AI) enough that they changed the rules so each "AI" bot wasn't allowed to enter multiple years. Dr. Wallace came out of Carnegie Mellon and has some words of caution related to Eidoserve.

Caveat emptor.

(and for the record, I am all for humanizing our technology and stuff with strong value innovations)

Joe,

It is unbelievable at first, but I'm confident this technology is going to improve and will be a viable solution in the future. I think Abby is much closer than HAL was. The GetAbby website does not give an accurate depiction of what she really is, and is the reason why I intentionally left a link to it out of the initial post. If you ever get the opportunity to demo GetAbby with R.F. Culbertson (the CEO), it might be more believable.

Funny you brought up HAL9000 because I forgot about that one. Thanks for the laugh!

-Alex