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Host Michael Donovan welcomes Strolid Founder and CEO Vin Micciche to dissect actionable strategies for dealerships to thrive in an evolving automotive landscape. Vin emphasizes human-centric AI adoption, arguing that tools like conversational analysis and CRM automation should enhance and replace staff capabilities. He critiques over-reliance on IVR systems and “hype-driven” AI solutions. He advocates for systems prioritizing rapid response times, conversational data insights (via Strolid’s vCon standard), and accountability across sales/service workflows.
The episode highlights how dealers can leverage AI to identify hidden revenue opportunities, such as analyzing call transcripts for geographic demand shifts or stalled inventory mentions. Vin shares metrics showing dealers using Strolid’s AI-powered search tools recover 80+ missed sales monthly by acting on real-time conversational signals. He also stresses the irreplaceable value of human intuition in resolving complex negotiations and building customer trust, noting that “AI’s greatest strength isn’t replacing people’s giving them superhuman memory to spot patterns in chaos.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to AI in Dealerships
02:02 Understanding AI: Hype vs. Reality
05:05 Conversational AI: Capabilities and Limitations
09:58 The Human Element in Sales
14:56 Data-Driven Insights from Conversations
19:57 The Role of Technology in Customer Interaction
25:05 Future of AI in Dealerships
29:50 Conclusion: Balancing AI and Human Interaction
33:55 The Role of AI in Customer Engagement
39:43 Customer Experience: The Golden Rule
44:52 AI as a Co-Pilot, Not a Crutch
51:46 Data-Driven Decision Making in Automotive
57:51 Building Relationships in the Automotive Industry
Creators and Guests
Host
What is Dealer Insights Podcast?
Interviews with Strolid CEO and Founder Vin Micciche, BDC industry icon and veteran
The road ahead has never been more
clear. Success belongs to those who take
the lead. Welcome to Dealer Insights,
the podcast that puts you in the
driver's seat of growth. Hosted by Vin
Machichi, industry leader with over 30
years in
automotive. This is where experience
meets innovation. From cutting edge
technology to gamechanging strategies,
we go beyond the surface to bring you
the insights that matters, real
conversations to help you navigate the
everanging automotive landscape. Buckle
up. Your next competitive advantage
starts
now. Welcome back to Dealer Insights,
Vin. It's great to see you, man. Yeah,
great to see you, too, Mike. Michael,
how was the trip?
That was fantastic. Yeah. Well, you look
like you got a little color, man.
Welcome back to the grind.
Welcome back to the grind. We've been
busy. Yeah, we sure have.
Good busy. Well, it's a good busy and
and uh AI the output the
efficiencies that we're able to gain and
increase our output uh from marketing
is it's very
helpful. It's like having a
superpower. Feel like a little kid with
a cape right now.
Anyway, keeping the conversation going.
I it's a very important conversation
what AI is and what it isn't. I think we
need to start peeling those layers back.
We need to take a deeper dive especially
into conversational AI. Mhm. So I have a
question for you Vin. Okay. How how
would you distinguish between the
marketing hype around AI and what's
actually possible for dealerships today?
Yeah.
So my take on marketing is always been
um you know to it's an emotion. Selling
is emotion. Marketing is emotion.
So obviously a lot of companies are
using the term AI
um to peique interest uh from dealers
and you know it's it's it's all over
right everyone's talking about it um but
my take on AI is that it's
new it's a tool
um and there's a difference between
uh autom you know
automations and
uh actual generative
AI you know generative AI
um is really around learning from the
data not just setting up an automation
to you know if you do this to say that
and that's really more of
a a a new gen automation than it is
actual generative AI. So if you think of
generative AI, it it's it's really an
LLM which stands for LA large language
model. So it's really learning from from
data and and language. Um
uh so at the moment if you haven't used
Chat GPT or Bard or you know Genesis or
uh Claude or any of these gener new new
generative AI tools I would highly
suggest you do um because it it will
blow your mind. I I I think in the last
podcast we talked about how um I use it
more than Google now to answer questions
for me and to do research. Um so
basically it's it's ingesting a lot of
data that it can
find. Uh and it's um basically giving
you answers quickly. Uh so large
language model, it's a software that
learns patterns and predicts actions and
helps humans make better decisions
faster just like you mentioned on the
marketing side. But there's one branch
of AI that I wanted to really zero in on
which is conversational AI and why I
feel like what we're doing here at Straw
is really a gamecher.
So when we talk about conversational AI
specifically Mhm. from the
capabilities, you and I have a probably
a better understanding of of what those
capabilities are. If you could just give
the audience an overview and kind of get
them up to speed. Yeah. So, at Strawid
um for years obviously I've been in
sales and automotive for 30 years and uh
we work in the messiness of real
conversations, right? And that's why um
you know, we'll probably get to this,
but anyone who tells you they have it
figured out right now is probably just
embellishing a bit uh because there's so
much uh that it doesn't understand and
can't do, right? Uh so we work in the
messiness of conversations like phone
calls, texts, emails, chats and uh what
we've learned is that conversations are
full of uh insights and signals
that we knew they were always there, but
who had the time to like listen to it
all, right?
So not just in what customers say, but
how they say it, when they say it, and
what do they
say? That's really
What intrigues me as a uh you know I
play golf and the reason I like it is
because I can't master it and something
sick inside my head makes me want to
keep doing it. Uh knowing that I'll
never master
it. I'm going to tell dealers this. Um
you're never going to master sales and
AI has no chance to master sales in my
opinion. And I know that's a I could be
proven wrong and I'll be happy to admit
it in 5 years. Uh but it'll be pretty
scary place if uh you can talk to a
robot and build rapport and feel like
you're you
know you're uh being treated properly
and everything uh without any type of
human interaction
um through a sales process.
Now, there are low-level kind of AI
programs that can replace humans, and
we've had them for years already. So,
um, you know, conversational AI is about
turning those human conversations into
structured data or metadata as um, some
call
it that. So, think
of what I said about generative AI. It's
pulling all this information in from
various, you know, books and magazines
and internet obviously and websites and
just tons and tons of information that
it's pulling when you ask a question and
it's trying to give you the right answer
back. Uh the challenge with that is that
um the information that's out on the
internet is typically someone's expert
opinion.
Um and it can be bias
um where conversations we're basically
taking every word in a conversation and
we're turning it we're transcribing it
and turning it into data and then
feeding it to generative AI tools to
learn from the
conversations. So with that type of
information being fed into AI, could it
speed up the ability to talk to a human
better in the future? Yes. But is it
happening right now? No.
Um, it can do things transactionally
really well, but those never required a
lot of skill anyway. I mean, to schedule
an appointment when someone wants to
come in at 1:00 p.m. is really a
transactional type of conversation.
When you've listened to all the
conversations and all the interactions
that Strollet has over the years when it
comes to buying a car, you'll quickly
understand if you listen to lots of
calls that no two humans are the same.
They don't react the same. They have
different emotions. They have different
reasons for calling. By the way, re
customer fills out a lead form and
submits it or calls. Um, most of the
time, and we could talk about this on a
marketing podcast maybe, um, depending
on the stage that they're in,
um, determines how, uh, urgent they are,
right? But when they call, the the only
better lead than a phone call is a
walk-in
customer because they're showing a a
sense of urgency by walking in. They're
also s they need some type of
information or they wouldn't call. If
they call, then it's probably a little
bit more complex than just scheduling an
appointment.
But there Yeah, the the walk-in customer
is it's interesting that you bring that
up. And as I'm listening,
it's it's making me think back to my
time in retail. Now, I didn't spend a
decade in
retail, but I had I I had a decent
amount of
experience and uh was successful, right?
I was ranked 37th in the nation for Kia
um when I sold Kia. Wow. Least Yeah,
we're in a high lease pen market. uh
it's over 70% lease penetration and I
had mastered the art of of uh selling
the lease, right? So I was doing a lot
of uh used car ups. I would do the
switch, right? Put them in a new car
lease and send them on their way. Spot
delivery out of here.
So anyway, um you know, when you up a
customer after a few
minutes, you kind of get this sense that
there's likelihood, it's either highly
likely or not that you're going to you
have a deal, right? Like a really strong
deal. So just just to stop you real
quick, that is called intuition,
right? And and and intuition comes from
experience.
Um and that's what AI, it's going to
take a long time for it to understand
that. If it ever does, I don't know. I
mean, who knows? But that type of um you
know, they they call it sales experience
for a reason.
Um and people struggle in sales for that
reason is because if you don't have the
experience and you haven't had those
conversations or those types of
conversations I mean you know the
challenge is people have very unique
questions and some have a sense of
urgency as I mentioned others
um they or otherwise they wouldn't call.
So you put them in the IVR loop. For
example, I I I always talk about IVRs.
We've
had I mean some of these companies out
there pitching AI, like I said, it's
it's kind of a a new gen automation more
than an AI
um more than generative AI. Um so if we
talk about IVRs just for a quick second,
those that's when you call a dealer and
it says press one for sales, press two
for service. It's trying to sort the
customer to the right place. Right.
Right. If you've ever run a BDC, you'll
know that customers struggle with
IVRs. Why? Because someone's not picking
the phone up in sales. Oh, well then a
robot can do that. Okay. Well, listen to
the
calls. They're not calling because they
can because, you know, they have a
simple question.
They're calling because they're trying
to they have a problem that they're
trying to or they have a you know they
want to make sure that you have what
they want or that it's in stock or that
you can you
know get them financed or they have a
trade and all those conversations. If
you broke down each one of those those
each one like just a trade
call you can't even count the number of
different types of trade calls that
there are.
you know, one's a a black one, one's a
blue one, one got a lot of miles, one's
got a little bit of miles. So, like,
it's a lot of information that a a human
can't answer it either, but they can,
you know, at least let the customer know
that they'll do their best to help them
when they arrive and all this other
stuff and all the things that we train
our salespeople on how to overcome. And
can AI do that? Potentially, it's just
not there. I not from what I've seen and
I don't know if it ever will get there.
And why would a dealer want to take the
number one lead
source and hand it off to this brand new
technology
that I think it it maybe looks good on
paper, but you know what Strallet has
done is put the measures in place to
capture the data of those humanto human
conversations.
Yeah, that's where the insight is. I
think the danger right now is that a lot
of these vendors are pitching
um their AI like it's going to replace
their team the team at the
dealership. Uh they they position it
like it's a plug-andplay robot
salesperson. And um we just haven't seen
it. I mean, we've played around with a
lot of it. We see all of it, which is
great. Um, but what's really different
about the way we're approaching it,
um, is that I I mentioned generative AI
is looking to the internet and looking
for data anywhere that it can find it
and then trying to ingest all that data
and then that the ma magic behind AI is
it can ingest a ton of data really fast
and spit out an answer. But that answer
is not always right.
You know, here here's an interesting
thought I just had, but when I train
sales people, I know this may sound a
little, you know, salesish or slippery
or whatever you want to call it, but we
don't treat train sales people to say
yes, and we don't trans uh train sales
people to say no. That's not our job. A
salesperson's job isn't to say yes or
no. The the only time you say yes or no
is when you're negotiating a deal.
Not when you're building
rapport. I don't know if that makes
sense, but that that's the human
intuition that needs to have you need to
have in order to be successful at
selling. Can you give me an example of
that?
Yeah. Like I want to I want to buy a
$20,000 car for
$10,000. Most sales people would be
like, "No, you can't do that." like bad
ones. And what's an AI going to do?
It It seems like the AI at this point
needs
that. It's going to tell of the
customer. No, is my guess. Oh, I can't
do that, but I have this other car
that's nothing like the one you want. I
don't know if it would even Yeah. Yeah,
I could see something like that. The
Wolf of Wall Street, of course. Sell me
this pen. and they automatically just go
right into the explanation of how great
the pen is and all that, right? And his
his point of that was, "How do I know
you want the pen?"
Right? How do I know you need a pen?
How do I know this pen fits your needs?
You have to have a
conversation. And what's special about
Straw right now is we're now turning
conversations into data. So now think
about it. It's not just the stuff that's
already been some expert opinion out
there on the internet and it's real.
It's a real conversation. It's really
what's
happening. And that's like so big that
it's hard for people to understand what
I'm
saying. And so we talk about my dad
listening to lots of phone calls and how
we came up with the idea
um to create the VCONS in the conserver.
It was because I knew he had insights
that no one else had because he was
listening to
conversations. Now, if we can feed
conversations into a large language
model, now we can see them at at scale
and speed and faster and and really hone
in on on things that we were just not
humanly possible before. But that's the
robot's job. our job is to actually
train our people and train you know the
model and you know maybe come up with
some efficiencies and things like that
and we're just playing around with it.
Uh we have lots and lots of ideas and in
in our road map ideas of things we want
to um test out and and try out but the
last thing I want to do is test out a
robot on my dealer's customers and it
fails um or hallucinates or gives the
wrong information. I'm not ready for
that yet. Um, and I don't know how these
dealers aren't worried about that. You
know, I think one of the reasons we did
this podcast was because I am trying to
help dealers understand what AI actually
is and where it is right now, not so
much to sell um, our AI. We're we're
looking at it um, from a perspective of
how do we get insightful data
information out of those conversations,
not how do we replace our staff.
Right. So, so the insight that the
conversational data provides from the
the VCON's being processed and the
conserver, it's it's giving the
information back to people so people can
can continue to push those objectives,
right? The objective is selling more
cars. The objective is more customers in
the showroom. The objective is
uh customer experience, satisfaction,
CSI, service appointments, it's
efficiency, it's scale, it's just
improvement. And so if you want to if
you want to start a business, yeah, you
need to solve a problem for your
customer. Correct.
And if you can do that,
um, and you can do it better than they
can do it, then you have a business.
Now, I don't want to say we do it better
than dealers do it because I know
there's a lot of BDC's out there that do
a great job. And we don't want every
dealer anyway. Uh, we don't want every
every every um, every dealer out there.
We want ones that fit and, you know,
respect what we do. We respect what they
do and and we work really well together.
Those are the magic kind of customers,
right?
So, it's just not realistic today for a
robot to talk to a customer. I mean,
that's really what um the point I wanted
to get across. It's bad for business and
it could be um used the wrong way. So,
think about IVR, as I mentioned, they've
been that's been around for probably two
decades now, more maybe more. I don't
know. But press one for this, press two
for that. Uh we removed the receptionist
to save money. And part of the
conversation I want to talk about is I
don't see AI as necessarily a reduction
in staff. And I know a lot of people are
looking at it that way. Um, and don't
get me wrong, there'll be a reduction in
labor from some of the menial stuff that
people hate doing anyway, which is
fantastic for me because I'm, you know,
a salesperson. I hated working in the
CRM. I hated I just wanted to talk to
customers. So think about the IVR,
right? The challenge is people are very
unique as I mentioned and their
questions are unique to them and some
have a sense of urgency um otherwise
they wouldn't call. So if you put them
in a
IVR and I call it the loop of
frustration
um and you press one for sales and it
goes to a voicemail or no one picks up
then you press the oper you know you
press to speak to somebody and there's
nobody there to speak with. We if you
ask our client success team when we
onboard a dealer when they have an I IVR
and we we know how to set them up really
well now for the dealers. Um but I tell
dealers all the time the most
underappreciated position in a car
dealership is the
receptionist. The IVR can't handle the
customers. So if the c if you put them
in the loop of frustration and they
can't get what they want, what are you
saying to them? You're basically saying
that they're not important to you and
that's and you're not that important. If
you're not that important to uh a
company, they'll find some other place
to go and because there's lots of places
to go. So the moral of the story is um
even the best AI can't close deals, but
it can help you people close more deals.
That's the way we look at it.
So what I'm hearing
is conversational AI
has it has a place. It's growing. AI as
a whole is is
new and that there are some really good
solutions in the
industry
and there are solutions that
are kind of disguised as as AI that um
may also be we we spoke about this on
episode
one
and you have to understand the objective
Right. And and look at the experiences,
testing those experiences. Like if you
implement something, put your customer
hat on and go through the process and
challenge it. Like there's not
necessarily a silver bullet. But so my
my my take on technology is this. And
I those in the car business think I am
like into technology but those in the
technology field don't see me as a
technologist right because I don't write
code or anything like that. But when you
look at the history of
technology it's definitely helped out a
great deal and given us more and more
information. But is has it made the
world better? Has it made has it given
you are you selling more cars because
you have a CRM for
example? I I don't think so. Um because
what we forget is the core of the
business is solving a problem for your
customer. And if you have a culture of
people in your business that's focused
on solving the customer's problems um to
the best of their ability, then you'll
have a successful business if you have a
good solution, right? Um but the
technology just makes it more efficient.
But when I look at CRM, I see a lot of
CRM that don't even get used properly
when we onboard a dealer. Um, so why buy
it? I I know I used to say this years
and years ago, but um if it wasn't for
the desking tool or desking solution or
keeping your data organized um to write
a deal, dealers wouldn't need a CRO.
They have the DMS to store the in the
customer info after the customer's
purchase. It's for followup. It's for,
you know, making sure that the right
people pop up at the right time, but
it's a lot of
work, you know. So, think of this for a
second, Michael.
Uh, AI can summarize a 10-minute
conversation in seconds. Now, if you
take that summary and you put it into
the CRM, isn't that better than having a
salesperson type in notes and then click
buttons and reschedu the next
appointment? You mark my words. I'm
going to say it here. In 5 years, there
will be conversational CRM. Regular CRM
will be gone where you don't have to
even lift a finger or enter a keystroke
because everything you want to know is
in the conversation. You tell me you
want me to follow up in in a in a in a
week, the conversation knows when to
tell you to follow up to that customer,
the AI will know that. So, that's where
I think it's going to get real really
interesting. Um, but I don't think it's
going to replace people. So, everyone's
going to get that through this podcast.
That's the message I'm trying to get
through is the people-to-people
interaction
is a human
need. Did you know that? that people in
they have they have studies of of of
prisoners of war in Korea that were put
in a dark cell that were perfectly
healthy and within 6 months to a year
they would die and they were being
fed. It was
isolation. They weren't communicating
with anybody. They weren't talking to
anybody. They just died at young ages
from isolation. So you need human
contact. If we get rid of
that, I'm really I mean, that's really
scary. I mean, I'm old now, so I I don't
know if it'll happen in my lifetime, but
I don't mean to get so deep on you, but
I'm just telling you, it's it's really
um that's how how much I've studied it.
You know, as you know, I I went to MI I
got a a certificate MIT for AI and
blockchain and all that. I'm trying to
learn as much as I can about it.
Um and from what we see at this point in
time, dealers, don't worry, you're not
missing anything. by sticking an AI tool
into your system because it's people
that make appointments. It's people that
sell cars. Uh it's people-to-people
interaction. It's not a magic pill. It's
going to create efficiencies. It's going
to give you insights. It's going to help
you run your business if you use it
properly. But it's not going to replace
your staff anytime soon. And it's it's
going to provide some
accountability back to the conversations
which are going to ultimately make the
people better, right? In in the
conversations, the way that they talk.
Real quick, Vin, if if you had to give a
recommendation, right, sitting down at
the bar having a beer with a dealer
buddy and the options were have a
receptionist, an
IVR, or like a new AI where, you know,
it greets the customer like a virtual uh
receptionist where it understands that
natural language. Um, in what order
would you make the recommendations to,
you know, casually to a dealer? So,
selling a car isn't like selling
something on
Amazon. That that's the first thing that
they need to know. It's a big deal. It's
a big purchase. Customers have anxiety
about the whole per purchase. And and
there's probably people listening to
this going, "Well, the car buying
experience is torture and all this other
stuff." Uh that may be true, but if
you've ever had to buy a house, it's
equally torturous. Um if you have to go
through a closing and all that. Um can
that be um modified to be more
efficient? Of course. Um it can. Um can
somebody just pick a car, select it, um
buy it, put their trade information in,
get a number, and hit buy it now? Yes.
that started
happening at when COVID hit the big you
know the bad cword co
um and there was a rush to build digital
retailing
tools is a great sandbox for all this
stuff because we got to see it in action
customers were not buying a car online
when you talk about someone buying a
Tesla it's a very small fraction of car
sales or Carvana I think Carvana sold
400 maybe 500,000 cars In a year,
there's 30,000 I mean, I'm sorry, four
Yeah. four or 500,000 cars in a year.
There's 30 million used car sales a
year. Yeah. So, what percentage of of of
people are actually going to Carvana and
buying their car online? Now, will it
evolve more over time? Sure. But it's
not there right now. And everything's an
evolution. I mean, I will say this to
dealers out there right now. If if you
if you were you the person or the dealer
back in the mid '9s that were one of the
first to get a website or did you
wait? In 2006, we literally still when I
was doing all the e-commerce for that
big dealer group I used to work for,
there were still dealers out there that
didn't have websites.
It was an evolution. So, think about
that. From 96 to 2006, it still didn't
penetrate 100%. Now, it's probably 100%.
I I don't know if there's any dealers
out there still that don't have a
website. But, uh, there's late adopters,
there's early adopters, all that. So, a
lot of the AI right now, uh, if you're
an early adopter, all I'm going to tell
you is that you better pay attention to
it because it's going to it's not going
to be perfect and neither are people.
Um, everyone's looking for that holy
grail, right? It's not there. So, my
solution, um, would be to play to test
it. Um, but make sure you have an escape
hatch. Uh, and that escape hatch has to
be humans. Don't let an AI system just
try and run your business because it
won't work. You'll lose business. You'll
lose customers. There's no And every
company out there that's pitching AI
tools, I think if they were honest with
the dealers, they would say, "You still
need people."
Yeah. You can't rely on it. Yeah. I
mean, you know, I think it's I think
it's super impressive what um what
Matt's doing with uh Horizon, right? But
at the end of the day, Vin still need
people to manage it and it's it's not
autonomous. There's there's nothing out
there that's autonomous about AI. But
back to back to here's how we're using
it though, just to just to summarize
what I just said.
Um, like I said, AI can take a 10-minute
conversation and summarize it in
seconds. That gives your sales team the
upper hand before they pick up, you
know, uh, where we left off or where the
conversation left off. It's like a cheat
sheet for sales people and for managers
trying to close more deals because the
information is there. Because the
hardest part of selling is that awkward
meet and greet initial rapport building
uh
qualification uh pro uh part of the sale
that every salesperson, I don't care who
you
are, you would want to know that before
you started talking to them if you
could. Well, now you can if they if they
had a conversation, if one of the
Stalled, you know, uh if a customer
interacted with Straw before they came
to your showroom, you would have that
information. To me, that's gold. Like,
like how could you want any more than
that? Um you know, um your first job is
to build rapport, qualify the customer.
Now, it's done. That part's done for
you. Um, so in a way you've already had
um, you know, and if we could summarize
that and put it in the CRM, which is
something we're working on right now,
uh, we're helping you unlock, uh, that
at lightning speed. And, you know, not
every lead is created equal, Michael.
Um, in conversation, conversational AI
can tell you who's shopping for a car,
who's browsing, who's looking for
payments, all that. Um, so can you break
it down real quick, Vinn? Right? Like
let me just paint this picture. Yeah.
The goal the break it down is the goal
isn't to eliminate people. The goal is
to make sure you're people are trained
and spending time with the right
customers at the right time. That's
really what it's all about.
Exactly.
So let's talk about a specific scenario,
right? What's the purpose of the BDC?
Same thing. to to to provide a good a
good
experience and to ultimately drive
traffic, build value and value creation.
It's it's it's it's to, you know, answer
quickly because that tells the customer
that you're important. Yes. So, can an
AI answer quickly? Yes. That initial
engagement? Yes. Can it ask a few
questions? Sure. But when does the the
the salesperson or BDC enter into that
conversation is critical. So that's why
we're not ready for it yet because we
don't know and none of them know. They
can tell you. Um, now the texting and
email replies that are done through AI
are are good. Uh, it's the
conversational stuff that I'm not sold
on yet. I mean, they're getting better,
I should say. I'm not saying they're
perfect
either, but it's easier to text back and
forth with somebody just to get a flow
of a conversation going. Yeah. Uh, but
you need to know when to jump in as a
human.
Yeah. I I like what William's doing. Um,
yeah. You know, I I think that we're not
anti- AI or anti-bot. We're I'm all I'm
here to do is just to try to make
dealers feel a little bit more at ease
that they're not missing out on anything
really huge, especially if they have a
really well-trained staff that's doing
um all the things that they're supposed
to be doing, right? Um, it's not going
to double your sales if you're in that
situation already. It's going to add
cost though. That's another thing that
we talked about last
time. The cost isn't free for these
tools. So, if you still need humans
involved, then what is it really saving
you? That's why buying or thinking of AI
as a cost-savings staff elimination type
deal, it's not. But it can make you a
lot more efficient and a lot better at
what you do if you if you really think
through it and use it properly, you
know. Yeah, that's that's a valid point
and one that's that's been brought up a
few times. Mhm. So, customers don't care
if you're using AI. They care if you're
they they care if you're not responsive
or you're not clear or you're not
helpful
um or you're not available. So, AI has a
purpose there. And if you respect their
time and you've been using it, you
know, I don't know if I don't want to
sound like the old guy here, but man, we
we we had prowess at the I grew grew up
in a Toyota store that was huge. We was
number seven in the country at one
point. We we
had closers walking around the lot uh
pairing customers up with salespeople
that were wandering around out there.
Like you if your customer was out there
for more than 30 seconds, like you would
hear it from the leadership of that
dealership,
uh
because answering a phone quickly, it
it's important. Answering a lead quickly
is important. Answering a text quickly,
it's I hate to say it this way, but it's
almost not as important as what you say
is as it is to how quickly you do it. So
that's where I think AI can have some,
you know, advantage, but you have to be
able to, you need an escape patch for
humans. You you have to be able to say,
okay, this is where the AI needs to stop
and the human needs to take
over. There's a lot of paths that that
we can we can go down. And I I I'm I'm
thinking
of the BDC is operating. We know the
purpose of it. And
sometimes the desk And the
leadership want they want to know when
there's a to
uh all right what' they say you know
what do you need me for right maybe they
pricing or second voice
that's where I think conversational
data and and and vcons and the summaries
are powerful because it's not it's no
longer an interpretation
remember being in in uh grade school,
young kid, and and the teacher would
whisper something and start on one side
of the class and by the time it got to
the last person on the other side of the
classroom, it was something totally
different, right? Lost in translation.
It removes all of that.
It does. you know, you don't mind. I I
hope they don't mind me using their
names, but it's important because I
wouldn't be in the car business if it
wasn't for these three guys. Um, but it
was Ira Rosenberg, who owned the IRA
Motor Group, his son, David Rosenberg,
um, who took it to another level. And
then David Halt,
um, those were my mentors, right,
growing up. Um, I learned a lot from
them. And I don't know if it was Ira
David or David Halt or David Rosenberg
that that used to or or started talking
about that. I believe it was Ira, but he
used to call it the golden rule. Treat
others the way you want to be treated.
That was his expectation. He it was
really important to him that customers
are treated
well. And um
so I'm a great employee because all you
have to do is tell me what my
expectations are as an employee and I'll
do it.
So getting that type of direction was
important to me. David Rosenberg used to
have a saying, if it get when I was a
general manager of a dealership, if it
gets to me, it's
free. Meaning if the customer was upset
and you can't handle it and he gets all
the way to me, I'm giving him whatever
he wants because I don't need the bad
publicity. So we were given that type
of, you know, um, authority to make
decisions to fix customer problems as a
general manager in that group. So really
the real question here for every dealer
is what kind of customer experience do
you want to
deliver? That's
it. Because if you can't solve a problem
for your customer, you don't have a
business. You can't shortcut
it. It's got to be real. It's got to be
cultural. It's got to be part of your
DNA as a business to help customers. And
if you don't have that, you're you're
you're never going to be successful in a
business. I mean, you could
potentially kick through, kick by, but
um you know, I have three things I pay
attention to here. My people, my
dealers, and profit. And if I if
anything is affecting any of those three
things, that's where you're going to
find my attention. My people are upset,
I'm involved with them. I'm trying to
fix their problems. And my dealers are
upset, I'm involved with them, I try to
fix their problems. And if we're not
making money, I'm out there trying to
sell, you know. So, uh, as a CEO, that
those are the three things I have to pay
attention to because a lot of people ask
me, "How do you got a 200 employees and
dealing with all these dealers?" I just
try to focus on those things. I think
the the I'm not perfect, by the way. So,
no, nobody I make lots of mistakes.
Fail fast, man. That's Yeah. kind of my
my mantra in, you know, the world of
marketing.
Can I just add one last thing about
that? What I just said? Yeah. Um, if
I've been doing this 30 years and I
still make lots of mistakes, how do we
expect a robot not to make
mistakes or not to miss
opportunities or not to capitalize on,
you know, I I always say like when a
customer's upset, it's a great
opportunity to
sell because you don't get upset about
something you don't want. If you don't
want it, you're not going to get upset
about it. So, there's an opportunity
there to fix that and make them happy,
fix their problem, and then sell them
something. That's a brand new one for
me. I I really never looked at it like
that. Yeah. Well, that must be the Irish
side, man. I want to be combative.
Yeah, combative is is not good. Remember
I said you have No, not when you're
selling. You You don't say yes or you
don't say no. So, they say, "I want to
buy a $10,000 car for a $20,000 car for
$10,000." You know, your answer should
be no
problem. Let me see what I can do. Let's
right. Exactly. You didn't say yes. You
didn't say no. You didn't say no. And I
know that kind of sounds a little
tricky, but how else are you going to
build rapport? You don't build rapport
by saying
no. And you obviously will get fired if
you say yes to everything.
Nobody wants a yes man.
No, that's for sure. So, Finn, all
right, you have you have some
experience, man. All right. Yep. You
were a
closer probably before that. You were a
liner. You were the green pee. I can
appreciate that. Go green peas. All big
shout out to all the green peas just
getting into the auto industry, by the
way. Yeah. If you can survive through
the car business. Yeah, it definitely um
it it gives you, you know, it's kind of
I I mean I'm I'm not going to dump I'm
not going to say what I was just going
to say cuz it would but you know
anything tough in life is um there's a
saying that you know uh bad times make
tough people tough people make good
times and good times makes bad you know
um weak people. I believe in that. So
going through 30 years of the car
business, it was
tough, but it definitely teaches you a
lot. You know, it it's a it's a unique
ind industry. And you know, if you're
just getting into the business or you've
been in the business for a little while
and and you're trying to climb the
ranks, like stick with it. Figure out
ways that, you know, you can solve
problems in your store, in your market,
in your OEM, right? and and just keep
climbing. One foot in front of the other
and if you get knocked down, you get
back up. Stay committed. I I'll I'll end
um all this on one thing that I think is
really important uh for dealers to hear.
Um it's that if you're aiming for
basically transactional, high-speed, low
margin
sales, then maybe AI is
um maybe AI is for you. um or just
another automation layer is what you
need. Um but if you want long-term value
and retention and repeat customers, then
AI isn't going to do that. However, it
can be a great co-pilot, as Thomas likes
to say. Um for your team, but not your
crutch,
right? It should it should be it's a
tool. It's a resource. It's a it's a
program at the end of the day.
It's a program, correct? It's lines and
lines of code and databases and it's
been fed and the magic is you can talk
to it just like we're talking to you
today in natural language and ask it
about those problems and how they might
be solved. So, it can help you get to
maybe a better answer than what you
would have thought
of or something new that you never would
have thought of. the conversational
data and the conversational AI is based
on that. It's a cheat sheet that's
specific to the conversations that are
happening and and any uh patterns that
can be pulled and identified. It's it
can be a
strength. So Vin, if you were we we have
your experience, right? you have your
experience, but we we've just briefly
discussed
that if you
were buying a dealership or you were
sitting in the GM seat today, Mhm.
what would the the top how would you use
AI
today and at what frequency would you be
using it?
Um, shameless plug. Um, our search is
better than most call recording
softwares because you can search
keywords now instead of just looking at
calls.
Um, you know, obviously everything
conversational I'm looking at right now.
Uh, our our astrology GPT allows us to
ask and prompt and ask questions about
the conversations.
Um, and our signals are going to start
giving our dealers that information
directly to them without them having to
log in and look for it. Um, we also have
a consent app that we're working on
which is becoming more and more
important with compliance and all that.
um AI aside,
um a business is just a group of people.
And so the first thing I would do is
create a culture
um around
expectations. Obviously, those are to
drive revenue and so forth, but taking
care of customers, all those core things
that I mentioned before. uh and then see
where AI fits to help enhance that. Not
necessarily just sign up for every new
shiny widget that comes along. Okay. And
if it make, you know, it's it's it's a
great question, Michael, because when I
was handling all the marketing for that
big dealer group, I was handling all the
digital marketing. Vendors hated me
because I asked
questions like, "What is that going to
do for me? How is that going to help me
sell more cars?" and I'm going to hold
you to whatever you say and I'm also
going to, you know, listen to how you
say it and I can usually figure out
pretty quickly whether you're full of
or you you know what you're talking
about. So, how is this ABC vendor AI
company going to help me do X, whatever
X is, prove CSI, you know, it could be
anything. It doesn't have to be, you
know, answering a lead or a call. Um,
but how is it going to help my business?
What what what expectations do I have or
what are the needs I have to fix my
business? You know, um, I actually spoke
to somebody. Obviously, I'm not going to
reveal names. Um, that they had um an
objective to reduce headcount and they
were looking at the AI for that. And I
just said, just be careful how far you
go with that.
um because it could erode your customer
base. We actually had a customer tell us
that they had a certain AI product that
they were getting x amount of calls a
month and once they plugged it in it
dropped
25%. Meaning customers are hanging up on
it. Oh, right out of the gate they're
just disconnecting. Yeah.
So looking at data is super important.
Um and it's a never ending thing because
there's so much data. There's so many
dashboards and loginins and all that
kind of stuff to look at everything. But
if you go back to what I mentioned about
what I learned early on in my career,
which is the golden
rule, I want efficiencies, but I don't
want it to affect my customer
experience. And I consider that to be
uh not transactional. Anything, you
know, anything you're selling
transactional, you can do with AI.
Like meaning I want to buy a pair of
shoes or I want to buy a tube of
toothpaste on Amazon. Like I don't you
know I shop on Amazon a
lot but it's because it's
convenient. It's not a big purchase. You
know it's not going to So anyway um I'll
digress but yeah um the AI tools I would
use were to take massive amounts of data
and ingest it into large language models
and learn from whatever insights it can
tell me. And we can do another podcast
on prompting because that's a big thing.
Yeah, it does. How do you prompt it? How
do you ask it questions and how do you
drill down? Um because it will do that.
I mean, if you get an angry customer
that came through and you say, "Hey,
show me all my customers that are
frustrated." Right? That's like
something you can ask for GPT. And
Michael Donovan shows up and explains
that he was, you know, mistreated in the
showroom. I can say, "Can you write
Michael an email?" and it'll write it
for me. I don't know about you, but I
hate writing
emails, you know, and I don't have to
take everything that it says, but it
gives me a structure so I can go in and
edit it to my, you know, voice. Uh, so
those are just some cool things that AI
can do, but you still need that human
intuition and human involvement. So, I
don't think I answered your question,
but yeah. No, you you did from a
a a slightly different perspective, but
it it tracks and it makes sense
that you you didn't just answer the
question, you gave even more context of
how you would uh you know, take the helm
in that leadership role in a dealership
today. And you know, here's here's my
two cents, uh, you know, little hot
take, if you will. I think
AI and automotive is here to stay.
It's also any any dealers, GMs or
leadership team that's implementing it.
You are the innovators right now. Okay.
So, I mean, well, it it's the innovator
group based on the diffusion of
innovation theory, which you know, I'm a
big fan of of that. Um, you know, that's
you think about the OEM, right? and the
dealers and any product or
brand, their number one goal should
always be customer experience and
customer expect in and in in in figuring
out how to solve for customer challenges
and
expectations. That's really the core of
what we're talking about, right? The
golden rule to treat them like the way
you'd want to be treated. And if you can
do that and solve their problem, you
have a business. Now, what gets in the
way? Well, the internet got in the way
of dealers, right? lots of leads. How do
we handle
them? Right. And lots of lots of phone
calls. Well, those those customers were
there before the internet. They were.
Yeah. And the yellow pages.
The yellow pages. But they were also
there from referrals, repeat customers,
um knowing people. I mean, uh you know,
a good salesperson for me when I was a
GM had referrals, right? I didn't need
to spend money on marketing for
referrals.
Um, people came to see them because they
like them because they could do what,
Michael? They had good relationships.
They could connect with them on a a
human relationship though. What is a
good relationship? That's an important
because it sounds like a cliche when you
talk about it. It doesn't sound
especially when you're young, you're
like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Dad. We
need relationships." But as you get
older, you realize how important
relationships actually are. Um, so if
you're a young person listening to this,
make sure you work on your relationships
now because they're going to pan out for
you in 20 years. Whether you know, you
just don't know it yet. That's right.
Take care of it. Just come spiritual,
right? You take care of as many people
as you can and that comes back tenfold
right down the road. And they want to
take care of you.
How does a robot do that? Yeah. But what
exactly? And what do people remember
about those interactions? Right? They
don't remember the words you were
saying. They remember whether you picked
up the phone when they call. Do you know
I have one of the mentors I
mentioned? Uh if I texted him right now
or called him, he would text me back and
say, "I'll call you later." Or he'd pick
up. Yeah. And he's a busy
guy, but I'm important to him. That's
what it tells me. Right. People remember
how you make them feel 100%.
If you feel important, appreciated,
respected, taken care of, Yep. you're
accommodating to to needs, you know, it
it it makes the whole financial and
transactional part of the relationship a
little easier. Hey, can you help me out?
You know, it's the best I like.
It it goes both ways and it's that
mutual understanding and and that's yeah
like the cornerstone is the actual
relationship. Yeah. Do everything in
your power not to
uh be the reason for a bad relationship,
right? It's like when you're a kid,
um you don't start the fight, but you're
not afraid to
fight, right? someone punches you, you
know, you get into a fight. Like, but
you don't start it. That was always
something my dad put into my head. Like,
never, you know, walk away from stuff if
you have to. But, yeah, it's, you know,
and it's the same thing in a
relationship, right? Like, don't be the
reason the relationship is bad, right?
because there bad people out there. You
know, you're not always going to have
every customer that's going to be nice
or be I think major I think down deep
most people are good good, right? Um
majority are. But when they come into a
car dealership, they have their hands
up. They're ready for a
fight. The better you can break that
down and build a relationship. Um and
then they're going to tell two people
that who tell two people who tell two
people and next thing you know you have
a book of business, right? Oh yeah, it I
know. But think about that. That sounds
like common sense, but do we when you
look at some of the, you know, horror
stories within the car industry, you're
like, that person doesn't get
it. Look, uh, shout out to Sean Collins,
man. I mean, I watched him do such an
amazing job. And you know what his
secret weapon was? What's up? He got up
from behind the desk and he went and sat
down with the customers.
Mhm. When when the salesperson couldn't,
you know, push him over the curb, close
the deal, Sean would come out and and
put, you know, a face, a personality and
work with the customer. And now he's
taken that to the entire organization
and it's his methodology and training
and you know, he's elevated his role.
So, uh, it's it's that type of Yeah,
it's what I think about when I hear you
talking about relationships. I'm I'm
visualizing,
uh, you know, watching Shawn at work and
it's an impressive thing. Uh, I I
think I think this is important
information. The the additional context
is is outstanding. Yes.
And you know, episode four prompting
how like automotive prompting, right?
Solving the the
issues that you're facing. The challenge
for dealers right now um is you have
nothing to
prompt until you get conversational data
uh like we have for our dealers because
like prompting on chatpt like I
mentioned it's all it's someone's
opinion and it's coming from articles
and information that some you know
professor or somebody wrote or some
reporter article or whatever. It doesn't
necessarily make
it the Bible. Right. right? It's not
100% accurate. Um, not the Bible is, but
I don't know if we have I mean, I I
believe it is, but uh the point is it's
it's um conversations are real. You
know, whether you want to hear it or
not, that's what's actually being said
by your customers. So again, the
so-called experts that think they know
everything. I I I hope I don't come
across on these podcasts as this expert
uh that knows everything because I
don't. Um and that's why I wanted to
have this is because neither do the AI
companies that are pitching you these
products. And I'm not I'm not afraid of
them, by the way, either. It's not like
I'm trying to say, "Oh, it's going to
ruin my business because the robots are
going to start talking to customers."
Like, I'm not worried about that at all,
you know, to be honest with you. Yeah.
So, you know, I I
think just stepping slightly outside of
the conversational, one of the things as
marketer, all of these vendors would
talk about, well, it's trackable and and
everything digital is trackable and you
know, we have our reporting here and our
reporting over here and you know, can
you believe those reports or gez another
login that I have to, you know, analyze
and I I think that with some of the ways
that I've started using chat GPT is uh
is building out the projects where I can
upload files, I can give it
instructions. So I could have my
analysis project for my CRM data, my DMS
data, my sold by Zip data, and then feed
in my pump reports and like all of this
information and and start to actually
funny, Michael, it's interesting because
you and I have been together now for a
while and I I really respect and
appreciate all your marketing experience
um and all you do, but as you're talking
about all that, it kind of answers my
question, your question about what would
I do if I was to go into a new
dealership? Like, I'm listening to you
and I'm thinking while you're talking,
how's that going to help me sell more
cars? Yeah. Because a lot of people get
wound up and hung up into the all the
to-do stuff. Yeah. And they forget to
look to see if it's actually moving the
needle. Yeah, that would be that would
be my goal is to or they're actually not
looking to see if it's improving the
customer experience or if it's uh
helping improve your margins or if it's
creating more, you know, uh service
business or whatever whatever it is that
your expectations are. I mean, that's
what you need to look at whenever you
implement anything into your business,
including Strawlet. I mean, if we go
into a business, I've actually told
dealers that call me and want to sign up
with us. I'll look, we do an assessment,
as you know. Uh, we look at follow-up,
we look at workflows, we look at lead
volumes, lead quality, all that kind of
stuff. We give them a whole report. I've
told dealers like, "You're doing a great
job. Why do you need us?" Because the
last thing I want to do is go into a
business and tell them that they that
we're going to do all this great stuff
for them and do the same or as what they
were doing before. Like there people
that are working there working hard and
are doing a good job and and if they're
doing a good job and they're trained
well, I'm not going to lie to a dealer
and tell them that they need
us. Not everybody needs us, right? No.
The whole point of the whole point of
sell this pen is to find out whether
they need a pen or not. Not everybody
needs a pen and it's okay. Move on to
the next one that might need a pen.
You're not going to sell
everybody. Even if you're Tony Robbins,
you're not going to sell everybody,
right? And once you get over that, you
can be a very good salesperson and not
get upset when you don't close a deal.
And you could be a really good sales
manager because, you know, if if you're
following a consistent process and your
people are really good at treating
customers well, you're going to sell a
lot of them. If you get a lot of them,
that's where your marketing comes in, by
the way. That's right. Give me more
people to talk to. Right. I I I I I
don't I don't necessarily need them um
lining up with a checkbook in their
hand. I just need people to talk to if
if if you want to be a good salesperson.
That's how I would use is is finding how
to get how can we get more customers at
a lower cost like where are we bleeding
on, you know, spend and our cost per
acquisition. And then you know once you
have that baseline that's like phase one
then you can start looking at the
customer lifetime value and uh you know
expanding and reallocations and testing
new things. It's that part of AI is
exciting to me is the analysis and
taking uh I love numbers. I just I love
being immersed in the in the analytics
and the metrics, the KPIs. Me too. I'm
definitely a data guy because they're
real. you there you you know it's
factual one plus one is two and and I
think that's why I gravitate towards the
metrics
they tell a story yeah no question and
um but it has to be collected
consistently
true
true so automotive prompting
I think that's going to be a great topic
um we know where we can find you right
LinkedIn in or straa.com.
That's right.
Straa.ai is going to be getting a um
series of updates soon and you can
wander over there, poke around, check it
out, and
uh yeah, give us some give us some
feedbacks and like, comment what you
want to hear about in the future. And
appreciate you tuning in to Dealer
Insights. Yeah, appreciate it, Michael.
Thanks. Outstanding. Yeah, Vin, have a
great day, man. You, too.