Revolutionizing Sales: AI's Role in Rapid Response and Personalized Customer Care

Dealer Insights is back with more Outsourced Automotive BDC information to help dealers increase sales and customer satisfaction.  Get ready to learn more about Ai and the technical background of lead handling and automotive BDC.  Unlock the secrets to transforming your automotive sales and customer experience with the insights from our CTO, Thomas Howe.   

In a market where every second counts, we dissect the symbiosis of AI and rapid response times, promising a revolution in lead conversion. Through our in-depth discussion, you'll learn how to weave speed and personalization into your customer interactions, using the nuances of communication channels from texting to calling. But it's not just about being quick; it's about being smart and showing genuine care. We dissect the art of prioritizing with empathy in a Business Development Center, ensuring every customer feels valued from the very first "hello."

Look into the future of conversational CRM with us as Thomas sheds light on the magic of merging technology with traditional sales techniques. Imagine a world where AI not only understands your customers but also anticipates their needs, offering a personalized touch that scales. We share real-world scenarios where this tech not only avoids pitfalls but also elevates the entire customer journey—because in sales, it's the human connection that seals the deal. 

Also in this episode, we explore the influence of real-time communication, dissect the V-CON standard, and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation far beyond the showroom. As technology evolves, so must our strategies for customer engagement and dealership management. Join us for a conversation that's not just about keeping up with the industry but setting the pace for it. And remember, we're just a click away—drop us a line or post a comment, because your feedback is the fuel that keeps our engines running.

Transcript

Shaun: 0:00

Welcome back to dealer insights. We have another fantastic episode planned for you, as we are welcoming Thomas. How the CTO. It's trawled back for another. It's back to back episodes. How do you feel about that, thomas? This is.

Thomas: 0:14

I feel so much traumatized in the last one, but my therapist is working on.

Vinnie: 0:22

He was so good on the first one that we invited him back.

Shaun: 0:24

Sean, that's right that's right, that's right and, of course, you've got Vinnie back 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 straw 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 straddling 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 the V cons, 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 handling your customers is really important and you want to know how to blend and integrate the technology side and who actually is offering that.

Shaun: 1:36

So today we're going to jump right into that, but think about it as a Not later. How can we further revolutionize the speed and the real time 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 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 follow up affects the sales outcome? Seems like it might be one on one to some people. Just give us a little bit of foundation of that.

Vinnie: 2:14

Yeah, I can go first on that. So, for as long as I can remember Well, actually, since the internet emerged, in the auto industry we got this new thing called a lead, and there's lots of talk on how they should be handled and so forth. You know our technology allows us to respond to a lead 24 seven 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, the quicker you respond to a customer, more likely you have to convert them to an appointment or a car sale or in any industry. I mean could be the medical industry, the dental industry, the hospital industry. When you call somewhere and they pick up right away or they respond through text or email quickly, it basically tells you that the business cares and that that's the part that AI doesn't understand. Is that human empathy, and you know the connection that you get with a customer by, you know, responding in a professional manner and addressing their questions and concerns. So we have the CXM technology and we obviously are prior.

Vinnie: 3:46

We list priorities in the BDC. So the first priority for a BDC advisor 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 remote car salesman 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 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 to 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 mod com team who emails the new lead. So three of those communications are being done simultaneously.

Vinnie: 4:55

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. There's a little tip for all the people out there running BDCs, but we text first and 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 follow up. 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 are there other problems within those conversations, like inventory or credit and other things? So when Thomas, when Thomas decided to partner up with us because Thomas is a partner of mine the first thing I said to him is we have to understand what's going on in these conversations.

Vinnie: 5:57

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 can take over from there if you'd like, but that's what I would say about it.

Thomas: 6:14

Yeah, for sure, and I would emphasize everything Benny just said, and I would also point out that, if you 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 way of unlocking a lot of speed is to know. So, as Benny was saying, we now see a lot of things in the conversations that we didn't see before, and some of them do slow up the business process, either because we didn't know something was happening, or we can know more than we did. So I'm just going to give you one example. So, for those of you who are watching this, who are outside the automotive industry, a TO is something which refers to a turnover where we have a question that a customer is asking us that we bring it down to the dealership and say you know we need this answer, of course.

Thomas: 7:16

So there's a delay in the communication. We want to avoid TOs. We want to make sure that we can get the right answers to 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, in our own team, allows us to have answers faster. Faster answers means less TOs, means more convergence, more engagement, less time to wait, less time for that deal to go cold.

Shaun: 7:45

Yeah. So there's definitely some of these common reasons 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 operate with 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 in one particular vertical that you guys are known for, which is automotive, but where you guys are going really transcends verticals, becomes something that, for people who have technology 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 have been at it in the automotive industry for I don't know 30 something years. It's just exciting to see that you guys are developing something that is beneficial here in this industry but certainly not held within it.

Thomas: 9:00

Yeah, well, yeah, and let me just emphasize something about that this is more than something which is benefiting this industry. This came from this industry, and there are a lot of people who will tell you that automotive tech might not be to the same level as other tech. Well, I'll tell you, in this case it is. This is a case where we are. This isn't just in our little vertical. It's hitting the world in a lot of amazing and unexpected ways, and I'll just give you one quick example of that just to emphasize it.

Thomas: 9:30

So one of the people who are involved with the V-CON standard is also responsible for designing and being the architect for a lot of the 911 systems, the emergency services around the world, and so they're looking at the V-CON spec 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 involved in the emergency are using V-CONs to gather the conversations that they're having, so they can be smarter. Just imagine that in a hurricane, imagine that in a mass shooting. We didn't think about that. It's nothing to do with our industry, but that's a great example of how great things are happening that we didn't predict, so I was really excited.

Shaun: 10:19

Yeah, that's such a great point, thomas, because and Vinny, you and I have talked about this over many years of friendship, knowing each other in this industry there have been so many and it still happens.

Shaun: 10:32

It's almost like the Lather Rents Repeat, where someone who typically has zero retail automotive experience comes up with they manufacture a problem that a dealership doesn't really have so they can build a technical solution to said problem. Thomas, what you're talking about is I don't think it would be a stretch to say it's much more of a universal set of problems that what you guys happen to be developing inside of automotive addresses far. That's why I 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 cat's meow. And in fact, the problems here certainly exist within the dealership realm and in the automotive realm, but they are so far reaching beyond that, and I think that's what makes this exciting for you guys. You guys are going to be talking to a lot of people beyond just the car business. I know that you already are, but it's going to continue to grow that way and that's exciting.

Thomas: 11:42

Can I just blow some smoke up the skirt for a second, because I think it's important.

Shaun: 11:47

Yeah, it's a good time of year for that, yeah.

Thomas: 11:49

The. I think one of the beautiful things about the automotive market that is not true on other markets is a real commitment to getting a problem solved. Like Vinny 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 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 and see how business cases come from it. And that kind of entrepreneurship and research and guts is something you find in our customer set, which I love yeah.

Shaun: 12:34

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Well, so tell me a little bit about like your approach, like Strahd's approach, around you know that real time conversion and how it's really that the difference and maybe kind of where you're headed on that in comparison to a conventional method.

Vinnie: 12:52

Yeah, I want to. Just I apologize, I have myself on mute. I always try to say so, but I mean, if you look at I mentioned earlier, the BDC is in a call center. Although people call it that, right, salesforce is a CRM company. Yet Salesforce didn't invent the CRM, but they had to build a system around sales you know, salesforce right, that's their name to drive sales, to drive revenue, and so BDCs were put in place to drive revenue and to help touch customers and all this different.

Vinnie: 13:33

Over the years, the tech has evolved into 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 of these new, 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, frankly, it's been frustrating over the years up until now, because all of that technology created other jobs and other positions and other work, but yet the results weren't always better and it's like what the heck are we doing? So we always looked at the data and we try to educate our dealers on this lead sources and converting and the only way we can look them in the eye and tell them, hey, this information is accurate, as if I and my team and I have a solid team, like we follow a consistent process. So we can actually know that. And, by the way, we follow consistent process. Yet we still, because we're humans, we make mistakes, but 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 I was always after is what don't I know, what can't I understand, and how do I figure out how to do that? So if you go back eight years ago, we'll be 10 years in business and March right.

Vinnie: 15:07

If you go back eight years ago, some of this was in my head. It 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 E-Leader, we can't do this because of VIN Solutions, or we can't do this because of Dealer Soccer, or 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 entrepreneur and that's what I enjoy most about being part of straw.

Vinnie: 15:50

And what we do is we're not having somebody tell us what a problem is or their feelings or opinions. We're looking at data and 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 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 making sure their notes are proper, which no BDC agent has ever in my life wrote proper notes after a 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. We have some really exciting stuff coming.

Shaun: 16:40

One of them.

Vinnie: 16:41

I just want to mention Thomas real quick is the Elasticsearch, like not only do we have all these conversations transcribed and stored, but now we can search for certain keywords within those conversations. 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 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.

Shaun: 17:10

Yeah, and so that's what I get excited about right.

Shaun: 17:13

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 bring Thomas into, because it's such a refreshment of perspective for somebody. Sometimes it's really great to have tunnel vision when you're focused on something even inside deeply and it's inside of an industry. In your case, the problems that you're solving and the way you're I know on Camry won't see me like tunnel vision this but the problems you're solving are so far beyond one industry that how are you going to actually find 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 it's one of your superpowers. So I think that's a to me.

Shaun: 18:07

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, everyone's talking about AI, but you guys are really specifically talking about it in a way that's tactical. That's 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 would share a little bit around that synergy around we talked about this a little bit in the previous episode around just the 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 are you guys thinking about AI in terms of its assistant with your human side of agents and when they're engaging with prospects instantly, like what does it do for speed, that instantaneous side?

Vinnie: 18:59

I'll just be quick. 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 Greenpeace salesperson or even a veteran salesperson to empathize with Sean Reigns when we just met right? So?

Vinnie: 19:27

there's lots of ways we can do that now. One is obviously look at historical information, but we also have data on customers like Sean that ask the same questions as Sean, and we could do better training with our people to help them understand how to handle a situation or handle a customer like Sean, and things like that. So that's what we mean by enhancing humans, not replacing them. It's not fair to ask a brand new salesperson to understand Sean. You know to understand Sean Like I do a better job than a Greenpeace 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 we're trying to enhance that so our people know exactly how to handle situations at that time.

Vinnie: 20:28

So, for example, you've called the third maybe this is the third time you call in 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 gonna get you. Oh yeah, you did, but I'm calling back. Doesn't that feel better than? Who are you and what's your name? Could I get your phone number? Let me ask the same questions that I've already answered 15 times. That's frustrating, right? So that form of empathy and relationship building is really what we're talking about. It comes from, you know, being familiar with the person on the other end of the phone.

Thomas: 21:04

Exactly, right yeah, exactly right. I mean, that whole idea of being familiar and having knowledge and knowing what happens is really the thing that has to be. Before you can have empathy, you have to understand, you have to know what they've gone through. The thing about AI is and Mark Castleman gave us this way of looking at it and I'm so grateful for it that AI is scalable when people aren't. Sometimes it means we have a thousand. We can't listen to all the phone calls. We have AI listening to phone calls for us. That's a good example of that. Well, here's another example of that.

Thomas: 21:44

I just started a conversation with you, but I have never talked with you personally before. But you've talked to 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. 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 technology, it does. What the AI scalability does in this case for us is really make it just a perfect coaching thing, and not for people, but for this person.

Thomas: 22:37

One of the most powerful ideas I think that we're coming to in the AI world and I'll put it in straw terms is you can go to chatGPT and you can ask it please write me a sales plan for a BDC or compensation plan for a BDC. We'll write a compensation plan for a BDC and it'll be pretty darn good, but now we can say write me a compensation plan for my BDC. 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? Say what does this customer want. I want to 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.

Vinnie: 23:36

I'll give you an example, sean, of a mistake 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 the customer asked for a call back after five. Well, guess what? We didn't do call back 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 five o'clock and no one has to remember that or to type in a follow up time and then hope that they remember.

Vinnie: 24:12

I used to do a standup routine when I used to train at dealerships that you want a BDC answer in the phone calls, because I was the sales guy who would take a phone up, write the customer'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 and go oh shit, I forgot to call this customer back, like, and of course we have CRM and all that. But I think this NADA stat was 22% 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 we're letting that just fall through the cracks and it does.

Vinnie: 25:01

Even with a strong process, like Strollett has. We miss stuff because we're humans and I can tell you it's an 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 the road. It's overwhelming, they got too much going on. Something happens and we can identify, you know, when a customer has goals, or what do you call them, thomas? Not goals, but you know in the heck sheet we have commitments and commitments Like we committed to the customers, yeah, prompts, like what commitments did we make to this customer, and it basically tells us what commitments were made on the phone. You know what we're really moving towards. Sean is more of a conversational CRM.

Vinnie: 25:54

Yeah that's right. Yeah, why do you need a system to tell you to call somebody when the AI can tell you to call somebody?

Shaun: 26:01

But maybe for the first time, I would argue for the first time filling in some of these gaps, correcting some of the flaws that, as you just stated, and I'd love to hear your feedback, really from both of you. You know, the process of selling a car in a dealership is not something that anybody that consumes this podcast is gonna hear for the first time. You know, 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, vinny? You just referenced dealers spend an ungodly amount of money on advertising and marketing. I mean, not all industries have three different tiers, right? We're tier one, your manufacturer, because these are franchises, and then you've got a tier two because you've got a huge regional spend, and then you have all the way down to tier three, which is very interesting because as a franchisee of a you know, 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 seems we simplify and sometimes oversimplify, but the reality is it gets 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 getting and they will certainly this year as more of this information comes out.

Shaun: 28:05

But your approach to this is having the positive effect of smoothing out these flaws that exist. Even if you have a well-trained, outsourced BDC, there's 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 wanna 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 immediate recall of previous conversation, things that 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 of this stuff is I don't wanna say it's a snap with 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 gonna solve. It solves a lot of problems, checks a lot of boxes, just like that.

Shaun: 29:25

I don't wanna 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. 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 Talking about this and approaching us and actually doing something about it, the way that you guys are. How does this do? Am I, do you feel like that's close to the target?

Thomas: 29:56

Yeah, bullseye, I do, and I and I. I want to just put two things together that came for us for that. So the thing we should differentiate in the strawlet approach to AI, which is which is different, is we tend to use 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 all saying in advertising. I know I'm wasting half of my money on advertising, I just don't know which half.

Thomas: 30:31

Yeah right, that's it. That's an observability problem, and when I got to strawlet, one of the first things that Vinnie taught me and told me was at the BDC as a special spot in the dealership, in that it's a barometer for what happens downstream from us. We're at the top of the funnel, we see a lot, we read where the first people talk to the customers and it goes all the way in. It's a bird's-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 Observability approach to AI and our position in the natural place of the dealership being the place where we can observe the most, it gives us just a remarkable opportunity to see the business itself, not just the sales but the business, and and that is it, that's the bullseye for us.

Vinnie: 31:36

One thing to add to that is I had a dealer when we were first in business. That's still a customer of ours, but one of the things he said that I'll never forget was I love your business, but I 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 shut Thomas's point. But accountability has always been important to car dealers, right? That's why they paid for a CRM. Is it's an accountability tool to make sure that everybody's doing their job.

Vinnie: 32:27

Why no one of the great, one of the things that we do really well at strawlet is we disguise all the great things that we do, but it isn't really a 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 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 we're really making decisions on the end result, which is the sale, instead of what's actually happening. Maybe we could sell more one thing when we're doing everything wrong, but we're selling cars. Or maybe we could do more when everything's going wrong In the market, for example, but we're able to identify those things.

Vinnie: 33:23

An example would be like well, you're getting all these leads but we're not getting appointments. Well, did you know, out of the 300 leads, you got a hundred and fifty of them. Or for a car that you have a year wait on, like they don't know necessarily, know that we do and I don't know that, really, without digging through a lot of data, if I can find that but we're adding a level of transparency.

Thomas: 33:46

Is is the best way to Describe what we're doing we had some anxiety early on as we started to look at the conversations that understand stuff and be like we really want our customers to see, because not only were we providing transparency for what we were doing, they're probably providing transparency for what they were doing. So, in the result of observing us, we were also observing them and it's like you really want think people be happy when they know how many All the junk that's happening. I'm like, well, they want to fix it, they'll be happy, yeah.

Vinnie: 34:20

Yeah, we do a thing called priority follow-up 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 also 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 agent efficiency and giving our people 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 gonna get a lot from it as well, very soon.

Shaun: 34:59

Which all has a great positive impact on the bottom line of selling more right. And you know you've a couple of things that you guys have mentioned triggered a couple thoughts. You know, vinny, you've you've been at this for a long time, even before you started straw it, which you're nearly, you know, 10 years on your own. 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 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 been frustrated by, or that you understand the frustrations of dealers Over a course of yeah, you actually several decades. That naturally makes it so I can understand why you're so excited about all of that. You mentioned the 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'd 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 chats. 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.

Shaun: 36:30

And sometimes I think dealers do want to know 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 Will become even more evident the more that these technology layers are incorporated into what the dealer's doing, and so I. It's Very easy to understand the excitement, because it's almost Vinnie. I'm guessing that you can almost predict that dealers are gonna 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 and great times, Information off times.

Shaun: 37:34

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 Around things that they weren't really playing with before and you know Significance.

Vinnie: 37:52

Contrary to what my wife might say or some of the people at straw, I do listen. Whatever I will tell you, when I'm really focused is when you're when, when you're talking about something that I see and it resonates with me and I see 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. I and so one of my fears is we present these problems but we don't have solutions, because the dealers have to find the solutions. Or you know who are you showing this information to? Because maybe it's threatening to certain people and things like that. So we're gonna. We're gonna find that out in time, but I can promise you one thing.

Vinnie: 38:51

It goes back to what Thomas said car dealers are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs solve problems 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 dealing with and they got revenue. It changes in interest rates and changes 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 better.

Vinnie: 39:19

And I couldn't possibly Want any more from a company than then 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, this is obviously stuff we're not gonna see, but anything that comes in from a customer's mouth We'll see. For example, we'll read in one of our sentiment channels, you know, customer complaining that the 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.

Vinnie: 40:02

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.

Shaun: 40:16

Right activate brutal transparency click.

Thomas: 40:21

But that is actually a brutal transparency. Yeah, that is actually kind of what we're vaping based with, like, yeah, we see a lot of stuff. You don't look, but it's there.

Vinnie: 40:32

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.

Thomas: 40:39

This is what 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 stroll it is, it will be a such a experienced 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 have to decide you will. Are you willing to listen to your customers?

Vinnie: 41:24

Or are you?

Vinnie: 41:24

not yeah, and 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? It 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 Would.

Vinnie: 41:46

I sit there and wonder like People who run this company actually know how they treat customers? Mm-hmm, I wouldn't take it run in my company if I saw that. As a matter of fact, one of the things we train on heavily is 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 doesn't really matter if a franchise dealership wants to Try to hide from the expectation of their franchise.

Shaun: 42:37

It's some point in time you're you're gonna be In a position where you have to respond to what Toyota, ford, honda. They have standards and they are even if it takes a dealership a little bit longer, the franchise Itself. Those companies are gonna 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 gonna continue to explore Some of these technical themes as we even go into the new year. So don't be disappointed that we'll do some episodes. They're 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.

Shaun: 43:35

Thomas, cto of Stryledon, the call today. He's speaking at that events 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 if you've got questions, if you have comments, if you like this, love it. None of the above. We still love to hear from you. This podcast gets better when you send in recommendations and comments, so we would really appreciate that. Drop them in the comment section below, especially on the youtube versions, or you can email things to Strolid at info at Strolid comm. That's S-T-R-O-L-I-D dot com, and for more information about all things automotive BDC, strolid's latest technology advancements like V-Cons and practical AI integration, go to Strolid comm. There's a lot of information there and until next time, stay strong and solid.