The auto dealership industry has adopted AI chatbots on many sites.
The way they’ve done it contributes to the perception of one of the principal perceived problems associated with dealing with car dealerships.
That it can suck.
Basically, the bot answers questions as a named assistant. I had Leah and Monica on subsequent days. I suspect my wife would have had Chad and Biff if she'd been the one exploring.
Anyway, the Bot isn't obviously AI until you ask a question that requires a specific answer.
In my case, when I offered three specific appointment times, it responded with the dealership's hours. That's when I knew I wasn't dealing with a person.
However, the next step is where the dealerships get it wrong in my estimation.
It’s because the Bot’s routine didn’t include a fundamental question: “Do you already have a salesperson you deal with at our dealership?”
Look, anyone who’s worked in sales of any kind knows that the end of the day, there’s a difference between a “customer” and a “client”.
A customer is a transactional type of buyer. Usually a one-off. No prior history, likely no future history.
A client is someone who DOES have a history with the dealership. They’ll approach their contact at the dealership first if they have questions.
However, the way dealerships have implemented AI, it doesn’t reward the dealership-client relationship. It prioritizes the transactional customer interaction.
What the AI does is hand off the question to an order-taking salesperson, usually new, who’s always on their phone and will react in a Pavlovian way to a notification on their phone.
“Someone wants to buy a car!”
“Someone wants to buy a car!”
“Someone wants to buy a car!”
Leading to a text – not even a phone call – from said salesperson about the car you inquired about.
Last week, when this happened to me, I was under the impression that my existing connection at the dealership wasn’t working on the Used Car side of the dealership.
When I got to the dealership, I was met by the salesperson who responded to the lead, AND my existing connection. My existing contact was super professional as always, and simply asked why we hadn’t called. He then explained why HE didn’t get our message, which is that the AI simply broadcasts a notification within the dealership system, and whichever over-eager phone-dweller responds first gets the lead.
Had I not been lazy or rushed in my search, I might have thought to reach out to him first to check if, in fact, he was working with both used and new cars.
There were a few consequences to my using the AI.
First, and most importantly, the dealership’s implementation of AI turned me into just another customer, rather than acknowledging my over 20-year association with this particular salesperson. That contributed to small, but mendable damage to my relationship with “our guy.”
If the Bot had asked the question above, I feel loyalty will increase. The recognition that the dealership values my business as a client by even asking the question changes the tone of the entire interaction.
The other consequence is that the speed of the notification and response from the other salesperson, although pretty quick, was such that we missed out on the car.
Those few minutes I could have reached out directly would have likely changed the outcome completely.
The new salesperson was professional, so this isn’t meant to disparage their skills.
My personal opinion is that by not prioritizing the CLIENT relationship, the industry reinforces the perceived Herb Tarlek "sale-no-matter-what,” and lacks the personal connection that can make car buying such an unpleasant experience.
If your business needs repeat business and wants to foster client relationships, rather than just customer relationships, then think about this when implementing automated sales solutions like chatbots. They can be genuinely terrific, but a small tweak can turn an experience from “endurable” to genuinely engaging and a win for both sides.