I recently watched a Car Dealership Guy episode and there was a gentleman on their talking about Impel and raving about it. He claimed that they were able to reduce staff because it was so good. He pointed to conversations that the AI had where it was able to empathize with the guest about a difficult situation. I too recently tried an AI service and was wowed by a similar conversation that the AI had with a guest. Then I watched it's processes. While it can have a great conversation, I was left unimpressed with when and why it would engage a guest. It created entirely too many awkward situations. I would have to question whether this gentlemen had actually watched some day-to-day interaction with his customers and not just some wow moments. Sometimes I think people get on these things and get caught up in talking about how great something is without admitting their struggles with it and can mislead those watching (not on purpose by any means).
On top of that, when I told the provider what I would like it to say in certain situations, I was told that they weren't going to allow any individual adjustments to processes. I'm sorry, but every dealership has their own way of doing things and I'm not good with being told how I have to handle guest interactions. I was then able to work with the aforementioned Hammer and they have taken my input and revised some of the interactions with guests according to our processes and together we were able to improve conversion rates on these customer conversations. So beyond just what the AI can do, it's also important to have the right partner that can make adjustments and work with you to achieve your goals. The AI seems to pretty much be the same to me, but the partner will make the difference.
I believe in AI, but I believe the vendors who make it the best supplement to high quality guest experience processes will be the ones that win the day. And it's going to be much harder than many people realize for the same reason that the car business is harder than outsiders realize. There are so many moving parts in the car business and so many "in this case, do this, in that case, handle it this way" that it will be difficult to account for all variables. The hardest part on the vendor side will be to structure AI in a way that is truly effective and not just fit it into what the majority of dealers want. If a dealers current processes suck, plugging AI in and letting it handle the dealers crappy process may get rid of people, but it won't sell more cars. It's like when CRM's created templates. Sure it made it easier, but if what the dealer was saying is garbage and now it's part of a garbage template, what exactly did we accomplish? If that's what a dealer is going for, that's fine. But the purpose of AI shouldn't just be about cutting costs. It should also be about improving the guest experience. To me, that's how AI will fulfill it's promise.
I agree with the statement that "AI won't take your job, but the dealers that utilize AI will," but there is a change coming in the car business and he who provides the best guest experience will win the day. AI for AI's sake won't effect any real defining change in this business.
