S1E14: The Human Side of AI In Automotive BDC: A People-Centric Approach

Vin Micciche and Strolid CTO Thomas McCarthy-Howe dissect how AI enhances rather than replaces human empathy in dealership communications. The conversation highlights AI’s role in sentiment analysis during calls, automating CRM note-taking to free agents for complex interactions, and using conversation history to personalize follow-ups. Thomas emphasizes Strolid’s “robot food” philosophy: AI ingests data to empower agents, not eliminate them, ensuring compliance via the vCon conversational data standard. Key takeaway: “AI isn’t about replacing people. It’s about giving them superhuman memory to build deeper trust.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to AI-Human Synergy  
01:23 - Core BDC Retention Principles  
04:45 - IVR Automation Pitfalls  
09:12 - Sentiment Analysis Breakthrough  
15:30 - CRM Data Limitations Exposed  
22:47 - "Robot Food" Philosophy  
31:15 - Colorado Pricing Case Study  
42:00 - Conversational Memory Systems  
51:20 - vCon Data Standard  
58:30 - Future of AI-Assisted BDC  
66:45 - GDPR Compliance Strategies  
76:07 - Key Takeaways & Conclusion  

Creators and Guests

Host

Michael Donovan

Michael Donovan is the Vice President of Marketing at Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc., where he leverages two decades of automotive industry expertise to drive growth through innovative digital marketing strategies and AI technology integration.

Guest

Vin Micciche

CEO Vin Micciche founded Business Development Center (BDC) Strolid, Inc. in 2014 after accumulating more than 25 years of industry experience, including leadership roles at Group 1 Automotive, where his team secured the #1 position in the Wards eDealer 100 rankings for 2011.

What is Dealer Insights Podcast?

Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran

good morning good afternoon or good
evening and thanks for tuning in to the
dealer insights podcast where we go
under the hood Bumper to Bumper and just
about everywhere in between discussing
topics important to dealers of all types
and sizes your time's valuable so thanks
for riding along for this episode of
dealer insights welcome back to dealer
ins sites uh wow we got us we got a
great one today you guys are going to
love this because we are welcoming
someone who has not been on the podcast
yet and that would be Thomas how the CTO
at strolid welcome Thomas how are you
I'm great thanks thanks for welcoming me
I'm happy to be here it's gonna be a
great episode Vinnie how are you doing
fantastic thank you Sean I love you
guys' enthusiasm it's like uh you guys
are so docile out there in uh
Massachusetts or east coast land
wherever you guys are today reserved
reserved people yeah yeah well listen
for the audience whether you're
listening whether you're watching or
both uh today we're going to actually
start to uh uncork a little bit more of
things we've teased in previous months
around artificial intelligence AI as it
relates to the automotive industry but
we are looking at it from a perspective
that is really one that focuses on
customer service what happens within BDC
what H what happens within lead handling
and how the human empathy side uh of
what happens in these conversations is
so critical that we want to try to help
uh not only educate the audience
especially our dealer audience but also
help you kind of set your mind at ease
on some things and feel a little bit
more uh empowered and knowledgeable
about uh where things are going and
where things are even right now and
maybe how you should approach it so as
the industry Contin use and it will
never stop just evolving at a super fast
pace technology usually is going so much
faster than any of our abilities to
actually have a working knowledge of it
that's why we do what we do we want to
try to make some of those things more
simplified so that you know our dealers
uh and our dealer friends can continue
to just stay focused on what they are
best at so uh so thanks for tuning in uh
the first thing that I really want to
talk about with you guys in kind of this
AI human interaction thing is just kind
of help the audience understand the
problem and I guess the you know Thomas
maybe I'll I'll ask you first would you
mind just kind of elaborating a bit on
the how this overly automated customer
service sector has led to really
customers being a lot more
dissatisfied yeah for sure so um so
let's just talk about a little bit of
the history really quickly uh so for a
long time in industry we've understood
that automations and um efficiency make
the business run better but don't
necessarily make people happier and the
best example from our past is probably
ivr um and if you remember interactive
voice response or those phone menus when
you would call a long time ago these
were um the very first times in a
customer service aspect where we added
an automation instead of a person to
help you you know as as a customer but I
don't think many customers felt
helped it really was a time where people
felt like they were being shunted off
and not respected press one for you know
sales two for blank um and uh and I
think we've one of the lessons we've
learned there and we continue to learn
is that when you replace a
human with something techical you've
made it less
human and I think that's a fundamental
of of of and I think ated we really
understand and know that um and I think
that's where we making the same mistake
again in that we're very focused in on
maybe what the bottom line
needs but we're not focusing in on what
the customers need and I think one of
the things that I think is Mark staled
is we do a really good job at making
sure that we understand we have a human
business and that human business needs
humans almost sounds like there's a
little bit of a buried lead are you
saying that uh Happy customers uh well
cared for customers um actually have
something to do with the bottom line of
a business I think I think it's really
clear that relationships are the the the
core of any any business yeah between us
and our customers and our customers and
their customers so yeah absolutely right
the more humid it is the more real it is
more real it is best relationship all
way yeah I think great add to that you
know
when when I first got in the car
business there's no such thing as a CRM
for example and we thought that this
technology would would change our our
our lives and it it did help right but
it also created different jobs and
different work uh tedious uh menial work
uh clicking buttons and tasks and all
this other stuff to keep things in order
which human beings aren't great at what
human beings are great at is um and
hopefully this stays this way forever
is building relationships with people
listening
empathizing understanding the emotion of
a purchase and that's all stuff in my
opinion that uh a robot can't do um to
Thomas's Point ivrs have been we we have
special ways at stal of setting up ivrs
for dealers because they don't work very
well and a lot of them decided to one of
our comments to dealers is the best way
um to handle this is have a
receptionist because she can understand
that Joe is off
today uh and the system someone has to
actually go in and input that
information into the system to know that
Joe's not here today you know uh and
that custom is frantically looking for
Joe and a system keeps putting him into
his voicemail things like that that just
disrupt the and there there's thousands
of those types of examples um and with
CRM you know it's the old saying in
out right I hate to use that word
but that's everyone uses that when they
talk about CRM data
because the CRM data is not clean um and
so it's hard to get a read on exactly
what's happening um and you and you rely
on these kpis to run your business and
and if you're not running things
consistently then that data isn't really
giving you a true picture of what it is
that you're you're trying to manage and
so um there's a lot of examples of that
and and just one last thing U there's
also a lot of examples of different Tech
that keeps getting dumped on dealers and
we're very empathetic with our dealers
uh it started with CRM and then it went
to like SEO and sem and then it went to
social media and then it went to you
know database management and and data
mining and things like that and then it
went to digital retailing and then it
went to uh I mean so many different
things getting thrown at these dealers
and now all of a sudden it's Ai and
we're hearing a lot of a lot of
conversations from our dealers about you
know should I use Ai and it's like most
of them don't know the difference
between automations and AI neither did I
until I Thomas who has educated me quite
a bit over the last couple years but an
automation can you know cause problems
just like an ivr
can we think is AI is really just an
automation yeah yeah good good points
you guys are sharing as we get just the
wheels rolling on this thing makes me uh
kind of leads me to some thoughts around
you know AI um I think most people that
have done even just a little bit of
research off the surface realize that
artificial intelligence from a business
um U purpose uh is it's capable of
bringing a lot of efficiency um into
businesses um with what sta does you
know there's there's a lot of um there's
there's a necessity on the human side of
it because there you just mentioned the
word empathy right The Human Side is
where still understands the the history
of that business that you were kind of
just talking about Vinnie and how things
have involved question for you guys
would be so how are you guys working now
in the AI world uh relative to your
services to kind of address that balance
of efficiency from artificial
intelligence with empathy which is
clearly necessary for the type of work
that you guys
do yeah yeah um so so I think um there
there are two things here that I want to
I want to point at um and I the first
thing I'm going to point at is um some
uh although I kind of understood I think
uh um Mark
Castleman the um uh an old friend who's
in charge of Intel ignite gave Vinnie
and I some really good insight to Ai and
its use and Mark told us and I think
this is absolutely true that the biggest
thing about AI is is it makes people
scalable in ways in which they weren't
otherwise scalable and so like just as
an old school idea of that you know I
can't dig a seller alone I'm miss one
person small shovel but if I get a back
ho I can go dig a I can dig a seller and
the back made me scalable it I can do
things that I couldn't possibly do
because it's bigger than I am and it can
right it made me
scalable AI makes a person's people
scalable because it can look at a lot
more than you can like I can give a book
to an to an to a chat GPT and say hey
chat GPT what did the book say
and I couldn't read that book in 10
hours but chat GPT can do it in 10
minutes and it makes me very very
scalable and so that's the first
fundamentally I want to point out which
is AI makes you be able to to really go
through a lot more information a lot
more quickly and that's one thing the
other thing I want to talk about is
empathy and I think the biggest thing
about empathy is it lets you in emotions
in general is emotions tell you what's
important and um and so empathy allows
you to understand what's important to
your customer important to your business
and that empathy that understanding of
what's important is is really what the
relationship it's about I know it's
important to you I I can understand it
and so I'm going to um and that's
important to me and that and so that
empathy allows me to make the best
choices for our customers and those
that's the other part empathy is a is a
way of understanding what's important
but when I put these two ideas together
scalable and important I think it really
starts to understand how how we use AI
at stolid and that is by using AI to see
all of our customer conversations and
all of our interactions we can see
problems that impact our customers lives
we can tell what's important we can see
a lot more things and by able to by us
being able to see a lot more things
we're able to understand okay what are
the really important things that are
making our customers lives harder our
dealers lives harder so we can apply
empathy at scale
the AI allows us to see a lot more
therefore we can attend to what needs to
be important at empathy part so instead
of using AI to not worry about it we use
AI to look at a lot more things so we
can worry about more things that makes
sense yeah and things that would be
otherwise not examined right and
otherwise forgotten and lost um Thomas
shared a stat with me 10% of what
happens in every business is actually
written down um that means 9 90% of what
happens in a business isn't written down
well AI can write it all down for you
you know with our business it was
conversations and for Years everybody
was trying to buy uh call recording
software and all that and there's a lot
of them and they're all doing different
things now and experiment with AI as
well and some of them are good and and
so forth but it only one you know how
many people do you we have 150,000
conversations coming through here a
month how can a human being greed
through all of that now ai can
yeah was that we also dump all of our
dealers inventory into our system so we
can look at all that we get emails we
get texts we get calls and that's kind
of what's unique about the software I
mean the technology that we've developed
has given us the ability to see all that
yeah that's right were those some of the
things that inspired or or were there
other things that inspired your decision
to kind of um work towards this
integration with AI and and humans I
mean everybody that you know consumes
this information and is interested in
automotive BDC knows that people are the
and have been the biggest thing that
powers that right you have to have them
trained right but it's a very people uh
Centric heavy business and you know you
guys are really the at the front and
center of all of that thought leadership
Galore really kind of out Aid what
really was the inspiration to say you
know what we can blend AI with what
we're doing uh versus just completely
replacing people because you know all of
us have probably heard things like that
even in recent years in our industry
where people like we've got a thing and
now you won't have to worry about people
you guys are taking a different approach
what what inspired
it so I think Vinnie and I have a great
story um so I came to St about three
years ago and this is my first role in
an automotive company my my career has
been in Network um design and research
I'm a Communications engineer and I
designed phone systems and Radars and
crap like that and when I came I met
Vinnie before I came to stald and we
talked about joining and we talked about
what made staled special what was the
important part about stald and it was
just super clear was the people it was
the people we have and the people that
um that our customers have and the
conversations between them and we knew
that the things that were not
you know um uh optional were um our our
people were sales
organization um and so the relationship
was not something we couldn't change and
what was so what was interesting about
our story was we didn't start with AI
when I got here but he was like the most
important thing we have are the
conversations with our customers and so
I dove in said okay that's a great idea
let's dive into that and start exploring
that idea and what had happened just
after a little bit of time looking at
the problem was we had understood that
the conversations that we had with our
customers were all the real uh insight
about what was the customer need what
how the business was running just the
amount of data that was available to us
to understand things was incredible um
and that's when we started wondering
into hey you know what this would be a
really good thing to feed to a robot we
started calling it robot food uh if we
could give this to a robot and say hey
robot what does this mean we could do
these we can understand at scale instead
of understanding you know just one by
one and so our decision to integrate AI
with human agents actually was the human
agents weren't
optional and so the AI for us was a way
for us to help help our our customers
help our agents do a better job and so
that the AI was more optional the the
conversations and the and the customers
were not
optional and if you look at like a
script Sean um we've we've talked about
this in past uh episodes where there are
people out there oh you you know I see
people posting oh you don't want your
people to be scripted well the reason
for scripts is isn't to tell them what
to say it's to give them a a guideline a
framework you know an outline of how a
call should go but listening to hundreds
of thousands of calls probably at this
point in my career they don't always go
right so what what do we need to train
our people on and what are we training
our people on at strolid we start with
customer service and
empathy um a human being can't possibly
know what the wheelbase is on a Toyota
Camry or a Toyota Tundra like on every
single model and if you do you're
spending way too much time studying all
the specs and all that stuff can get put
in a in a brochure online uh on on a
magazine and things like that um what I
want to hear from my people is a genuine
interest in the customer and in their
willingness to help that customer with
whatever challenges that they have and
now we can focus on that as you know
more with AI and so it we pick up
sentiment um and I'm proud to say 95% of
the calls that I see in our sentiment
Channel say that our agents were helpful
in and and trying to help the customer
you know maybe even 98% I mean it's very
rare that we have somebody that the
customer is frustrated with a lot of
times the customer is frustrated with
things like well you your price is wrong
on the website compared to what it is on
this other website or you know that
doesn't have photos or it's not
available we have to break the news to
them things like that so um and the
dealer is going to get to see that that
work with us soon but at the end of the
day the sentiment is really what I've
always been after in terms of it's the
core of of of of what the future holds
for human beings if you if you you lack
that ability to communicate with with
people and customers the AI can pick up
on menial tasks and all the buttons and
and all the you know tedious work but it
can't pick up on is that human in to
human interaction I mean at least if it
does um I don't you know it's scary
really be honest with you yeah well just
you know listening to you guys uh share
makes me uh almost think of my own
Journey uh on the digital side of this
industry I mean I I got into it when it
was barely a stream not a raging River
so from the digital side my first entry
point was 1999
um you mentioned it Vinnie and I was
there too when the first CRM kind of
hits the the market or our vertical um I
understood like okay this is important
because we had a new Digital customer a
new internet customer but fast forward
to where we are today or even fast
forward to where Vinnie when you were
like hey I built this company I'm you
know I'm doing my own thing now what
stald is doing is so connected to the
communication right it is the
communication back and forth
uh between the dealership and the
customer and there's a lot of different
ways I mean we have buzzwords like Omni
Channel because there are so many
different opportunities or communication
channels to where you could find your
way into a dealership but what's
fascinating to me and I think really
really smart I mean astute uh on your
part is
that artificial intelligence for for a
while but now it is at a level where you
can
greatly like dramatically improve what
is going on Within These communication
Dynamics and nuances to be able to not
just summarize what's being talked about
but as you guys are talking about
identifying sentiment and I don't want
to uh you know any light LED any
lightning out of bottles as we work
through this episode but from my
perspective of knowing the industry and
knowing the the challenge that dealers
have had getting their arms around
technology when it's like we just can
you simplify how we uh land a customer
schedule an appointment with them and
then let us work through the process of
selling them a vehicle uh selling them
service you guys are now at a point
where you can help uh the dealership by
simplifying all of that but it also is
going to provide a better experience for
their customers which is great it's an
interesting um piece that I think that
dealers really need to kind of uh Focus
in on that bottleneck that happens in
the communication and Vinnie you both of
you have probably heard me say this
before there are probably more dealers
that don't have marketing problems
although they keep saying well I I need
another lead provider or I need a better
paid search provider or I need a better
SEO provider and the reality is no they
just need better processes and what you
guys literally have already been working
on but now as you go into this you know
combination of efficiency empathy humans
AI you're you guys are going to blow
you're already starting to but you're
going to blow the doors off of that and
if I'm a dealer I'm like how can I not
be listening to what you guys are doing
so that kind of leads me into kind of
the next area where I want to talk about
like where you guys see the
collaboration of people humans and AI
working together kind of what are you
guys already in that channel where there
are some ways that you guys are starting
and could you share on some of that
maybe specific to how it will enhance
the experience for the dealership's
customers or their experiences at least
with the dealership yeah yeah let me
think me to that one first so I think
the the biggest the biggest change the
biggest the biggest thing that we're
doing in that area and it's sort of
shocking that it's so simple yet it's so
important and rare
is what what we're understanding is that
if you want to have a relationship with
somebody in general you'll simply um
remember what they said last
time and so by by having the
conversations that you know we have with
our customers and having them at our
disposal the next time we talk to
customers the next time we interact with
customers we haven't forgotten what they
said and so in the short term it might
be we were talking to a customer and
that we made them a promise and so we we
can keep track of the promises so we
know we did it but it's also you know
the next time the third or fourth time
we talk with a customer we might
remember what they said the first second
and third time now the the the shorthand
we have in our engineering department is
Imagine going on a third date with a
girl but not having any idea of what you
said on the first two dates now that's
awkward and isn't calling a company
after you've emailed them or texted them
or talked to them last month and them
having no idea what you said the last
time isn't that roughly equivalent
haven't you been forgotten as a person
if they don't remember what they said to
you last time and I think we we we take
these things as being as a granted but
remind you what Vinnie said earlier in
this podcast only 10% of what happens in
the business is written down 90% is not
so how could you possibly have
remembered what they said last time they
may not have to talk to you or maybe
they didn't put the notes and write all
kinds of reasons why you couldn't
remember AI allows us to really have a
long-term memory about what people said
to us and what they care about what we
promis them and what happened and that
is fundamentally supportive of a
relationship yeah let me go back to what
I said about scripting right what is the
problem with scripting it's not
personalized to that customer and that's
what a lot of people have a problem with
they think it's canned and so I've
always defended it and said well no you
can add your own personality and you can
you know you can be happy and you can be
make jokes and you can joke around with
the customer make them feel comfortable
make them feel you know warm and fuzzy
um what this allows us to do um
especially into the future as we we get
more and more of our data into the
conserver Vons is personalize these
conversations with the script in mind so
we have the structure now how do we
personalize and say hey Sean looks like
you called us last week um and you know
you weren't able to come in uh we able
to come in this week you know and that
to me is the ultimate in combining a
structured process and script with a
personalization of the
conversation now you have to you know
hope you hire the right people that have
empathy right because unfortunately not
everybody does and we do a incredible
job at at uh recruiting training you
know sometimes uh we have to go through
hundreds of people before we hire
somebody here because want to make sure
that they're people you know they're
people friendly first they're people
people that's right that's right yeah I
mean again these These are great great
points uh for our audience I mean I just
listening I'm thinking not only is that
uh instant um OnDemand recall of the
conversation they were talking about
Thomas they super critical but and again
I'm not going to get the cart before the
horse but I also know that you you guys
have mentioned a little bit on the
sentiment how awesome just for uh
anybody listening that's on the dealer
side on the retail side how awesome to
think okay can we simplify and make it
easier to have complete immediate on
demand recall of what we uh last said
not just what you ever said with them
because it's one thing to know hey they
did some business with us and we know
when their birthday is or their wedding
anniversary or whatever a lot of this um
important but often not well utilized
information that gets collected on
customers but the last thing that they
said with you could have been
completely uh lost in the sauce right
but not only can you guys have that
available you know the sentiment right
so it's I think it was Zig Ziggler that
said you know uh he used the sentence I
did not say that he hit his wife and he
said it's kind of not just what you're
saying but how you say it and sentiment
analysis inside of the business that you
guys offer dealers is massively
important because just that sentence
that I was giving as the example of Zig
Ziggler I did not say that he hit his
wife just the voice inflection word by
word I did not say that he hit his wife
right when you break down the the
complexity of you know sentiment we've
wanted that through social media for
many years and then hoot and some others
started to play around with that but is
at a different level now so it's cool to
hear that you guys are incorporating
that into how you guys are collaborating
these two uh worlds I think it's
important can I just mention one thing
before you Thomas on that I want to just
make sure I'm clear on what I was saying
a lot of dealers are probably sitting
there thinking well I got a CRM that
captures all this
information um however we have crms too
and it doesn't capture all the
information I can promise you that
number one number two our ability to
feed
Thomas's Tech that he developed the vcon
OR astral's tech I should say too but uh
feed that information directly to our
agents when they're taking a phone call
or making a phone call having it right
at their fingertips is called what we're
calling now co-pilot for our agents like
they have someone next to them feeding
them and that would be the AI right
feeding them the information and that's
something that's very clunky within a
CRM because you got to go keep scrolling
down and scrolling down and scrolling
down looking for all the conversations
and a lot of left messages and all that
kind of stuff and and we can hone in on
what's actually being said and what the
customer wants prom what promises and
commitments we've made right
sentiment um maybe last time they spoke
to us uh actually spoke to us not just
voicemails and emails that went back and
forth that never engaged had any
engagement and we can really get a good
picture of what you know that
conversation was all about prior to
taking that call or text or
email yeah 100% yeah the other thing
just to point out too is we're one of
the things that makes us really unique
is that we're capturing we now have
Integrations well as crms dmss uh phone
systems chat chat systems uh obviously
leads um in and outbound email and text
replies so a lot of systems out there
that are doing you know um reviews of
calls and and transcriptions they're
only doing it through one channel of
communication and what we know at stald
is customers communicate in multiple
channels so we're we're able to now plug
all those channels into the conserver
and see and because they're all captured
in a vcon in one place we can see all
that data from that one
customer and then feed it you know the
systems it's really complex but it's
it's actually you know
um it's exciting I I mean I'm excited
that we're in front of all this at the
moment we're not experts yet uh we have
ways to go
but yeah I you you're you're you're
definitely logging more miles on the
road at least in this specific part of
the vertical than anybody else I know
which is I think really great um a
little bit of a piggyback there on some
of the um CRM related information that
you were sharing Vinnie um and this is a
just a question for either or both of
you it because my understanding has been
at an automotive CRM that all the
attempts at artificial intelligence at
least up till now and I don't know what
any or all of them are doing right now
but I know that there have been a lot of
a uh there's been a lot of effort around
well it's and I think some of them
called it AI but there there there's
always been this desire to have a a
heavy list of automation rules um you
know as much sophistication as you can
put within automation which is not
artificial intellig
and we've talked Vinnie you and I we did
a whole episode on kind of automation
versus AI but the traditional Automotive
crms have have played around with some
of that and still do have all kinds of
different automative rules that you can
set up but are any of them to your
knowledge are they doing these things
around the AI side because Vinnie you
said it like dealers might say well I
have a CRM it does all these things uh
but not really it does some some things
but there's a example and then I'll let
Thomas answer the rest this one example
is we take a call Sean right yeah and
we're done with the call our system will
allow our agents to take that
conversation or our system will take
that conversation transcribe it
summarize it and put it into the CRM so
the dealer can read the conversation in
the CRM because and every dealer will
understand this right now you have to
rely on someone to type that information
in and you're going to miss information
in that in those notes or they're going
to be too brief or maybe too long like
these are very con precise
summarizations that you can read and
then you'll also be able to not just
read it click on it and go listen to the
call if you want
to which is really that's will it also
assign assign and will it also assign
any like if they are action related
items that um belong to either the
customer or the dealership like hey you
also need to do these because that's
always a big thing for the dealers is oh
I was supposed to do this but you know
we wrote down 10% and not 90% like lots
of businesses do that
so yeah yeah you know I I think for for
for me and this is you know me coming
into the automotive
Market uh I'd say what we're seeing
around today's crms and the automations
or AI that it seems really parallels
what we've seen in the technology Market
time and time again and um and I'll just
use um email for a second so when we
were coming up uh email uh was something
that you could get from AOL and you
could send email to other people in
AOL uh but there was a time where you
couldn't all you all you could do is AOL
as the internet became more pervasive
you're able to send emails not only in
your own team and Company but between
companies right and that was that was a
big deal and the same sort of thing
happened in the transportation Market
with uh container transport that in the
4 and 50s we had trucks and the trucks
were just their own little truck and you
can move the truck around but you
couldn't take the top of the truck and
put it on the train and put that to the
and that couldn't get to the coast and
you couldn't put that container onto a
ship and it couldn't go across the ocean
it wasn't interoperable it every little
thing was its own little island own
little Silo own little stuff to
do and the things that I really see
which is different in the automotive
market in terms of AI and automations
and you know how is different and what's
going on is this is a much more open
Connected networking experience so so
for instance something that we're able
to do at stald and is common now in AI
but not necessarily Automotive is that
if I wanted to summarize a
conversation uh with AI and a modern
view of it I could pick any engine to do
it I could pick Google I could pick open
AI I could pick my own to do it and I
could send it to them saying please
summarize it and give it back to me and
it allows me to leverage what's
happening in those Industries without
having to do it
myself and that living in the ecosystem
of AI is something which is very unique
to
us um using AI for your own little world
is kind of the standard right now in
automotive it's not
necessarily how do I interoperate my
automotive technology with everything
else in Ai and that's really
really what we're working on
here yeah I love it um I know this
because of conversations outside of uh
the podcast that you guys um are working
on a lot of stuff some of which we'll
talk about today are you guys okay
talking about uh your the dialer so
using an AI based dialer that so yeah
I'd love to know a little bit more I
think the audience would love to know
like um what is that how does that
dialer prepare you know your your reps
your agents for calls what kind of
information does it provide you know
share a little bit of that I think the
audience would love to hear about that
oh yeah I got a lot of passion for it
we're we're in the design right now so
this is something our engineering team
is working on and we're we're we're
working hard on it and um it's it's
great so the the dialer that we have
every if you just just step back for a
second we're a BDC we make a lot of
calls inbound outbound or people sit in
front of phones and do
work uh so just imagine the case we're
making where we have an inbound call
someone's calling us and we had no
opportunity to prepare for who that
person was we don't know the phone
starts
ringing uh so what what we do at the
dialer is when the call starts or
previous to the call we take all the
conversations we've had with that
customer in the past we take the
information from the lead if if if it
was around a lead we take the
information from the dealership if
around the dealership and we basically
give it to chat GPT or or some sort of
generative Ai and we say okay we're
about to have this conversation what do
we need to know I want to know who this
person is what we promised them is there
anything happened last time are there
any specials at the store is there a are
they calling about a car that's not
there is there something I need to know
about that car all those things can be
done really almost instantaneously by a
robot if they had the
information so the first part of our
work is now we have the information can
we arrange it give it to the robot and
say I'm about to have the conversation
help me and that's the first part and
the second part up around the dialer
which is also very exciting is instead
of thinking of it in just like straids
terms like our dialer the information
that the robots give us back we can then
put in the dialer of course we can also
put it in other places in the system so
it's not very connected to the dialer we
could have had it on our mobile phone on
our slack app we can put that
information into a CRM we can put that
information someplace different and
that's a great example of us working in
the ecosystem matches for ourselves so
that IQ about what I need to know to
make a great conversation with the
customer I can then Express not only
into our own systems but our dealers
systems as
well it's just having um since Co
um you know lots have changed we've had
a lot of that we've had to adapt quite a
bit and um the dealers had to adapt
quite a bit and inventory changes and
remote work and you know all this kind
of crazy stuff that we've been exposed
to that we didn't four years ago if you
can believe that everything was going
pretty smooth and then all of a sudden
boom um our agents now have to have to
be have to have
rules um that they didn't have before I
mean prior to prior to all this it was
schedule an appointment I believe that
car is available when would you like to
drive it um and now it's like oh don't
schedule on this car because we won't
have it for eight months and all this
other kind of stuff and all that kind of
all those rules and all that information
is now being fed to our our agents when
someone calls for one of our dealers to
include things like how to pronounce the
Dealer's name all right I know that
sounds but bipy isn't easy to pronounce
no we have a dealer um that wants us to
pronounce his name differently than what
you would have you know uh
imagined so and then because people in
that market know it that way so it's
like if you don't so just all kinds of
crazy rules like no one ever thinks
about all this stuff and the reason they
don't think about it is because there's
too much to think
about AI scalability part of AI
scalability of it yeah it's amazing
exactly hey yeah if if you're from Rhode
Island and someone calls it P Tucket you
know they're not from Rhode
Island yeah that's funny the North
Northeast and the Northwest have some
fun uh City and town names right like
you know being a Northwest guy uh you
know when people are like um have you
ever been to qu KN or quinal oh quinal
yeah or peup or
hump if you ever find yourself in that
little state of rhod Island we call it
Pucket there a spit
Puck there you go audience remember if
you're
you'll be able to be a native there's a
of there's a ton of them in in
Massachusetts hav roll is H Hill Peabody
is PE you knower yeah Worchester or
Worcester like it's just you would never
he couldn't I me but it matters it
matters to the community it matters to
the relationship you know yeah I I'm in
town I'm I'm actually someone who's you
know connected to your community and
that's important that's an important
part because buying a car is a local not
only is it important but it's it's
there's so much detail to improve on
that experience for the customer and
that personalization that it's really
hard to train all that even if you have
you know people internally that uh you
know not using an outsourc BDC there's
just too much little detail that goes
you know I always used to say with the
car business like you survive in the car
business if you're a Survivor if you're
able to deal with lots and lots of
adversity and be able to handle it and
overcome it and I would say mo you know
a majority of people in the world they
get frustrated in businesses like the
car business because it's there's no
consistency there's no like simple route
to doing the job and you know you got to
learn on the Fly and all that and so AI
helps with a lot of that they're natural
entrepreneurs I which I
love yeah there's uh the car business I
mean it's a it's a pillar of uh of the
economy certainly in this country and
that puts a lot of pressure on those
Business Leaders right to constantly be
like innovating staying on the bleeding
edge and sometimes you sh more you know
just what this geek Learned was before I
came into the car business I didn't know
exactly who in this town would be the
entrepreneur now I know they're probably
running a car
store it's
wonderful stuff yeah uh so business they
got five businesses they're running
under one rooftop and or four five and
uh yeah you're right and I I had a
respect for that for a long time and
it's hard right so one of their tagline
Sean is how do we how do we uh you know
as strong here to make your life
easier right strong process solid
results baby I love that
tagline Sean Sean came up with that
tagline that's why he so I I this is a
good segue though right where we're at
is um for my next question for you guys
so what elements of customer service are
you guys seeing that are most positively
impacted by this human AI
Synergy so from again from my
perspective and I'll let you know Vinnie
fill in um I think the customer rescue I
think just the attuning yourself to the
emotion and needs and wants of the
customer are really the big things
because that that really um that really
I think makes difference in our in our
in our rates our closing rates our our
ability to to help people get what they
need um is the fact that we can we're
now really attuned to their anxieties to
their anger to their excitement to their
um you know we we see it all and just
just seeing people as emotional people
people instead of just people I think is
a huge thing you get in sync with them
substantially faster than before you
don't trust people who feel differently
than you I mean it's just a fundamental
of the world if if so if you're really
happy you're really angry and the person
next to you is really happy you're like
what's wrong with you what right I'm
really afraid but you're not what's
going on we like we're very much in tune
with people who understand and share our
emotions yeah yeah I would add to that
so it's 100% true I my whole career has
been been built around since the dawn of
the internet how do we bridge the gap
between the customer online and at home
to the dealer in a in a in a way in in a
required process right so strong process
solid results and and so we pull that
off and and we we are working hard to
improve and enhance the customer
experience but we're also able now to
provide the dealer with a lot of
insights into what's actually happening
in their business that they don't
know they can't listen to every single
phone call or they're relying on one
person so if we're just showing them
just upset customers and let me say Let
me let me just use an example like the
same problem keeps coming up five six
seven eight times in a row that maybe
they wouldn't have seen without having a
sentiment Channel or you know we're
doing inventory analysis with this based
on the demand on the calls and leads we
get how many calls and leads are coming
in for specific Vehicles you know back
in 2008 uh when we had the crash and and
gas prices went to $5 a gallon I used to
tell third party leads providers don't
give me any Prius leads I don't need
them but you know dealer will look at oh
I got 500 leads how come we only
scheduled 100 appointments well 150 of
them were for Prius and you don't have
any as an example and so that data is in
there to be able to tell our dealers hey
we we want to help consult with you too
um not just be you know that you
customer facing company that helps you
with the customer experience we also
want to share data with you to help you
run your business because we know you
Thomas just said it they're
entrepreneurs their job is hard we're
trying to provide them with a level of
support that they can go wow this
company is really really helping me run
my operation and that's what I've always
tried to do and and it was hard to do
without the with the limited technology
when I worked for that big dealer group
used to work for because they wouldn't
invest in technology but I knew the data
was always there so when Thomas and I
had that conversation when we came it
was yes all that information is in the
conversation to not only help the dealer
but to help the customer 100% yeah yeah
have you guys come across challenges as
you've been encountering this well
really embarking on this integration of
AI and the human uh side of things uh
are there challenges that have come up
are you you working through any of them
anything that you could share
there yeah yeah I could I well so so I
I'm proud of stald I'm proud of I'm
proud of how we do business I'm proud of
our customers um and I'm proud of my
engineering department we're you know
we're we're we're we're we're doing a
great job um and but the biggest
challenge that we had to surmount I
think might be hidden from a lot and but
it's what I'm most proud of so
the what we're working on and as I said
at the beginning I'm a network
researcher part of my research is on how
we take human conversations and give
them to AI which is inherently a
dangerous process it's inherently
dangerous and there's all kinds of of uh
concern and rightly so of the
interaction between Ai and people are
they gonna robots going to take over Etc
um and so that particular challenge has
been the thing that we worked on the
hardest at strolid um and so one of the
things you may or may not know about as
strolid is we are the authors um of a
upcoming internet standard if you've
heard of rfc's those are the things that
determine how the internet works uh and
if you've ever used email or the web or
a domain name all those things are our
our internet standards and the internet
standard that we've developed was to
protect
and control the information that you
give to Ai and so the biggest challenge
that we've addressed is how do we in a
compliant legally compliant way take
these customer
conversations and then analyze them in a
way in which is safe and um again
compliant to the local laws and so that
is what we've worked on the hardest and
that name of the standard is called the
beon it stands for virtual conversation
and IT addresses things like deep fakes
IT addresses things like customer
privacy and data minimization and
redaction all of those all of those uh
things are the things that we had to
surmount at stolid so that we could use
AI in a way in which was ethical and uh
safe yeah and I wouldn't you know for
the dealers that are listening I would
say uh listening to this podcast I would
say that that that sounds
really um you know geeky and high-
techish and maybe I I try to simplify
because Thomas has been talking to me
about this for three years and um it
took me a little while to really
understand the importance of data
security and now we're seeing it in
automotive but the gdpr in Europe is um
if if if a customer over in Europe calls
and says I want you to destroy all my
data that the company has to and
unfortunately your data isn't just
sitting in one place anymore so vcon
gives it the option to have it in one
place so it's easy to find and and get
rid of um that's just one big big thing
that's bigger and probably different
verticals than it is in automotive at
the moment but automotive dealers I
think are very sensitive to to all this
new privacy stuff so I just want I
wanted to point that out the reason we
came up with this is because we we have
a patent on another product that we came
up with first and then Thomas realized
that won't work unless there's a
standard the standard for conversational
data so he
toed you know helped fund it and support
Thomas throughout all of it going to all
these meetings in Europe and S Francisco
and P and Philly and all that and now
it's going to become a standard which I
know kind of sounds crazy coming from
our little company but it's pretty
exciting um and that stand that vcon
became okay now we need a place to store
it so Thomas uh in in the and our
unbelievable engineering team created
the conserver to store it and now we
have all the dat in one place then we
had to get the API Integrations with all
the crms we got that in place we have
the phone system connected into it and
now we're able to pump that into
transcription model um uh software and
sentiment software and then get all this
data to come out into channels now we
have all the data in one place and
that's really the key to ever to
reporting right anyone who runs a report
and says this report doesn't look right
it's because it's bad data but you know
what this hit me like a year and a half
ago Sean our data isn't bad it's real
it's what happened you can't mess with
it that's right you can't say it didn't
you don't we're not relying on a person
to type it
in right now eventually hopefully we'll
be able to get to the point where we
don't need a person to actually press a
button and click and wait for a task to
come it'll tell us when to call the
customer yeah based on the conversation
which is really really I know I'm going
far out there but you have to have all
the data in one place first and then
then then it's going to be I think
pretty game-changing and amazing what
this is going to do for our
business okay so you guys just I mean
you littered the soil with amazing seeds
here so I want to I want to dig in a
little bit with this because uh audience
wise um this vcon um this is huge now I
get this because I've been in this
industry and I've been on the technical
side the internet side of it for a long
time the Graham leech blyly the I mean
ringless voicemail was so cool but it
also had infringement upon things
dealers paid big fines I mean I won't
name dealer groups but all of us would
probably have recall of some dealers
that have paid huge fines because of
things that were not handled properly
there was no internet standard for them
so I know for some uh on the retail side
it's like H this is kind of tech
technical geeky but this is technical
geeky on your behalf to take
complex uh regulation uh complex rules
the way that you have to handle
information and making it easier
simplifying it for you in a way that's
embedded in what I believe is probably
one of the most important parts of the
dealer business and that is how you're
communicating with the customers by way
of sentiment of course important uh
collecting having immediate on demand
call of that but now what you're talking
about internet standards this is huge
for you guys this really really big and
no one's talking about this kind of
thing so I want to unpack that a little
bit and probably even Force you guys to
be a bit
redundant because I I think in an
episode like this I have I can already
tell you I'm gonna want to have you guys
talk about this on upcoming episodes so
we can unpack more but during this
episode I just want to go back again and
have you guys kind of help us understand
help the audience understand and and
vcon Technology as an internet standard
this virtual
conversation um this is and is going to
play a big role right in how you guys uh
enhance the way that customers are
communicating just take me through that
again on just how do you guys see it
playing that role uh relative to that
customer communication
piece well Vinnie Vinnie
the thought I had Sean when you were
asking that question I'm sorry I was on
mute was this
um we started our customer life cycle
Thomas loved it because it was all the
conversations not just the BDC
conversations yep and I loved it because
that's what a BDC was supposed to be in
the first place is communicating and
driving business into the dealership
whether it be from fresh leads or or or
or past customers and re-engaging at the
right times and all that kind of stuff
but it all start I used to say it all
starts with a lead it really all starts
with your marketing or your past
experience with the customer that cycle
where do you where do you enter and exit
that cycle is really really an
interesting thought right we could
discuss that a long time but let's just
say it starts with a
lead that lead Now isn't just a walk-in
customer like it was 30 years ago or a
phone up uh they're sending in lead
forms they're chatting they're texting
um and we're able to capture all that
information now on a
vcon so most people know that a customer
sends in a lead we call it we text it we
email it maybe they text us back we have
a couple text conversations they say you
know what can you can we talk and then
we get on the phone and we talk all that
is really really
important information leading up to the
sale and I'm I'm like inherently a sales
guy you know my dad's a great
salesperson I I think I some of it
rubbed off he's much better than I am
but to me I always wanted to know all
that information I used to have a saying
like 20 years ago I wish a customer
would walk into the showroom and give me
a manual and say this is how you sell me
car yeah but back then you had to like
kind of figure it all out and understand
the customer and ask questions and
listen and all that and before you could
kind of put it all together and all that
information that you're Gathering
throughout that whole process is C
critical to actually giving the customer
The Experience they deserve and need and
you can't do that if the BDC is handling
it and the customer comes in no one's
looking at that information and so
that's where the strong process comes in
but it starts with a lead is is really
so what's in that lead is is hopefully
conversation there's a lot of leads by
the way that we have no conversations
with that dealers should know about yeah
that we try and call we try and call we
try to email we try to text for the ones
we do have conversations on I think
every dealer should be paying attention
to
those would I be over oversimplifying to
say that the vcon is going to be a like
connector uh between the actions of the
humans and the ability for AI to analyze
and that's exactly it no okay in fact
let me just give you another way of
thinking about vcon and maybe something
that you already do today so um today
you know what a word file is we all use
them right um and so Word file allows
you to um you know create a document
save it bring it back and send it right
so allows you to that wasn't always true
by the way uh the first word processors
were big machines made by Wang
Corporation and they were like this B
stive to to lawyer companies and you
didn't once you wrote your legal brief
you didn't send it anywhere and that's
what Microsoft Word did was Ena that so
the vcon is often called a PDF for
conversation it's a file format here is
my conversation I can use it and that
enables that exact sharing um and so for
instance um I can take a conversation
and give it to a chatbot and say please
write me a thank you letter based on
this
conversation uh and that that
interaction allows us to uh leverage the
AI ecosystem in a way in which doesn't
depend upon anyone else to do that so
just just imagine how much getting back
to the word thing for a second uh when
Google Docs made their system they
didn't have to spend any time trying to
figure out how people should put their
own documents in it just upload your
word document it was already there you
know in the same way you know the vcon
it will enable a company to say I can do
a marketing segmentation of your
customers just give me your
conversations and I've eliminated focus
groups I've eliminated all that expense
simply by taking all your k ation and
say I can now tell you what your
customers are and what they care about
because I have the conversations and
it's the vcon that allows me to take
that and give it to a company that has
that functionality without having to do
it
myself yeah that's very very powerful um
okay I got another question because you
guys mentioned um few minutes back a uh
conserver I'd never heard of a conserver
so um tell tell the audience a little
bit about the conserver that how that's
Works in conjunction with the VC contct
yeah yeah so the so the the um the
conserver is a it's an application it's
a framework it's a lot like a database
for
conversations and so just like you have
database for all the other data in your
life a conserver is a database for the
conversations you had and you might ask
okay why do you need a different kind of
database won't my database work and the
answer for that is um human
conversations are a special form of data
they they tend to be very difficult to
work with they can be very large they're
saved in analog form that digital form
um and so to act to be able to work with
video and audio requires a different
level of Technology than working with
just text uh so that's one of the
reasons why it has to be a separate
thing um and so the conserver job is
simply to attach to all of our phone
systems all of our email systems and
then to create Vons from it every time a
conversation happens and then we take
those conversations and then we either
redact them manage them tag them
summarize them transcribe them and then
finally the last step is we put them
into existing data sources so we can use
them with our existing tools so like we
don't all the things that we use to
manage our conversations aren't
specialized pieces of software they're
normal pieces of software so when I we
want to bring a conversation to one of
our agents we use
slack slack had nothing to do with the
conversation but it's it's there we can
use we can leverage slack without having
to call slack up and say hey support
Vons they don't have to do that they
already did
it yeah interesting um you know Thomas
mentioned to me a couple years ago that
we were going to um our agents he
envisioned that our agents would just
work on a
slack and I'm thinking well we got to be
in the crms and I how he's going to do
that but I get excited I've always
gotten excited at new ideas that push
the limits to what I think is
possible um and I hate being around
people who tell me things aren't
possible you know that's one of the
great things about my relationship with
Thomas is he's he tells me things are
possible and I'm like yes let's go
figure it out you know because um one of
the challenges where our businesses you
know there's a lot of bdcs out there
that work outside of the dealer CR and
I'm thinking well I was a GM of a store
before I wouldn't want that I want it in
front of me where I can see it um and so
we're now integrated with all these crms
and slack gives our people the ability
eventually that when that follow-up call
needs to be done it can go right to
their slack
Channel and then feed right into the CRM
and they can work out of one interface
instead of others and slack is a great
communication Channel we have it on on
our service side for all our service
dealers we have we still have our our
sales we don't have our sales dealers
dealers on it yet but we have sentiment
channels built in there we have all
kinds of great Communications coming in
and it's all organized and I mean I have
too many slack channels but I'm you know
obviously I maybe I think there's a lot
I don't need to be in yeah maybe you
should give it to your Bot and tell you
yeah you need
scalability we also have um a to Channel
that I I forgot to mention we have a
reply channel so it's a to channel and a
reply Channel a to channel is when a
customer gets to the point where we
can't answer their questions and we send
it over to the
dealer uh that we can examine all of
those because those are really hot
customers in my opinion they want to buy
something they want more info then we
have the reply Channel which is back and
forth communication via email and text
that's all being fed into the conserver
OR into the vcon which goes to the
conserver which goes to slock which goes
to a little trivia conserver is the
French verb to keep
I thought it just meant conversational
server Thomas it it does mean that too
but you
know Vinnie you just mentioned something
I think is really critical and really
important is you know I think for
dealers who are trying to figure out hey
you know is asid right is that a right
service for us um I think a big point of
concern I know because I've talked to
dealers about this where well how could
I trust that there'd be a Communication
channel to where when they really need
us right they get nervous that well can
we really uh Outsource this part of the
business and you just I don't want again
I don't want to bury really important
leads you you uh not only have a uh
process for that you have now and are
building and expanding upon technology
to ensure that that isn't a point of
concern for a dealer like because for
years that would be a point of concern
for a dealer I don't know if I can do
that and what you're basically saying is
we already have solved that and we
continue to evolve making that a point
where we don't ever want the dealer to
worry about do we have a way to to be in
contact with you immediately because we
you you're the only one that's going to
be able to answer question people will
really understand what you're saying the
car car people really understand what
you're saying and and and it's why we
built what we built I'll be I'll be
lying to you if I told you every single
one of our dealers responds back to us
quickly but the ones that kick butt they
they like got it here's the info quick
back you know and we're getting back to
the customer rapidly and it's like a
great exchange and it's Josh and Josh's
team's job to make sure because I'm a
hawk on the to channel I I go in there
all the time and if there's stuff
sitting for an hour or two that we sent
to the dealer and they I'm like pick up
the phone and call them that customers
waiting you know what I mean yeah like
that's all that's all really important
parts of the technology that you're
right we built that without the uh vcon
conserver in mind but it's now going to
take that to to the next level that's
because in reality at the dealer level
if if you've communicated and you need
us and it's like urgent right it's the
bat phone it's the you know it's it's
the Urgent Communication channel and the
dealership one wanted that that was a
point of concern and so that's being
fulfilled but they're the ones on their
side what dealer well dealer principal
or what general manager who that was a
point of concern brings you in and then
they're not doing their side they're
going to crack the whip and fix that
process on their side really quick
because they want to they wouldn't even
have the visibility that maybe their
side might be broken or not
imperfect yeah yeah and that's why I
want to jump in on um because you know
what we've also come to understand is by
looking at all these conversations and
reading them and understanding them oh
my God there's so much more that that
you're not seeing in your business
there's just so much to see that you
never had a chance to see and I would
suspect that there would be a time where
dealers would say I just can't afford
not to see that and just as much as
they're afraid to not be able to get in
communication with us I'm telling you
here's a lot of communication that you
guys are missing it is in insane and I
think at some point given the the the
sensitivity of the data because this you
know the car conversations are really
you
know and given the amount of insight and
visibility and observ ability gives to
your business you you just are going to
have to be driven into two things one is
that you're either going to listen to
your customers and pay
attention or you're
not yeah and everyone's gonna know which
one you are right really
obvious information overload locks
people up locks businesses up locks
business uh leaders up where they're all
of a sudden paralyzed and decisions
aren't being made and they don't know
what to do because there's too much
information
you guys are basically it's not to much
information Sean it's the trust of the
information and that's why I like the
what we're doing is it's real
information it's what actually happened
on the conversation it's not made up
it's not something well the
conversations and all the
communication creates so much
information right and you guys are
literally making the next thing I wanted
to ask about is because I'm I'm guessing
that transcription around all of this
conversational data is part of what
you're doing and I'm guessing that can
be in multiple formats this you got
essentially you can boil it down to this
is this as things get more complex this
very vital part of a dealer's business
you guys are simplifying you are uh
making it secure you are building things
that uh will also protect them with all
the sensitivity of this type of
information I mean these are huge things
but tell me a little bit about what is
going on around the transcription of all
that different formats relative to kind
of Vons let me just touch on the trust
of the data really quick though because
um I've been around CRM a long time and
pay plans are poison and some managers
and general Sal sales managers manage to
a kpi and their people know
it so their people fight to get there
and sometimes cheat to get there I hate
to say
it logging phone UPS is a problem in car
dealerships 20% of car car car
dealerships log phone UPS we probably
log 90% but we're not perfect some
people just won't give you their
information on a phone call to log it
but the vcon logs
it right it happened whether you want to
say it or not the lead came in it
happened the email went out or it didn't
go out the email came in or it didn't
come in and that's what I love about it
because that I can trust it now and I
can make real decisions not gut
decisions nothing frustrates me more
when when one of my managers or
directors or VPS even say to me I
believe I think I feel I'm like guys we
have all this data you don't need to
think anymore you don't need to believe
you need to feel like it those those
never turn out right when you're feeling
or thinking or believing in what you
think is going to happen like digital
real retailing everyone thought it was
going to change the game and everyone
was going to buy cars online it they
didn't
and I know that there were dealer groups
out there that are fudging those numbers
for Wall Street for example and saying
TW you know 15 to 30% of our cars are
being bought digitally not happening
it's not corporations don't fudge
numbers for Wall Street do they I'm not
putting throwing anyone under the bus
I'm just saying that the reality of it
is you really want to know what's
happening or do you want to pretend
what's
happening we've always been real about
what we D we can't possibly fake numbers
we get
caught man our business is junk you know
our reputation is shot and sometimes
we're up against Bad numbers we're going
to a dealer that they got these great
numbers and we come in and we show them
real numbers and they're like oh my old
guys were doing it better it's like oh
really maybe they
W and to jump in on the transcription
stuff um because I think that's a really
important point and I touched on it
before I want to say it again the thing
that that I think is really interesting
about the approach that we're taking is
as an open thing in an open network and
the it it makes a difference here when
we program the conserver to make Vons we
can choose which transcription engine we
use it's part of what we're able to do
with the vcom we can say we like to use
open AIS we like to use deep grams or
you can choose which engine you want and
that's actually on every single kind of
functionality I could choose that guy's
sentiment engine I can use that guy's um
text to speech engine I can use that
guy's transcription and the ability to
um pick and choose the functionality
that you apply to a
vcon um then makes you um makes that
vcon way more valuable so instead of
just living in our system and living in
staled once the vcon is created you can
give it to any Ai and have it do stuff
and stuff we haven't thought of yet
please make me a
video of this
conversation and um it's something that
could be done yeah and then make it as a
training video yeah that's kind where my
head gets all messed up with all this
there's so many ideas like what do you
do first that's why I'm not afraid of it
I don't think it's going to take jobs
because someone has to give it the ideas
and someone has to feed it the ideas and
someone has to
you know deal with the ups and downs
whether it worked or not and all that
kind of stuff so yeah our yeah our our
real Innovation at stalard wasn't in
making new robots but feeding robots the
right kind of
food and the food was the conversations
that we generate that is really at the
end of the day the thing that we did
that was kind of unique in the world
like we decided that that was really
great food for the robots and we found a
way of doing it yeah we're kind of glad
we didn't build robots because now
they're becoming cheap and free um I
mean CH PPT recently just came out with
you can build your own virtual like
receptionist to answer a phone call for
you and make appointments and all this
other stuff or chat Bots and stuff like
that and there are companies out there
that have a lot of money riding in their
robot and it's like okay you're going to
compete with these big giant companies
good luck with that and I wouldn't I'm
not putting them down I know it's
probably hard work and they do do really
good work but like we decided you it's
it's like the CRM Sean we're not going
to build the CRM it it's a lot of work
to build the CRM we can just plug into
them and like right and there locked in
any of them not just one of them so
that's kind of our approach yeah we were
lucky like it worked out like we worked
on this for two years we like oh the
robots are coming and then when the
robots came yeah they came whoa chat GPT
was a mind-blowing experience like I
knew CH was
that quick yeah Thomas was talking about
robot food for two years and I'm like I
don't I just don't get it and then all
of a sudden chat GPT came out like oh
yeah I'm surprised we got this far on
the episode and we are just uh talking
about chat GPT which everyone's talking
about chat GPT like crazy my guess is
and just in the interest of time is um
because I know you guys are uh
integrating um with you know you're not
using like a free version right you guys
are actually integrated in kind of that
that partner level with GPT for analysis
so you know the the vcon data right is
something that when you guys um
integrate with a chat GPT the analysis
there is going to take you guys to this
what we've been talking about like the
depth of what's happening in the
interaction with the customer and
extracting all the really the most
valuable insights prioritized to bring
efficiency also remembering that these
humans are keeping it empathetic um on
behalf of the dealership right which is
huge um um I don't know if because you
guys are the experts here if you guys
want to share a little bit around you
know in the integration of that you know
the conversational data um you know
maybe even some of the feedback on the
analysis of kind of what you're doing um
there are kind of takeaways
there may want to save that for another
episode Sean it goes deeper okay we've
been already going for an hour and 15
minutes but I think that's a great segue
because
that's what we're really trying to get
our head around right now right Thomas
is like we got all the data here like
how do we present this two ways to our
agents and to our dealers but not
overload them with another dashboard or
more things to do just really important
information and re you know Thomas also
taught me about the difference between
stagnant and real time uh dashboards and
stagnant dashboards we don't need any
more of them what's happening right now
that I can
see that's what we're going after so
exactly right so let's do this let's uh
let's land this episode let's just find
it's a good parking spot we're right up
front close to the building so I say we
do that because we can come back I
really want to dig in with you guys
again on the next episode um because
there's more to talk about around uh a
continuous feedback loop I'm sure you
guys are thinking about the training
aspect this obviously let's unpack
around conversational data I think that
will be really beneficial for dealers
but you guys are going to continue down
that road of standardization and how you
future proof the dealership and I think
robot food um as you guys end uh this
year and start into 2024 I think that
will become something that people are
also talking about and understanding the
context AI is a huge topic the audience
knows this everyone's either maybe a
little scared of it or intim idated and
you know dealers um you know history
sometimes repeats itself and maybe it
doesn't have to in this case where maybe
you were a late adopter to All Things
internet you didn't quite understand how
some of this digital transformation
affected your advertising and marketing
strategies and then ultimately that's
had a huge impact on your process which
is exactly where stald you know uh
that's that's the world you guys live in
that's the ocean that you guys are Thom
Thomas has told me recently
um you don't necessarily want to be the
first first Netscape or
AOL and I agree with that because
there's a lot of more learning to do you
know so the dealers out there that I
mean that are getting worried about AI
this is just going to continue to evolve
and get better yeah that's a good
reminder Google not the first search
engine Facebook not the first social
network yeah you guys are you guys
jumping on MySpace later today well you
know
what yeah Al the Vista is down
um
yeah was
Leos yeah and just for my my for my
final words uh Vin's quite completely
right and you know being a
Communications engineer I was in the
market before the internet and we built
the internet so what we do for a living
and one of the things that I remember
definitely saying to a friend of mine is
my mom does not want to be on the
internet why does she ever want to do
that and it was 93 right there was no
web there was we hadn't gotten there yet
and so this is a very long Market but
just like you said Sean um history
doesn't repeat itself but it does
rhyme and there's there's a lot there's
a lot to to to be done here a lot of
opportunities a lot of new world a lot
of Blue Water yeah for sure yeah any any
final thoughts uh before we shut it down
no I agree with Thomas I think um you
know
I'm totally um excited exed about the
future instead of worried about it I
think it's just a matter of I I enjoy
the stimulation of change and new things
and finding new ways to compete get
better and things like that and
so this is right up my alley I know
Thomas is excited about our whole team's
excited about it our whole team now
finally understands it um because when
Thomas was ripping the phone system out
of the out of the place and putting a
new one in they they weren't too happy
with them they weren't happy
no well I think we've we've Uncorked a
uh a great new series of uh
conversations for the podcast and I'm
really glad uh for that I think it's
really really helpful for dealers to
have uh companies like yours that are
actually putting this information out
dispelling rumors but also your
Solutions right you're not just like
well what's the problem you guys are uh
actively uh working on but utilizing
Solutions and you have a plan and I I
love that I think it's extremely helpful
and I love your attitude and disposition
about the whole thing so I will say this
we've found the perfect place to park
the episode so we'll park it here
regarding this episode and all
information that you see from our
episodes if you like it you love it or
none of the above we'd still love to
hear from you the dealer insights
podcast gets better with your comments
questions feedback recommendations yes
the ones that come from you so if it's
this episode or any others feel free to
drop in the comments section if you're
watching on YouTube uh you can also send
information Direct to
info std.com and that's spelled St r l
dd.com until next G time stay strong and
solid all right guys thanks again thanks
Sean thanks
Sean
he
yeah