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Strolid CEO Vin Micciche explores how integrated BDC strategies elevate dealership-customer relationships. The episode emphasizes the critical role of rapid phone response times (under three rings) in preventing customer defection, proactive service appointment management, and leveraging post-purchase lifecycle engagement to boost retention. Key examples include using service BDCs to reduce advisor burnout and deploying recall management campaigns that increase warranty revenue by 25%. A standout insight: “Every unanswered call is a missed opportunity to secure lifetime customer loyalty. Speed isn’t just efficiency; it’s revenue protection.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Integrated BDCs
01:23 - Core BDC Response Principles
04:45 - 3-Ring Revenue Protection
09:12 - Recall Management Case Study
16:07 - Service-to-Sales Handoff Strategies
22:47 - Advisor Burnout Solutions
31:15 - Lifecycle Engagement ROI
37:30 - EV Service Readiness
40:01 - Future of Dealership Experience
44:01 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction to Integrated BDCs
01:23 - Core BDC Response Principles
04:45 - 3-Ring Revenue Protection
09:12 - Recall Management Case Study
16:07 - Service-to-Sales Handoff Strategies
22:47 - Advisor Burnout Solutions
31:15 - Lifecycle Engagement ROI
37:30 - EV Service Readiness
40:01 - Future of Dealership Experience
44:01 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps
Creators and Guests
Host
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 insights
hey it's your it's your favorite guys
for dealer insights it's Sean and Vinnie
Vinnie how's it going good Sean how are
you today I'm good good it's October
already who's going to win the World
Series I'm honestly I haven't even I
don't even follow baseball anymore I
know that's crazy but the Dodgers I like
as soon as the red stock set socks start
playing good baseball again yeah yeah I
will I I mean I watched some but I just
don't follow it like I used to some
reason believe it or
not you uh don't give up on baseball
Benny it's too good and you know you've
taken me I've been in Fenway Park with
you so yeah um the Rangers are gonna get
annihilated starting today in Tampa Bay
as they squeaked their way into the
playoffs uh but hey for you guys to
tunee in to dealer so you don't tune in
to listen to us talk about sports
although we could do a whole segment we
could do
multiple especially on all of Vinnie's
favorite teams but we are getting uh
super close I wanted to say dangerously
close there's not no real danger to it
we're getting really close to Digital
Dealer
Vegas um we uh will be on a panel we
we'll be taking part in a panel out
there talking about customer experience
and a lot of the variable relative to
that and I wanted to continue on with
that theme on the podcast today and so
I'm going to get right into it um I
think there have been a lot of different
um shifts and changes in customer
service over the past really couple
decades and technology has a lot to do
with it but question would be in your
mind the definition and the execution of
customer service for car dealers has
really transformed and did so very much
during
coid what do you think have been the
most challenging aspects of adapting to
those changes for dealers yeah sure
so
um it's an interesting way you put it um
you know the last three years has
been the
most unique three years of my life and
I'm sure a lot of people would say the
same and it did you know through a lot
of curveballs um dealers and um
companies like mine and customers um
have been adapting to all of it
um kind of right I mean the interesting
thing is we're still getting similar
lead volumes for dealers we're still
getting phone calls um obviously there's
digital retailing and now there's uh a
lot of Buzz around customer data
platforms and um
right
so how is that all affecting how a
dealer does
business when I talk to dealers or when
I go visit a
dealer honestly it hasn't changed too
much at dealer
level um they still sell cars they still
dust Deals they still put people in the
fni office um contrary to what you're
hearing in the world that you know
customers want to uh have a frictionless
experience um that may be true yet they
haven't
grown U TR they haven't grown enough uh
trust with these tools to complete a
deal online now do they help yes um you
know again I'm an old guy so when I go
back preco uh when I go back to my days
at the dealer group I worked at we were
doing a lot of those things for
consumers uh maybe not as efficiently
but we were running payments for
customers uh we would you know let um
the Ed car managers and the general
sales managers know that a customer
would like to know what their trade's
worth before they come in uh customers
would you know one of the so inventory i
we'll do a little quick history but Co
hit um everyone said it was going to be
a slow recovery for auto at stred we
didn't see that we saw a massive amount
of leads piling up more than normal uh a
lot of Industry experts were telling me
that's because people are bored at home
and had nothing to do and I'm like H I
don't think so people don't just sit at
home and go to car dealer websites and
shop for cars because they got nothing
else to do they're like they need a car
um anyway our prediction at staled was
correct um and then it it was slow
getting people back into showrooms
especially in certain areas and then
boom we started selling cars again and
you know our business um heated up
during that time it was you know late
2020 early
2021 and then an interesting thing
happened um because of the shutdown
there were no there were no cars and I'm
not telling everybody things that they
don't already know but that created a
new challenge but it also helped dealers
increase profitability on the cars that
they had the consumers paid a higher
price um and contined to um unused um
when you're not selling new there aren't
enough used cars in the in the market to
sell so the the price of used cars go up
because some people would pre prefer buy
used um to save a little bit of money uh
I actually don't necessarily I I'm going
to predict right now there'll be a big
shift back to new uh if it's not already
happening you're starting to see
incentives again um you're starting to
see a a day supply increase um so how
does that affect customer experience um
it's been negative for customer in a lot
of ways uh because of lack of inventory
and things like that so the answer to
your question is the customer experience
is constantly and will continue to
evolve and
change do you really
understand that uh if you're running a
car
dealership uh and I guess the only way
you would understand that is by
examining and listening and looking at
conversations that are happening between
consumers and your BDC or your
salese that'll help you understand how
to how to kind of shift towards a better
experience right but some things are out
of your control I mean if you don't have
the inventory you don't have the
inventory
right yeah the I mean the the coid area
era was just so I mean people like to
and for good reason talk about how
resilient our industry is and it
is you and I in our
lifetimes our business has been through
some some tough some definitely some
tough
changes Co was just something so
different right um what you just
mentioned the The Leverage that it put
into the hands of the of
dealers um leverage around profitability
right just basic supply and demand um
The Leverage that it gave to the dealers
around well if you want to be and I'm
not doing this to say I'm not
disparaging dealers but there were a lot
of dealers that in their communication
it kind of got lazy it wasn't very laser
focused it wasn't really I'm going to go
out of my way to make sure that the
experience we're providing you is one
that will make you come back and tell
everybody you know why you loved buying
from us or servicing with us and I
started saying this uh
oh I want to say it was
2020 um
that uh I I bought a a
tundra um and at that dealership here in
the Dallas Texas area I asked that
dealership because it was still coish
you know you could still go in and buy a
car but you know people are wearing
masks and a lot of Protections in place
still a lot of fear and I asked that
dealer you know with all of the The
Leverage that you have what are are you
doing to make sure that it doesn't make
you comfortable in this environment
knowing that it's eventually going to
swing back around right and they had
they actually had an answer for it and
you know they had said well we didn't
have a choice we had to make really hard
decisions around Personnel they couldn't
keep their staff the same but their GM
um is the guy who ended up telling me
that they made they made choices based
on people who had the highest marks
around people that wrote great reviews
about him if they got mentioned in a CSI
right up you know and I thought that's
really smart and I told him I said I I
think you should continue to keep your
eye on that ball very closely because if
the C customer perception ends up being
that during the coid area all you did
was to took advantage of customers it
could hurt your reputation in a way that
might last a lot longer than just the
coid era yeah
I would like to just add to that though
you made a interesting statement
there I I I'm a dealer by Heart by trade
right I I grew up in the car business so
I don't think dealers were taking
advantage of customers and I know you
didn't mean it that way
but they didn't have any choice like you
have a
certain gross profit number running a
dealership that you need to maintain or
exceed to keep everyone in the
dealership
working um and when you have limited
inventory um you have no choice but to
make maximize the amount of gross you
can make on the inventory you have so
this is
just um coid obviously created a lot of
problems and it created some
opportunities the problems it created
was frankly dumping a whole bunch of
money into the economy people had money
to spend they spent it all right that
you know eliminated the
inventory because of the lack of
production and then now there's no
inventory people still were spending
money and dealers were taking it uh as
they needed to now it's changing I think
um one of my uh dealer friends told me
recently um 10 of the top 18
manufacturers are over a 50-day supply
of new vehicles right now um yeah which
is pretty crazy I mean you still have
some that are
still hard to get the challenge now is
maybe maybe and I'm not an economist but
logically the money isn't there now and
the credit ratings are dropping and the
interest rates are rising and um that
interest rate rise has a direct reflect
on the financial structure of a car
dealership because of floor plan
interest that they didn't have a year or
two years ago year or two years ago they
had no cars in stock so and and they
were turning cars fast so their floor
plane interest was nonexistent plus they
get credits for floor plan from the
manufacturer now that the inventory is
building
up so is the interest and if those cars
sit the the expense grows for the car
dealer like but you know car dealers
don't sit around and feel sorry for
themselves they'll adapt just like they
did uh when they had no inventory um
hope the manufacturer supports them um
there's obvious challenges with selling
electric vehicles right now um no one's
buying them um and and and you get a lot
of people argue oh they have record
sales and blah blah blah record sales
yeah but you're it's like it's like I
always say when I started my business
and we got to a million dollars in
Revenue to go to two wasn't hard but
when you get to 10 to go to 20 is very
difficult
so they had no way to go but up is what
I'm saying with the electric vehicles
like you sell 100 the next year you sell
200 that's 100% increase they can make
it sound really exciting but it's still
a fraction of what's being sold um
internal combustion engines are still uh
especially economical ones are still in
very high demand whether it be new or
used um and people aren't just jumping
on the electric bandwagon so these are
all challenges dealers have to deal with
and to provide a good customer
experience through all
that is not
easy and we're feeling it at stolid
because we have like our business has
become very complex uh a lot more
complex than in the past where we just
needed the book
appointments now we have to look at
incoming Vehicles we have to look at
what's actually available on the ground
and what's not we have to understand
credit is a challenge now uh and a lot
of people are worried about getting
approved payments are too high
uh and dealers so what we've done at
strolid is we're we're Bridging the Gap
between that customer and our dealers
and we're trying to train and help
motivate and educate our dealers on like
you need to help us with this
now you know we're not only getting
appointments we need your help and you
know
um it's getting back to we need to move
metal which is good for us because
that's our wheelhouse where we can book
a point ments the challenge is getting
them approved and getting them you know
and all that so these digital retailing
tools can't understand all of that AI
can't understand all of that
yet and so you still need someone that
can look at a deal and say hey there's
an opportunity here even though the
customer said they wanted this maybe we
can call them back and talk to them
about that and give them a reason to do
this temporarily I mean de OMS are
coming out with like 12 month leases now
which and 24mth leases again which I
think is smart because you need to get
that trade cycle going again yeah do you
think that the digital retailing
piece um has been more helpful or
harmful in the past five to seven years
however long they've kind of been
pushing them out there it's been gosh I
think wasn't it Cox that had kind of the
first one that came out I think I was
still a soand so website provider when
the first one came out because everyone
was going all the big website providers
were going to put theirs in but anyway
it doesn't matter so it's been at least
sevenish years since the first one was
available out there do you think they've
been more helpful or harmful to like to
the customer service perspective
definitely helpful um but it has isn't
it isn't the
answer it's a uh you know the
interesting part of that question is
something I think we should talk about
at Digital Dealer is the empowerment of
your staff because what's interesting
about digital retailing tools is you
dealers have have empowered these tools
to give customers information yet their
employees aren't able to answer the same
questions that a digital retailing tool
can answer in a lot of cases
so I'm sure there's a lot of progressive
dealers out there that may be and I know
one in particular that include the
digital retailing tool as part of their
sales process when the customer's in the
showroom um and we've helped dealers um
with messaging to the consumers trying
to drive them to tools like their trade
if they want information or um payments
and things like that um but what where
the challenge becomes uh the challenge
comes in is the customers
haven't the vast majority of customers
haven't adopted that digital retailing
process as a way to buy a car yet and
they still have questions and they they
have trust issues about you
know buying it now yeah um and they're
using it to educate themselves I think
which is helpful that's why I say it's
helpful but they're not using it to buy
cars so when you talk about
transparency um
it has probably put consumers in a in a
better place in terms of feeling
comfortable understanding payments and
things like that the challenge is what
they see on that tool might not be what
they end up with at the end I think
Toyota came out with a study 10 years
ago or more that you
know the average customer that submits a
lead for a new car 42% of them end up
buying a used car
so what does that tell you
Sean just because a customer starting a
process down a digital retailing tool
doesn't necessarily mean that they're
honed in on the car they want to buy
maybe they start off with one car and
they realize hey that's out of my budget
I can't afford 500 a month let me look
at some other Alternatives and that's
where where critical thinking in a
salesperson comes in or maybe you you
you have a the digital retailing tool
tells you you know you've missed some
payments on your credit card so you're
at a 14% interest
rate but an fni manager can look at your
credit bureau and say well you've made
all your payments on a car I can get an
exception and get you to a 9% interest
rate like a digital retailing tool isn't
going to do that or digital retailing
tool spits out data from the auctions
and trade tools and all that and says
your car is worth 10 grand um and the
dealer only wants to give you eight or
maybe they can give you 12 if they see
it and it's you know you've taken
exceptionally good care of it or they
know they have demand for it or whatever
so those are the types of things that a
digital retailing tool can't
do and you mentioned this just a couple
minutes ago but all of these most of
what you're talking about for me as when
I put my consumer hat
on these are trust building um
components of that relationship of the
Rapport building all trust right you're
going we're going to talk about how much
you're going to value my trade in it's a
trust Factor I'm going to think you're
full of it or I'm going to think you're
giving me a fair deal most not all there
I would say most people have some idea
of either what they think their car is
worth or they've actually done some sort
of KBB evaluation and so they've got
some idea of what they would take for it
or what they think it's worth sure
whether they used a tool to come up with
a market value number or not that's one
area of trust but but all of what we're
talking about here and I think this is
probably one of the big factors is why
all of the digital retailing tools don't
really boast um significant percentages
of people that go all the way through
that process for things that you're
mentioning there are several points
along that journey and that's the
journey with the dealership so however
they got there through marketing efforts
then they get to and we talk about this
relative to your business this life
cycle with the customer right that's
happening starts when they submit a lead
they make a phone call now they're
inside of the ecosystem of communication
with the dealership if they chose to and
they got there into a digital retailing
tool that digital retailing tool now is
basically
expected uh to secure these points of
trust all along the way that keeps
bringing me closer to yeah let's let's
do some business together and that's
difficult to do because of a lot of
factors and it may be different for me
than it is for other people but I know
for me it's a lot of money right I'm
going to now start spending whatever
$600 a month or whatever the average car
payment is these days it's high yeah
affordability has become a real issue
over the last several years so as I'm
journeying through with a a dealership
in their technology if it misses a beat
or two you might have allowed your
digital retailing tool to compromise my
ability to trust you right and I don't
hear a lot of people I'm sure people are
talking about that but I don't hear a
lot of people talking about there's
probably a place to blend these things a
hybrid approach if you will because
there's too many points along the way
where you just mentioned this as well
the critical thinking or the dealership
thinking to be even more specific the
Nuance that goes on inside of a dealer
some human being that's been doing that
like you for decades you're going to
know right off the top of your head like
I need to address that because that's a
concern for the customer and I don't
think that the technology has caught up
to being able it's not so much the
technology Sean it's it's the it's
selling selling to me is a science and
it's also requires you to kind of
understand different people in different
situations we talk about meet and greet
needs analysis and all those types of
things but ultimately
it's about respect for the customer's
time and that dealers that understand
what I just said will succeed into the
future and the ones that want to drag
them through a long drawn out process
are going to fall behind and this
technolog is moving rapidly but I don't
think dealers have to worry about being
on an AI program or digital retailing
tools as much as they have to kind of
refocus how do we save our customers
time because a commitments this every s
sale is a is is a is a
um the in order to sell you need to gain
multiple commitments from a customer not
just the sale not just the close and
commit to buy first is
time they need to give you their time
and you need to respect that and then
you need to find and explore ways to
work together and you know are they do
they like the product do you have the
product that they like you know and then
you got to collaborate with them and you
know come up with Solutions if it isn't
exactly the car they like you need to
kind of understand that and give them
you know valid reasons why they should
consider that um and if you can do all
those things and resolve all their
concerns um in proposed Solutions right
those are all commitments on the
customer's part if you can do all those
then you can
close the sale um and so a digital
retailing tool can't possibly respect
all of those
steps right and AI can't yet and I don't
know if AI ever will because some of
that comes with a lot of experience it
comes with people's uh you know there
are I I talked about this in the last
podcast but there are basically three
sections of your brain right you have
the the the part that I can train you I
can sit here and teach you what I just
said and I have a a saying in my
meetings from uh the movie White Men
Can't Jump you can either listen to me
or you can hear
me because a lot of people listen but
they don't actually hear what it is that
I'm saying right and so what am I what
what should you be hearing time how do I
save my customer more time so asid's
whole initiative is to find ways to help
dealers speed up the process to help the
customer save time because that
commitment is so valuable
and uh we sell time to our customers by
you know by working with us my job here
is to make your visit more enjoyable and
and efficient and what I'm going to do
is give you the name of one of our
managers that way then when you get to
the showroom you won't need to repeat
yourself all the information of
everything discussed will be ready for
you and then the dealer needs to play a
part in that right obviously and and
actually do that for the customer um a
digital retailing tool everybody's
perception is it's saving the customer
time yet no one's buying the car through
the
tool well less than 2% are maybe that
grows to 10% Sean from my understanding
of marketing and you're a marketing guy
you probably know this better than I do
but isn't it like you need to get to 18
20% before you get Mass
adoption yep yeah well we're not there
yet no
yeah Bing shed a lot of blood yeah and
until people are willing to say I'll
take the 14% interest rate instead of
trying to have the dealer help me get a
nine or I'll take the eight grand for my
trade when the dealer might be able to
give me 10 um or I you know there's a
there's a bartering part of this right
like like housing um used to be able to
go and make an offer in a house now
they're selling faster than they can no
one's saying that the real estate agents
or the owners of these homes are taking
advantage of the people buying the homes
it's just the market you know what I'm
saying so like and the market shifts and
you need to be able to adapt and shift
with the market and we try and to work
with our dealers to do that um but you
know anyway that's a good um place to
park that comment it's like there are
steps to a sale that require critical
thinking require emotional aspects and
require your ability to listen and kind
of move in different directions with the
customer and that's something I don't
think AI can do yet maybe hope retired
when it figures out how to replace human
beings well it you know we we and we've
touched on this just a little bit in in
episodes on the AI on the artificial
intelligence side of things and
automation rules and there have
been uh plenty of people saying they
have ai when they just have kind of
advanced automation uh rule settings
within whatever their tool or service is
and now they're you know there's all
kinds of AI and everyone's you know
playing around with chat GPT and other
there's just so many tools it's
mind-numbing but when it comes to uh our
industry and AI specifically customer
service um I you know you shared with
this
before around the sentiment analysis
right
so a digital retailing tool um maybe
there's one that's starting to
incorporator thinking about this but I
don't think they have any idea of uh how
to understand the sentiment of the
customer as they try to use that tool um
and so much happens when you begin to
communicate with the dealership and how
you are you
know how fast you respond to them do you
have the answers to the right questions
like you've mentioned before there's
just so many nuances so many
variables um do you think there is a
place or where do you I know you know
there's a place for it where do you
think one of the most significant places
that will improve the customer
experience will be relative to AI for
dealers to glean Insight that will help
whether they're using a Dr tool whether
they're using that plus people whether
they don't use one AI is going to have a
role in a lot of this that that impacts
the customer experience do you have any
thoughts on where you think that some of
the most significant places are going to
be yeah well I mean from our perspective
yeah
um so first of all I don't want to make
it sound like I'm anti- AI you know we
grew up in a generation Sean um where we
got to see life before and after
technology right um yeah and so I was
always intrigued like when the internet
came out there were a lot of people
afraid of the internet clearly I wasn't
I embraced it and built a career around
you know um BDC and and sales uh process
and and a lot of that was due to
advancements in technology advancements
and marketing and lead generation and
all that kind of stuff and I always
embraced you know social media I
embraced
um um you know Big Data I'm a data guy
first um and then sales obviously but
I'm also um a problem solver I love
solving problems and I liked making you
know I used to have teachers in school
they used to say I was lazy it wasn't
that I was lazy I just didn't like
working on stuff that had no benefit to
me like how does how is this going to
make my life easier learning algebra for
example
right and and don't get me wrong I was
probably dead wrong and I hope there are
no young kids listening to me saying oh
I don't need to go to school I could be
a successful business guy but the point
is I'm always looking for
shortcuts because I don't like working
in a c
room I don't like U all the tedious
button pushing and and all that I like
talking to people I like the emotional
connection I like the The Thrill of the
sale right like I love being able to
help a customer because selling is all
about helping I want to find a solution
for you I'm a Problem Solver and when I
do that I want to close you and sell you
and so that get that kind of stuff gets
me really really excited and where AI
can play a part in all that is I can't
possibly run a dealership or a company
like stald or any other company for that
matter and listen to every single
interaction that comes into my
business and hope that my people uh
handle customers the way I want them to
um all the time you know we've all often
told dealers that come and and speak to
us like we're not perfect we're human
beings but we do have a process and the
process is consistent and we follow it
consistent what that does is it it
produces data that you can rely on when
you're making marketing decisions or
you're looking at inventory and things
like that and we provide a ton of data
to our dealers but there's certain
things that I can't um look at because
I'm not a robot I can't ingest a whole
you know 45,000 leads and you know 100
100,000 Inn outbound phone calls a month
like that's kind of what we're getting
here but AI can do that for me MH and it
can also understand the sentiment of all
those conversations so I can look at
just customers that maybe were upset I
can look at customers that are engaged
and why we didn't get an appointment
because frankly a lot of leads that
dealers get there's no engagement and
that's why their appointment set rates
are low it's has nothing to do with the
BDC or the salespeople if you're
following a process that's consistent
and the customer just never picks up the
phone responds to an email or responds
to a text so AI can examine a ton of
data which I can't do and then give me
some indications about what's happening
and it's not always 100% right but being
a data person you know um that when
you're looking at large amounts of data
there's a bell curve right there's
outliers you want to examine those
outliers to find out like why is this
person an outlier why is this person an
outlier and hopefully most of it falls
within the scope of what you're trying
to accomplish and then you understand
that you know the the the data points to
make decisions um on what's happening if
things are shifting for example we're
ingesting a lot of leads stald can tell
when the Market's down and Lead volumes
are dropping or call volumes are
increasing or are dropping and at a m at
a bigger scale than a single point
dealership can and and to
me um I'm excited about what AI can do
because we're summarizing these
conversations and we're going to be able
to push them into crms in the first
quarter of this year our dealers are
going to be thrilled with that because
instead of having my people type in um
all the notes of what they talked about
that's enough efficiency it saved my
people time but it didn't replace their
job of talking to the customer you know
another thing about that I found very
interesting recently I I shared this
with you already uh offline
but I you know didn't realize that a lot
of these so-called AI companies that are
popping up they're nothing more than hey
Mr dealer give us answers to a whole
bunch of questions so our tool can
respond the way you want them to resp
respond I'm like really that's that's
your AI like CU it's really all that is
is you know I mean the AI has to
understand the question
right but then the responses are
predetermined in a lot of cases it is
that way and and and it's kind of funny
that I'm like H that's not as scientific
as I thought it
was that's not like uh out of space like
alien stuff like I thought it was so
what we're doing is we're actually
taking the conversations that are
actually happening not what the dealer
thinks is happening but what he thinks
you should say these
conversations are now being ingested
into various AI machines so you can call
us AI but we're more more like robot
food as Thomas calls it we're feeding
the robots the data and it's telling us
what's actually happening which is
really really exciting so that's stuff
that we're working on as you know and
that's all stuff that I wish we had in
place today but it's coming along really
well well you know on a smaller scale um
there's a couple things just in what you
shared that a couple light bulbs went
off for me not in just our industry but
many Industries over the last call
it 10 to 15 years uh they we started to
hear people talk about Big Data you know
and then people were like okay big data
what do you where does it come from what
do you do with it and then people
started to talk about well you need you
know able data things that like it's not
just big data it's data that tells you
hey this is one an
issue maybe it's good maybe it's bad but
it sets up what you should do this data
lays it out for you and on a smaller
scale people that have started to use
for example chat GPT that seems to be
pretty common for a lot of people now um
you you're essentially uh prompting chat
G GPT um to write something um based on
your prompts and you can be as simple as
you want and get you know it's a decent
result because you didn't ask for
anything other than you know write me a
short story about Curious George going
to the zoo and seeing a monkey that
looks just like him or something like
that and all of a sudden oh it just
writes a cool little story but what I'm
finding the more that I you know
learn is that it's just like what you
said when you have a lot of data right
and you have the capability of an AI
engine that can interpret normalize you
know
segment uh understand sentiment like
there's just so many different things
you can ask it to do chat GPT just
smaller scale if you prompt The Living
Daylights out of it you get a better
result and so if you take the Curious
George Goes to the zoo and you gave it a
lot more detail and you said maybe in
500 words or more
said and I want the story to feature uh
you know a a little Side Story that's
happening between Curious George and his
owner and so on stop you for a quick
second though what you what you're doing
is you're feeding it information and
then it's re you know rethinking through
it but you have to feed it something is
my point what I was saying earlier like
it's not going to just know unless you
feed it what you want it to say and then
the next person that comes along might
have the same idea as you but might
interpret it different to the machine
because they're a human and not not
everybody's going to tell chaty PT how
to rewrite Curious George the way you
asked it to and then and then the result
you get you might look at which I do
with chat gbt all the time I think it's
too fluffy to be honest with you for me
it can't write like emails or like
meeting notes or or or um um like I
asked him to write a meeting for my
leadership call and it was just way too
like they they would know that's not me
talking right right so yeah I mean I the
the interesting part about what we're
talking about though Sean is the
information the Big Data the the cdps
that are now another buzzword out there
digital retailing um all it's doing is
telling us
things um it's not selling cars but it's
telling us things that we need to take
action
on and that's where the human being
comes in yeah who takes the action who
feeds it the information who what is is
that information that's um that you that
the input is the output what you want um
and do you need to adapt and change that
because you know this my my son is at
University of New Hampshire and and and
and um some kid I saw build an app U
that can tell whether you used AI to
write a paper
and I told my son I'm like you better be
careful if you're using chat PT in
college he says oh no they they have um
the ability to know if you used AI or
not and I'm like how like because I
could go in and have it spit out
information and then rewrite it with
this you know the concepts that they the
structure that they put it in and I
could go in and and rewrite some of it
so I'm not afraid of AI budy like I'm
excited for it I think it's the next
internet reol ution it's just some
there'll be winners there'll be losers
there's be some people that make it
sound bigger than life and there'll be
some people that put put it to practical
use and to help their businesses and
help their People Help training I mean
there's so many opportunities with it
that I don't even know where to begin
I'm like a kid in a candy store right
now trying to figure out what I can do
with it because it's so exciting to me
it's not scary at all the only thing
that scares me is you know that the
people out there can can can can um use
it for you know milicia
things um and that's a big worry I I
think everyone should be worried about
that kind of stuff
but yeah that gets um that's a whole
other podcast but the when people start
talking about neurolink you right and
Elon Musk plugging neuralink into
people's brains and I think they're
already doing that type of testing and
they're about to start now find good
luck trying to plug something into my
brain
Sean that's the whole point like who's
to let him do it like you know uh I I'll
tell you one I saw that was really scary
um is like kids post videos on social
media uh of themselves talking there was
one where the guy the some criminal
basically took the voice recording and
used that Voice recording to mask a
message to the girl's family saying we
have your daughter and we want a million
dollars uh and then in the background
she's like Daddy please pay them all
they want and stuff like that and it was
her voice I have heard it wasn't her and
I'm like oh my gosh like yeah there's
going to be a lot of Criminal Minds out
there that are going to take advantage
of some of this technology there's no
question that that is a threat in and of
itself is going on um yeah a lot you're
not the first person I've heard talk
about that type of example where they AI
the voice and then they which is
absolutely is there any criminal in has
there been any increase in in in cyber
criminal activity since the internet
emerged of
course yeah it's it's going to happen
with AI too it's just a matter of
hopefully we have smart enough people in
the government that can you know figure
out how to Shield us from some of this
stuff you know I'm
just after Digital Dealer not to get way
into outer space here but what Thomas
invented which is the vcon is a
conversational standard so it's
standardized conversational data the
reason the ietf is interested in it is
because it has the ability to mask
personal information and your voice is
personal information your fa is personal
information as well as your social
security number date of birth and and
other things that you you might share
through like a a wave file so we have
we're we're in front of that at stald
we're like at The Cutting Edge of that
and that's really super exciting even
though most people aren't paying
attention to it yet Thomas is thank God
and I'm blessed to have them here and um
we're doing a lot of good stuff with
robot food but that's one of them is we
can prevent you know people from taking
consumer
information well all of that that's the
perfect place to end the episode because
that's all perfect I agree with you I'm
not I mean there's parts of AI outside
of um AI as a tool set for our industry
and many others that stuff doesn't scare
me at all I I'm excited by it I lose
sleep over it because I'm literally uh
either using learning or getting better
at a lot of different AI tools for a lot
of different reasons and so I love that
I'm like you I'm excited about that um I
also and I think you and I definitely
agree and you're already talking about
how you guys are are there AI is going
to be a great thing uh as it relates to
the customer experience inside of
dealerships it'll just be it'll become a
matter of
um choice for dealers to recognize and
when they decide that they that's where
the direction they need to go into and I
would say I think every dealer as they
consider customer experience and all the
things that we talk about Omni Channel
um is did digital retailing serve us is
it serving us as well as it can I think
we all know that it's not and I think
that what dealers hopefully are seeing
and we talk about a lot is this next
wave of uh you know technology or let's
call it AI it's going to have a huge
impact on the customer experience and
depending on where you stand on it and
how soon you start to adopt it and
figure out how to um make it work inside
of your business will determine how soon
it starts to pay dividends because I
think it will definitely I think it will
I I would say that if I were a dealer my
advice would
be to not um shy away from it embrace it
and see what parts of it you can use to
help improve your business uh and
there'll be more and more coming so
don't get overwhelmed by every
salesperson that pitches you with an AI
Tool uh and think that they have the The
Missing Link um to your success um it
it's it never is it never has been uh
even the tools we're building I think
dealers are going to love it however
they're going to have to take action on
that information for it to work properly
you know what I'm saying so like it's
not going to just sell cars for them
it's going to help them identify car
buyers at a at a higher rate uh which is
excellent uh and I'm sure we'll figure
out more stuff that we can build out for
dealers as time goes on um I'm still a
data gu so there will be segments of
data in our dealer portal but I'm I'm
looking forward to talking more about
this at Digital Dealer when we when we
get out there me too before you know it
we'll be out there in Vegas um talking
about it so hopefully everybody's
enjoyed this podcast episode and if
you're going out to Digital Dealer in
Vegas um make sure you uh go out of your
way to come and see us uh our our panel
is at one o'clock on Wednesday so uh if
you have questions about that you can
reach out to us if you have questions
about this podcast episode if you like
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as I always say we still like to hear
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you can also email any interested uh
information to us at info atd.com and
until next time stay strong and solid
and you'll never miss until next time
thanks