AI raises dealerships’ internet lead responsiveness

[DealerInt]

The "human-in-the-loop" finding makes sense — the responsiveness gains are real but so is the failure mode when AI goes off-script.

Had a friend test this firsthand last month. Called a dealership, AI agent picked up, conversation was going fine. He mentioned he was driving on the highway and wanted to keep it quick. The AI helpfully suggested he pull over at a nearby Walmart to continue the conversation. No Walmart anywhere near that area.

Small moment, but that's exactly the "digital handoff risk" the study flags — the customer doesn't know if they're talking to a person or a bot, and when the bot hallucinates, it erodes trust in the whole interaction. A human would have just said "no problem, I'll keep it brief."

The 90% response rate improvement is impressive. But response rate and conversion rate are different things — curious if the study tracked what happened after the first response.

 

[Stevie]

Interesting information there, @Jeff Kershner. Thank you for the post.

We're in the process of adding Impel to our "team". There are some grumbles from at least one person here. His concern isn't unjust.
We are a family owned & operated small Chevy dealership, and have been doing business on a more personal level since the beginning. Where our larger competitors treat customers like cattle with dollar bills stuck to them, we treat them with respect and dignity. Ok, not to step on any toes out there, but it's true. We are slow paced where it matters, and face paced where it matters. We value time and do a great job of not holding customers hostage for hours.

Our reason for adding Impel is to pick up the slack of our very small sales team (2 main salesmen). One would assume that two salesmen could answer leads in a timely manner and stay engaged with customers....one should not assume. We do a terrible job of lead handling, and the sales team and used car manager don't like to hear that. The truth hurts though.

What's my point? I said all that to say this: I understand most of the pros & cons to adding Ai, but I like to think that it will not completely change the way we take care of our customers. However, I do know that it will become more of a crutch for sales. I just hope that it ultimately helps us sell more cars.

We're at least going to give it a try.

To be continued...

Regarding Impel - I'm curious what services your dealership signed up for (marketing/sales/chat/service) and how that seems to be going thus far.