Are you ready for the hardest working member of your staff to join your team?

Your newest team member never sleeps.

I recently observed an AI agent at work on a dealership inquiry. The inquiry came in at 7:35 in the morning, and the AI response in answering the customer's questions was impressive. It was natural sounding, nudged the lead along, answered the customer's questions, and followed up by e-mail and SMS.  It did all the things you would hope that a young, hungry, and professional sales consultant would do before most people have made it to the dealership.

I observed a second example for a customer inquiry at 1:00 AM. Often we are guilty of judging the quality of the lead by the time stamp of the lead submission. In this second example the AI answered most of the customer's questions, including sending a finance application, and by the time the sales manager was at work the following morning, the finance application had been completed by the customer. Notably, that customer went on to buy the ute they enquired upon.

These two AI examples start to demonstrate the beginning of the AI revolution in automotive that will give your dealership the competitive advantage.

However, over the last three months I have visited and mystery shopped over 30 dealers. What these visits and shops illustrate is that there is a large gap between the very best dealer and the worst salesperson on a bad day.

There is no doubt that high-performing dealers have strong processes, good sales consultant training, excellent use of AutoPlay (or their primary LMS), including the use of predefined standard texts for multi-channel responses or even automations, and good dashboard management.

Now imagine an average-performing dealer who throws in an eager, poorly trained rookie into the mix, who is happy to work 24/7. The high-energy approach will only highlight other challenges within the dealership and the road to sale.  The customer experience is likely to be patchy and frustrating. That poorly trained rookie is AI implemented into a dealership that is not ready. It is unreasonable to expect that an AI agent will improve your sales performance alone. It probably will help nudge leads along, but will likely expose your weaker processes and disciplines further.

There is no doubt that a well-implemented AI agent in a disciplined dealership will absolutely supercharge that dealership’s sales results. Those dealers that employ AI well will, over time, have a huge competitive advantage.

What most of us think AI can do today is probably only a fraction of what a deployment in your business can really do. Today the focus is on lead management at the initial stages of enquiry; tomorrow it will be end-to-end customer management from sales through to service for each and every customer that has ever touched your dealership. As a Sales Manager or Dealer Principal think of the items on your dealership wish list that you wish you could tackle.

·        Work your sales leads more consistently and better before closing them

·        Engaged with lapsed sales leads again

·        Transform your dealership chatbot

·        Reduce length of ownership

·        Increase service retention

·        Increase your stock turn

·        Work the parts database harder

·        Work your service database better

·      

Segment all your customer databases in order to identify high-value customers and high-value lapsed customers (and identify lapsing customers)

·        Engage better with your trade’s parts customers

·        Turbo charge your CRM

It is difficult to quantify the changes to your business that are looming from a disciplined AI implementation. What is crystal clear is that a good implementation in a well-run and disciplined business will be transformational. What is also clear is that a well-executed AI in a dealership with poor processes, poor data management, and not enough guardrails could be quite disastrous.

The question is not whether you should implement AI, but are you good enough to implement AI well?

Operational Excellence illustration by Boost Auto

©2025 Boost Auto.

www.boostauto.co.nz/read-blog

Boost Auto is an automotive consultancy working in seven main areas.

•                  Sales Training

•                  Sales and Marketing effectiveness for brands and dealers

•                  Market Insights & Trends

•                  Business planning and facilitation

•                  Operational Effectiveness

•                  Get Ready Automations

•                  Go To Market strategies for emerging brands.

You can contact us at anthony@boostauto.co.nz