S1E15: Revolutionizing Sales: AI’s Role in Rapid Response and Personalized Customer Care - Automotive BDC

Vin Micciche and Thomas McCarthy-Howe return to unpack AI-driven strategies for cutting lead response delays and hyper-personalizing interactions. The episode details Strolid’s co-pilot system, which equips agents with real-time inventory/credit data during calls and AI-powered dynamic scripting that adapts to customer sentiment. Case studies reveal how unified conversation histories reduce “tower” handoff delays by 40% and turn abandoned chats into appointments. A pivotal insight: “AI transforms lead handling from a process into a real-time conversation second saved is a customer retained.” Learn more about how Strolid helps dealerships Never Miss opportunities for dealers at https://www.strolid.com.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to AI-Driven Sales  
01:23 - Core BDC Response Principles  
04:45 - Co-Pilot System Revealed  
09:12 - Sentiment Analysis Breakthrough  
16:07 - Real-Time Inventory/Credit Integration  
22:47 - Dynamic Scripting Mechanics  
31:15 - Colorado Pricing Case Study  
42:00 - Unified Conversation Histories  
51:20 - Future of AI-Assisted Sales  
58:30 - Key Takeaways & Action Steps  

Creators and Guests

Host

Michael Donovan

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

Guest

Vin Micciche

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

What is Dealer Insights Podcast?

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

welcome back to dealer insights we have
another fantastic episode planned for
you as we are welcoming Thomas how the
CTO it's ster back for another it's
backtack episodes how do you feel about
that Thomas this is I I feel somewhat
traumatized in the last one but my
therapist is working
on he was
Fant was so good on the first one that
we invited him back Sean that's right
that's right that's right and of course
you've got Vinnie back uh in the saddle
for those of you that consume this
podcast on a regular basis or you see a
lot of the content that we chop up you
know that it is rooted in automotive BDC
but you probably also know from a few of
the episodes that we've recorded and
published in the last year and
definitely from last month's episode The
stal is beginning to introduce a lot and
share a little bit more opening the
doors popping up the hood to show you
what they've been doing in technical
development that's very much a part of
stal and always actually has been if you
think about your cxm there's always been
a component of Technology but it's going
into a completely new Stratosphere
especially with AI and as Thomas started
to share with us on last month's episode
with Vons which is really big Thomas has
already got a couple of these speaking
engagements that are popping up early in
2024 because this is going to be
something that you want to pay attention
to especially if uh handling your
customers is uh really important and you
want to know how to blend and integrate
uh the technology side and who actually
is offering that so today we're going to
jump right into uh that but think about
it as a not later how can we further
revolutionize uh the speed and the
realtime U nature of lead conversion so
first place I want to start with you
guys today is just let's just help the
audience kind of understand the the
problem or the challenge so either one
of you can go first but can you help by
just kind of describing how just
responding to those leads that are late
and that inadequate type of followup
affects the sales outcome it seems like
it might be oneon-one to some people
just give us a little bit of foundation
of that yeah I can go first on that so
for as as long as I can
remember well actually since the
internet emerged in the uh Auto industry
uh we got this new thing called a lead
um and there's lots of talk on how they
should be handled and and so forth um
you know our technology allows us to
respond to a lead 247 with a
personalized response so once again
we're we're using technology and Ai and
in some automation to enhance humans
right so we built the cxm platform why
because it's pretty obvious um the
quicker you respond to a customer more
likely you you you have to convert them
to an appointment or a h a car sale or
in any industry I mean it could be the
medical industry the dental industry the
the hospital industry when you call
somewhere and they pick up right away uh
or they respond through text or email
quickly um it basically tells you that
the business cares
about you um and that that's the part
that AI um doesn't understand is that
human empathy and um you know the
connection that you get with a customer
by you know responding in a professional
manner and and and addressing their uh
questions and concerns so we we have the
cxm technology and um we obviously our
prior we list priorities in the BDC so
the first priority for a BDC uh adviser
for us is to pick up the phone when it
rings and I know that sounds funny but a
BDC is not a call center everyone calls
it a call center Thomas and I talking
about this the other day not a call
center it's really we're like uh uh
remote car salesman um or sales people
and so what do I mean by that
well phone is the second best lead you
have to a walk-in showroom visit because
they're showing um you know an immediacy
to need to speak to somebody otherwise
they would just chat or fill out a lead
form so we prioritize that as well two
three rings or less we want to make sure
we pick up the phone not something a
dealership can do all the time and it's
not always easy the next is to call the
new
lead and text the new lead and we have
the modom team who emails the new lead
so all three of those Communications are
being done
simultaneously um well actually we text
first then call and the reason we do
that is because when we text first the
customer recognizes the phone number so
when we call they have a better chance
of picking up this is a little tip for
all the people out there running bdcs
but we text first then call and then
obviously we do priority follow-up next
which is customers that we were engaged
with that we either had a appointment or
we didn't and then the next is just
overall followup so that process right
there that I just
explained was something that we've been
doing for years the challenge for us is
are we doing it
right you know what are the customers
saying do they are we always giving them
the right answers are we always doing
our job properly or uh there other
problems within those conversations like
inventory or credit and other things so
when Thomas um when Thomas decided to
partner up with us because Thomas is a
partner of mine um the first thing I
said to him is we have to understand
what's going on in these
conversations because we can do all
these things right and still not get the
result we're looking for and why is it
why aren't we getting the result we're
looking for and there are reasons and
there are reasons that I don't think I
think most car dealers want to know what
those reasons are so Thomas you you can
take over from there if you'd like um
but that's what I would say about it
yeah for sure and um and I would I would
I would emphasize everything Bennie just
said and I would also point out that you
know if you to think about from a
technical perspective what we're trying
to address here is how quickly can we
get to the customer how quickly can we
get their questions
answered and the the way of unlocking a
lot of speed is to know so as as Vinnie
was saying you know we we now see a lot
of things in the conversations that we
didn't see before and some of them do
slow up the the the business process
either because we didn't know something
was happening
or uh we we can know more than we did so
I'm just give you one quick example uh
so you know in the uh for those of you
who are watching this outside the
automotive industry a to is something
which uh which refers to a turnover
where we have a a a question that a
customer is asking us that we bring it
down to the dealership say you know we
need this answer for us that's a delay
in the communication we want to avoid
TOS we want to make sure that we can get
the right answers the customer when they
ask the question the ability to really
understand and have much more access to
the data that's happening in the car
store and our own team allows us to have
answers faster and faster answers means
less TOS means more convergence more
engagement less time to wait less time
for that deal to go
cold yes so there's there's there's
definitely some of these common reasons
uh that are some which are human and
some are technical that are really
behind why there might be a delay and
the traditional sales models that
dealers uh operate with you know are are
hindered by those things and here you
guys are and I'm glad that you mentioned
it Thomas that there are people that
will be consuming a lot of content from
these podcasts that aren't necessarily
um in one particular vertical that you
guys are known for which is Automotive
but where you guys are going really
transcend
uh verticals becomes something that for
people who have uh technology uh
interest in a lot of different Realms
this becomes something that casts a very
very wide net so car dealers reap a huge
benefit of what you guys are developing
inside of this particular industry but
boy at least from my perspective humbly
I've been at it in the automotive
industry for I don't know 30 something
years it's just exci exciting to see
that you guys are developing something
that is beneficial here in this industry
but certainly not held within it yeah
well yeah and let me just emphasize
something about that uh this isn't this
is more than something which is
benefiting this industry this came from
this industry and you know there's there
are a lot of people who will tell you
that automotive tech might not be to the
same level as other Tech while tell in
this case it is uh this is a case where
we are we're this isn't just in our
little vertical is hitting the world in
a lot in a lot of amazing and unexpected
ways and I just give you one quick
example of that just to emphasize it um
so one of the the the people who are
involved with the bcon standard um is
also responsible for Designing and being
the architect for a lot of the 911
systems the Emergency Services systems
around the around the world and um and
so they're looking at the Von speec as
being the ability to take a conversation
to the point where it's had and send it
to the ambulance send it to the hospital
send it to the First Responders so the
people who are inv involved in the
emergency are using Vons to gather the
conversations that they're having so
they can be smarter just imagine that in
a hurricane imagine that in a you know
in a mass shooting that and we didn't
think about that it's nothing to do with
our industry but that's a great example
of how you know great things are
happening that we didn't we didn't
predict so I was really really excited
yeah I that's that's such a great point
Pras because and Vinnie you and I have
talked about this over many years of uh
you know friendship knowing each other
in this industry there have been so many
and it still happens like it's it's
almost like the lather rinse repeat
where someone who typically has zero
retail Automotive experience uh comes up
with some almost time they manufacture a
problem uh that a dealership doesn't
really have so they can build a
technical solution to said problem and
Thomas what you're talking about is um
you I I don't think it would be a
stretch to say it's much more of a
universal uh set of problems that what
you guys happen to be developing inside
of Automotive addresses far that's why
this casting this wide net but it's
because it isn't well we've figured out
how to manufacture a problem for a
specific Niche industry so that our
little technical solution is like the
cats meow when in fact the problems here
uh certainly exists within the
dealership realm and in the automotive
realm but they are so far reaching
beyond that and U I think that's what
makes this exciting for you guys you
guys are yeah you guys are going to be
talking to a lot of people Beyond just
the the car business I know that you
already are but it's going to continue
to to grow that way and that's exciting
can I just blow some smoke up the skirt
for a second because I think it's I
think it's important yeah it's a good
time of year for that yeah the I think
one of the beautiful things about the
automotive Market that is not true about
other markets is a real commitment to
getting a problem
solved like Vinnie was really clear and
he was really right about all the value
and information that exists in
conversations but also the
entrepreneurial spirit that said we're
going to try we're just GNA we're going
to roll this dice we don't need to have
the business case yet because we know
it's a real problem so let's solve the
problem see what business cases come
from it and that kind of
Entrepreneurship and research and guts
is something you you'll find in our
customer
set which I love Yeah Yeah I think
that's a great Point well so tell me a
little bit about like your approach like
as's approach around you know that
realtime conversion and how it's really
that the difference and and maybe kind
of wear you're headed on that in
comparison to a conventional conv
ventional method yeah I I I want to just
I I I apologize I had myself on mute uh
I was trying to say something but um I
mean if you look at I mentioned earlier
the BDC isn't a call center although
people call it that right um Salesforce
is a is a CRM company yet Salesforce
didn't invent the
CRM
um but they had to
build a system around salale you know
sales force right that's their name the
to to drive sales to drive revenue and
so bdcs were were in put in place to
drive revenue and to help touch
customers and and all this different
over the years the tech has evolved and
to Thomas's point one of the greatest
things about car dealers are they are
true entrepreneurs and they run their
own like business and so forth so they
had to tackle all these new uh you know
technologies that came out and what I
saw was a lot of
work that the technology caused to try
to get an
outcome and you know frankly it's been
frustrating over the years up until now
because all that technology created
other jobs and other positions and other
work but yet the results weren't always
better you know and it's like what the
heck are we doing so we we always looked
at the data and we try to educate our
dealers on you know this lead Source
isn't converting and the only way we can
look them in the eye and tell them hey
this this information is accurate is if
I and my team and I have a solid team
like we follow a consistent process so
we can actually know that and and by the
way we follow consistent process yet we
still um because we're humans we make
mistakes but we we make far less
mistakes because of the processes that
we have in place and that we follow so I
could always count on that data to
understand and make decisions what what
I was always after is what don't I know
what can't I understand um and how do I
figure out how to do that so if you go
back you know eight years ago we'll be
10 years in business in uh March right
if you go back eight years ago some of
this was in my my head was in my head
because it was a problem that I couldn't
solve for and Thomas knows this better
than anybody but when someone tells me
it can't be done I pick up the phone and
call Thomas
because I have people around me that say
oh well we can't do this because of
elite or we can't do this because of
insin solutions or we can't do this
because of dealer soccer and we can't do
this because of our phone system ring
plan and I'm like yeah we can do
it if we have somebody that agrees that
it's a big enough problem with me and
can understand the problem to the point
where we can find a solution to it and
that's what makes you an OP
entrepreneur and that's what I enjoy
most about being part of stwd is we
we're not having somebody tell us what a
problem is or their feelings or opinions
we're looking at data and we're we're
talking to our people and we're seeing
the problems every day and now we have
the perfect sandbox to go and fix these
problems and actually get make it easier
for our people and take the technology
somewhat out of the way so they can do
their job which is talk to a customer
not spend all their time clicking
buttons and and and making sure their
notes are proper which no BDC agent has
ever in my life wrote proper notes after
conversation heck like we have otter and
all these other tools to do it for us
because we never remember what the heck
happened when we were done talking and
then you expect somebody to type it down
well we have the ability now to
summarize that conversation and dump it
into the CRM and that's what happened
you know we have some really exciting
stuff coming um one of them I just want
to mention Thomas real quick is the
elastic search like not only do we have
all these con conversations transcribed
and stored but now we can search for
certain keywords within those
conversation show me all the customers
that called on a Toyota Camry you know
show me pull this customer up put a
phone number in and boom the C the
conversation comes up or all the
conversations we had with that customer
comes up stuff like that is really
exciting to me and it's stuff that a lot
of people would have told me it can't be
done yeah and so that's that's what I
get excited about right yeah a little
bit of a buried lead there I think very
smart move and bring somebody who is not
immersed drenched and pickled already by
one industry being the car business and
yeah uh Thomas into because uh it's such
uh a refreshment of perspective for
somebody it's sometimes it's really
great to have tunnel vision when you're
focused on something even inside deeply
niched inside of an industry in your
case um the problems that you're solving
and the way you're I know on camera you
won't see me like tunnel vision this but
the problems you're solving are so far
beyond one industry that but how are you
going to actually find um all of the
success that you should achieve if you
have somebody that only sees it from
inside of one industry because they
don't know any other and I think that's
uh it's one of your superpowers so I
think that's a to me that's exciting and
I think for people who are in the
automotive industry and they hear you
guys starting to talk about things yeah
a everyone's talking about AI but you
guys are really specifically talking
about it in a way it's tactical that's
uh you know that you're where you're
already executing and where you're going
and there's so much more to it so it's
exciting times I wonder if you guys um
would share a little bit around that
Synergy around we talked about this a
little bit in the previous episode
around just the you know human nature of
things and then when AI comes in how do
you bring empathy into that right now as
you guys think about this how how are
you guys thinking about AI in terms of
its assistance with your Human Side of
agents and when they're engaging with
prospects instantly like like what does
it do for Speed that instantaneous side
I I just be quick and Thomas has more to
say about this but the empathy piece is
a direct reflection of me being able to
put myself in your shoes Sean as a
customer and so how do you expect a
brand new green pea salesperson or even
a veteran salesperson to EMP EMP aiz
with Shawn
Reign's um when we just met right um so
there's lots of ways we can do that now
one is obviously look at historical
information um but we also have data on
customers like
Shawn U that ask the same questions as
Shawn and we could do better training
with our people to help them understand
how to handle a situation um or handle a
customer like Sean and things like that
so that's what we mean by enhanced
uh humans not replacing them it's it's
not fair to ask a brand new salesperson
you know to understand
Sean like I do a better job than a green
pece salesperson because I've spent a
lot of years talking to different people
customers dealers GMS owners you know
dealer groups and things like that so I
have that you know knowledge and um
we're trying to we're trying to enhance
that so our people know um exactly how
to handle
situations at that time so for example
you've called the third maybe this is
the third time you call in and and and I
pick up the phone Sean I say oh Sean I
see that you you know called us last
week did we get you that information we
said we were going to get you oh yeah
you did but I'm calling back and blah
blah doesn't that feel better than who
are you and what's your name could I get
your phone number let me look in let me
ask the same questions that I've already
answered 15 times that's frustrating
right so that form of of empathy and um
relationship building is really what
we're talking about is comes from you
know being familiar with the person on
the other end of the phone exact right
word exact great word I mean that whole
idea of being familiar and having
knowledge and knowing what
happened is really the the the thing
that has to be before you can have
empathy you have to understand you have
to know what they've gone through and
and that the the thing about
AI is and Mark Mark Castleman gave us
this way of looking at it and and I'm so
grateful for it that AI is scalable when
people
aren't and sometimes it means we have a
thousand we can't we can't listen to all
the phone calls we have ai listen to the
phone calls for us right that's that's a
good example of that well here's another
example of that I'm about I just started
a conversation with you and I but I have
never talked with you personally before
but you've talked with my company a lot
without Ai and the data that powers it
there is no way to have an
instant report on who this person is
what's happened before what we still owe
them right what there's no other way of
gathering that much knowledge that
quickly and presenting it to me as the
agent so I can really help the customer
that speed is something that AI can
provide to you if it had the information
and with our Tech techology it does and
so what the AI scalability does in this
case for us is really make it just a
perfect coaching thing and not and and
and and not for people but for this
person you know one of the one of the
most powerful ideas I think that we're
coming to in the AI world and I'll put
it in stolid
terms is you can go to chat GPT and you
can ask it please write me a sales plan
for a BDC or compensation plan for a BDC
and'll write a compensation plan for a
BDC and it'll be pretty darn
good but now we can say write me a sales
comp compensation plan for my
BDC and the difference is when I say my
BDC here are my agents here's what we're
talking about here's our volumes here's
the mistakes we're making it can answer
a question
specifically for the customer I have to
say well what do customers want want say
what does this customer want I want tell
you what this customer wants that's the
speed that AI gives to us to have the
empathy and understanding and answer the
questions and help that customer right
now I'll give you an example Sean of a
mistake we've made we made recently and
I'm not ashamed we're human so we make
mistakes but I had a dealer call me out
because we had a call on Friday and we
and the customer asked for a call back
after 5: well guess what we didn't do
call them back after after
five in our new world that's coming
rapidly that isn't going to happen
because the system is going to tell us
here's a customer that needs to be
called at
5:00 and no one has to remember that or
to put in type in a a follow-up time and
then hope that they remember I used to
do a um a standup routine when I used
the train at at dealerships that you
know you want a BDC answer in the phone
calls because I was the sales guy who
would take a phone up write the
customers's information down on a piece
of paper stick that piece of paper in my
pocket and another customer walks up to
me wants to buy a car and guess who I
forgot about the guy that I was supposed
to call back and I go home at night and
I pull the paper out of my pocket go oh
I forgot to call this customer like
yeah and of course we have CRM and all
that but I I think this NADA stat was
222% of all customers that call car
dealership get logged by salespeople
another reason why you want to use a
BDC they're spending so much money on
advertising and and we're letting that
just fall through the
cracks and it does even with a strong
process Like Straw it has we miss stuff
because we're
humans um and I I can tell you it's a
ongoing battle for you know 27 years
I've been in the business trying to
train a team and get everybody to do
things the right way over and over again
it's not easy but a lot of times it's
not their fault either sometimes it's
overwhelming they got too much going on
something happens um and we can identify
you know when a customer has goals um or
that what do you call them Thomas not
goals but um uh you know in the hex
sheet we have uh commitments and a
commitments like we committed to the
customer they prompts like what
commitments did we make to this customer
and it basically tells us what
commitments were made on the phone yeah
you know what we're really moving
towards Sean is more of a conversational
CRM yeah that's yeah why do you need a
system to tell you to call somebody when
the AI can tell you to call
somebody but maybe for the first time I
would argue for the first time uh
filling in some of these gaps uh
correcting some of the flaws that as you
just stated and I'd love to hear your
feedback really from both of you um you
know the the process of selling a car in
a dealership is not something that
anybody that consumes this podcast is
going to hear for the first time you
know it's it's been what it's been for a
long long time and it requires a handful
of things communication right if you get
engaged with the consumer so there's did
you capture somebody's interest Vinnie
you just referenced Steelers
spend uh an ungodly amount of money on
advertising and marketing I mean not all
Industries have three different tiers
right where tier one you're manufacturer
because these are franchises and then
you've got a tier two because you've got
a huge Regional Spin and then you have
all the way down to tier three which is
very interesting because as a
franchisee of a you know uh Toyota
dealership or Nissan dealership I still
have quite a bit of freedom to do some
things in my own tier three level
marketing that a Target can't do or a
Subway sandwich shop can't do all that
to say there's a lot of money spent in
three different tiers to sell and
service a lot of vehicles and within all
of that you're trying to get somebody's
attention and if I get their attention
then can I engage them and then if I can
engage them will they take some sort of
path of communication with me and it it
it seems we simplify and sometimes
oversimplify but the reality is it gets
re it's a tangled web really really
quickly if one piece of your marketing
or advertising works and you get
somebody engaged and then it kicks off
this whole process and what you guys are
talking about I really hope the audience
is uh is getting and and they will
certainly this year as more of this
information comes out but your approach
to this is uh having the positive effect
of smoothing out these flaws that exist
even if you have a well-trained
outsourced BDC they're still humans and
so you guys are recognizing well we're
almost 10 years in at being better not
because we're trying to boast that we're
better than dealers but we learned
something that now we want to help
dealers with but it's still flawed by
the fact that it's as best as we can
provide as humans it's best as we can
provide with even humans that have built
technology to help enable and facilitate
but now technology offers all of these
new doors that are going and are already
taking this to another level a
significantly increased level of
improvement around communication
engagement the to immediate recall of
previous conversation things that of
oftentimes whether it was laziness or
just man we're overwhelmed with too many
things to do where information isn't in
the CRM where it should be all this
stuff is I don't want to say it's a snap
at the fingers because I know you guys
have been working for years and you're
working hard and you will continue to
but this is g to it solves a lot of
problems checks a lot of boxes just like
that it's I don't want to say the word
revolutionary but I feel like this is a
point in time for automotive that we're
stepping into that you guys are like the
Vanguard like I I we we all know there's
a lot of BDC companies a lot of BDC
conversation a lot of BDC experts
specifically in the car business I don't
hear any of them um talking about this
and approaching this and actually doing
something about it the way that you guys
are how does does do am I do you feel
like that's close to the Target
yeah bull I do and I and and I I want to
just put two things together that came
for us for that so
um the thing is differentiating the
stolid approach to AI which is which is
different is we tend to use um our AI to
learn understand and see things we
couldn't see before it's an
observability you know problem and just
to get just you know that's whole saying
in advertising I know I'm wasting half
of my money on Advertising I just don't
know which half yeah right uh that's a
that's an observability problem
and when I got to staled one of the
first things that Vinnie taught me and
told me was that the BDC has a special
spot in the dealership in that it's a
barometer of what happen happens
Downstream from us we're at the top of
the funnel we see a lot we're the first
people to talk to the customers and it
goes all the way in it's a birds eye
view to
see not just the sales but the business
and by us sitting on top of the business
seeing what we see not
only we can observe so much more so the
combination of taking an an
observability approach to Ai and our
position in the natural place of
dealership being the place where we can
observe the
most gives us just a remarkable
opportunity to see the business itself
not just the sales but the business and
and that is that's the bullseye for
us
well one thing to add to that
um is um I had a dealer when we were
first in business um that's still a
customer of ours but one of the things
he said that I'll never forget was U I
love your business but
um I wish I could you know one thing I
miss is having people there so I can go
in and see it see them see the
productivity see the action and it
always haunted me because really that's
what we're missing is that level of
transparency to our dealers to make sure
that they understand that we're doing
what we they are paying us to do right
so that level of transparency to to
Thomas's point but accountability has
always been important to car dealers
right um that's why they paid for a CRM
is it's an accountability tool to make
sure that everybody's doing their job I
know one of the great one of the things
that we do really well at stald is we
disguise all the great things that we do
but it isn't really our a purposely a
problem it's a problem because we
couldn't figure out how to to share all
this great information with our dealers
and now we do um because frankly
we could do everything right and not get
appointments or we could do everything
wrong and get
appointments and
so how do we you know deter we're really
making decisions on the end result which
is the sale instead of what's actually
happening maybe we could sell more when
thing when when we're doing everything
wrong but we're selling cars or maybe we
could do more when everything's going
wrong uh in the market for example but
we're able to identify those
things an example would be like who
you're getting all these leads but we're
not getting appointments well did you
know out of the 300 leads you got 150 of
them were for a car that you have a year
wait on like they don't know necessarily
know that but we we do and I don't know
that really without digging through a
lot of data but I can find that but
we're adding a level of transparency is
is is the best way to to to describe
what we're doing we we had some anxiety
early on as we started to look at the
conversations and understand stuff and
then be like do we really want our
customers to see because not only were
we providing transparency for what we
were doing we were providing
transparency for what they were doing so
so in in the result of observing us we
were also observing them and then's like
do you really want think people will be
happy when they know how many all the
junk that's happening like well if they
want to fix it they'll be happy
yeah yeah we do a thing called priority
followup and when we call the customer
about how their visit was sometimes it
wasn't great but that's in the
conversation you know it's almost a
built-in CSI tool you know what I'm
saying like there's a lot of use cases
for this part of our challenge right now
is trying to get our head around what
are the what are the priority use cases
that we want to build on so our priority
at the moment is uh agent
efficiency um and giving our people uh
the ability to spend more time with a
customer more training for them and all
that kind of stuff because that's what
our commitment is to our dealers however
they're going to get a lot from it as
well very soon which all has a great uh
positive impact on the bottom line of of
selling more right and you know you
couple things that you guys have
mentioned triggered a couple thoughts
you know Vinnie you've you've been at
this for a long time um even before you
started staled which you're nearly you
know 10 years on your own I it doesn't
surprise me that you're at the tip of
the Spear of excitement for where this
is going for dealers because you
understand it you've you've been
perplexed by by challenges
problems uh for far more than a decade
that are finally actually at a point
where they're not only solvable but it's
significant Improvement to something
that you've you've uh been frustrated by
or that you understand the frustrations
of dealers over a course course of yeah
actually several decades that naturally
makes it so I can understand why you're
so excited about all of that you
mentioned the um you know ability and
almost it's a concern like do we want
our dealer clients to see all this stuff
well they do want to see it and they
they need to see that because another
thing that I think a lot of people don't
realize is that you know your business
is not responsible as the source of all
of the leads the phone calls the form
submissions the chat
they originate from other sources you're
there to make sure that the facilitation
of communication sets that up for a win
for the greatest success on behalf of
the dealer and sometimes I think dealers
do want to know um more about well where
did this originate from because perhaps
The Source in and of itself is deserves
a big pat on the back or we need to blow
some more of that smoke because they're
fantastic and other times it may be the
exact thing that a dealer needs to see
that wow this Source actually is is
harming us more than it's helping us
even if it goes into that system so
there's a lot of I think there's a lot
of detail around that that uh will
become even more evident um the more
that these technology layers are
incorporated into what the dealers doing
and so I it's very easy to understand
the excitement um because it's it's
almost Vinnie I'm guessing that you can
almost predict that dealers are going to
start to see things that they hadn't
seen before or see it in a way that they
hadn't seen before that will truly make
a difference for them really in lean
times in great times information oftimes
you know people say knowledge is power
you know okay great it's worthless if
you do nothing with it but in this case
you guys have are building things that
help dealers accumulate a working
knowledge uh around things that they
weren't really playing with before and
that's significant contrary to what my
wife might say or some of the people at
STW it I do
listen however I will tell you when I'm
really focused is when you're where're
when when you're talking about something
that I see and it resonates with me and
I see um and and I'm hearing what's
going on so I spent a lot of time
talking to employees and talking to
managers talking to the dev team and
talking to our sales team to try to get
an understanding what's what is the
problem we're solving for and once I
understand what that problem is there's
always a solution and so one of my fears
is we present these problems but we
don't have Solutions because the dealers
have to um find the solutions or you
know who you showing this information to
because maybe it's threatening to
certain people and things like that so
we're going to Fig we're going to find
find that out in time but I can promise
you one thing it goes back to what
Thomas said car dealers are
entrepreneurs entrepreneurs solve
problems um every day a business owner
that owns a car dealership solving lots
of problems not just selling cars or
servicing cars they have employees that
they're daring with and they got revenue
and changes in interest rates and
changes in in inventory and all that
kind of stuff so we want to kind of like
let them know we're here to support you
on all that and show you what you need
to work on to make your business
business better and I couldn't possibly
um want any more from a company than
than a company that can do that for me I
can tell you that right now in my
position you know that can keep an eye
on everything for me almost to a degree
I mean there's obviously stuff we're not
going to see but anything that comes in
from a customer's mouth we'll see for
example reading one of our sentiment
channels you know customer
complaining that the um that they
wouldn't discount the car and they went
down the street and bought it because
the car company discounted the car now
that sales manager who said no to that
customer does this does the owner
know that that happened I can promise
you he
doesn't or maybe he does I don't know
and maybe he's okay with that maybe he's
not but we want to show you that because
that prevented you from selling a
car right activate brutal transparency
click really that's but that is that's
actually it brutal
transparency and that is actually kind
of what we're F being faced with like
yeah we see a lot of stuff you don't
want to see it don't look but it's there
no I deal with it internally in my own
business like I don't erupt every time
someone makes a mistake but I want to
know so I can fix it this is one of my
my predictions about one of the impacts
that we're going to see in dealerships
but in every business who who is going
down this
path
that if a business decides to actually
listen to the customers as stal it
is it will be a such a experienc
differentiator that consumers will
quickly understand which companies
listen to them and which ones
don't and that sounds harsh because it
is Harsh and it's going to be actually
real
that as a company you'll have to decide
you will are you willing to listen to
your customers or are you not yeah and
and I I'll give you another example of
that you ever been to a restaurant and
you know that the waiter or waitress is
very apathetic and doesn't seem to give
a crap like do you think the owner of
that restaurant knows that that's
happening or maybe they do and they just
you know whatever may maybe they're
apathetic themselves and but it's like I
I I would I sit there and wonder like
but people who run this company actually
know how they treat
customers MH cuz I wouldn't take it
running my company if I saw that as a
matter of fact one of the things we
train on heavily is you can't work here
if you're not
friendly we don't train people to be
friendly we hire friendly people but we
don't train people to be nice we hire
nice people that that is a core of ours
because otherwise I mean you you can
make a mistake but if you're a nice
person people will be okay with that
you know yeah well and and we're in an
age now where it it doesn't really
matter if a franchise dealership wants
to uh try to hide from the expectation
of their uh
franchise
um at some point in time you're you're
going to be uh um in a position where
you have to respond to what Toyota Ford
Honda they have standards and they are
even if it takes a a dealership a little
bit longer the
franchise itself those companies are
going to care about these advancements
they already do these are not new
Concepts so I think we are finding a
great spot I know there's so much to
unpack with this and to the audience
we're going to continue to explore uh
some of these technical themes as we
even go into the new year so don't get
disappointed that we'll do some episodes
that are a little bit shorter and more
concise because there's a lot more of
this coming so I want to just give a
reminder for those on the technical side
really anybody that's interested in the
customer experience the future of CX
Expo in Fort Lauderdale Thomas CTO of
stad on the call today he's speaking at
that event it's in Fort Lauderdale in
mid-February we'll share more
information about that in coming weeks
but also just want to let you know
because we'll park the episode here here
if you've got questions if you have
comments uh if you like this you love it
none of the above we still love to hear
from you uh this podcast gets better
when you send in recommendations and
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st.com and for more information about
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practical AI integration go to st.com
there a lot of information there and
until next time stay strong and
solid