Sales teams at dealerships are fielding more leads from more customer channels than ever before, barely keeping up with the pace of a fast-moving digital world. Phone calls and emails were just the beginning. Managing real-time communications on multiple channels is another matter entirely—one that many are ill-prepared for. It requires a level of organization, efficiency, and a responsiveness that even the best sales team would be hard-pressed to match. This is where Sales AI, Impel’s conversational AI platform, can help.
Our conversational AI is a comprehensive lead management platform that interacts with customers across multiple channels using human-like dialogue. It seamlessly integrates with virtually all major dealership CRMs and records everything conveniently in one place. It has improved the sales teams and customer experiences of many dealerships we work with, and it can do the same for yours.
How Conversational AI Solves Common Sales Problems
Responding to Off-Hour Leads
The sheer volume of leads coming in 24/7 via multiple channels can overwhelm any sales team. With customers making many of their inquiries at night, off-hour requests can easily pile up. Human sales reps usually focus on the hottest leads, giving up on a lead after 2-3 follow-ups. Other leads may not receive any follow-up actions, resulting in a negative customer experience.
Impel’s Sales AI, however, can respond instantly to every internet lead, regardless of what time of day or digital channel the lead comes through. In fact, as many as 50% of our customers’ leads come in after-hours. One of the key features of Impel’s conversational AI is that it integrates with all major CRMs and inventory management solutions your dealership already uses, organizing lead details and updating information in real time right in the CRM.
Sales AI also schedules appointments automatically. A customer can request a phone call or an in-person meeting at midnight for the next day at noon. Sales AI will ask for the lead’s contact details and will coordinate a call or meeting at a convenient time. When your employee arrives at work in the morning, the appointment is already added to their calendar.
In addition, Sales AI ensures you’ll follow up with 100% of your leads. In the latest Pied Piper survey, the average dealership lead follow-up rate was 30%. What impact would an improvement like this have on your dealership?
Maintaining a Dialogue with Customers at Every Stage
Auto-responders and other last generation AI programs have plagued the industry with their robotic conversations. They can’t understand VIN-specific questions or give personalized answers like a human can. However, Sales AI provides an authentic conversation that feels like talking to a real person.
Sales AI personalizes its interactions at every stage of the prospective buyer’s journey. For the people who’ve almost booked appointments, our conversational AI can reach out to them again and encourage them to book. Once they have booked an appointment, the AI sends a calendar invite and reminders so they don’t forget to show up. It even checks with customers to ensure a sales team member contacted them, so you can be confident that no lead ever falls through the cracks. Sales AI gives your shoppers a top-notch experience from start to finish without realizing they’ve spoken to an AI.
Increasing the Effectiveness of the Team
Even the best of sales teams can make mistakes, miss leads, or fail to communicate in a timely fashion. This leads to missed opportunities, delayed replies, inefficient follow-ups, incomplete replies, and other problems. And any of these issues could lead to customer dissatisfaction and a decrease in vehicle sales.
Impel’s Sales AI intelligently qualifies shoppers, handing off ready-to-buy consumers to your sales staff. Your team can avoid wasting time chasing down bad leads or unresponsive opportunities, increasing productivity and efficiency. A key differentiator of our conversational AI is that it can manage incoming questions from a variety of channels. Sales AI uses email and SMS text—the two channels customers use most—for maximum responsiveness and engagement. By integrating with your CRM, it keeps all the communication documented in the same place for a full 360° view of each shopper.
How Sales AI Has Helped Automotive Dealers
Sales AI has a proven track record of helping dealership sales teams like yours increase their effectiveness. In fact, according to our nationwide study, Sales AI adopters have seen an average increase of 25% in scheduled appointments. That means more qualified leads coming in the door, and less time juggling messages from multiple platforms.
Here are just a few of the many testimonials we have from our satisfied and successful customers:
“I was expecting there to be questions that would throw a wrench in the works for the AI, and it’s been actually really quite good at answering customers… I constantly get people that ask for Sarah (the name of our AI).”
-Graham Dallas, BDC Director, Sewell Ford Lincoln
“Hannah (Sales AI) was game-changing for us… People come in asking for her. They call for her. They insist on working only with Hannah because she’s been emailing them back and forth. And we have to explain that Hannah works from home – she doesn’t come into the dealership.”
-Gray Scott, Chief Marketing Officer, Cardinale Automotive Group
“I want my salespeople to always be in front of a customer, selling. The best time to sell a car is when you just sold one–you’re on that high and nothing can stop you. Any tool that I can use, like smart conversational AI, I’m going to use to ensure they’re always with an active high-value customer. Provide your team with the tools they need to be successful–you’ll be surprised.”
-Casey Sicher-Ford, Digital Marketing and Variable Operations Director, various dealer groups
Bring Your Sales and Your Team to the Next Level
Sales AI is an industry-leading conversational AI designed to tackle your lead management and conversion opportunities, while increasing your team’s efficiency with minimum effort on your part. If you’re ready to see the success hundreds of other dealerships have experienced, it’s time to add Sales AI to your business. Schedule a demo with us today to get started.
