Josselyn Boudett, Founder and Chairman of  STELLA Automotive AI, sat down with Jason W. Smith, Head of Truist Dealer Commercial Services, to discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) is helping dealerships deliver the best possible customer experience while streamlining their operations. 

How did you get involved in AI and in developing the concept for STELLA?

I was into AI so early that we didn't even call it AI. Back in the mid-90s, I worked at Lucent Technologies where our Bell Labs delivered sophisticated data routing capabilities that could re-route and “heal” any issues as data travelled around the world. In the late ‘90s, I worked with a start-up that used peer-to-peer networking and language technology to evaluate patent claims.

Josselyn Boudett, CEO and founder of STELLA Automotive AI, and Jason W. Smith, Head of Truist Dealer Commercial Services.
In the early 2000s, I worked with the first consulting firm in the world out of Cambridge (Massachusetts) that built custom AI simulations using agent-based models (like SIM City at work). We also built search and discovery technology using adaptive genetic algorithms.

Fast forward to 2016 when my interest in systems that deliver intelligence led me to write the business plan for an AI digital voice assistant that could make sense of a company’s data and deliver a language model to talk to its staff and customers. The conversational AI system that we created became the platform for STELLA Automotive AI.

What prompted you to focus on auto retailing?

One of my investor friends invited me to a National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) show, and I went with a demo of the AI voice assistant on my iPad. I walked around the booths and showed people what was possible. Dealers and vendors were practically chasing me down the aisles asking me to bring a similar product to auto dealerships. 

What excited dealers most about what STELLA could do for them?

You talk to the STELLA AI voice assistant, as you can to Siri or Alexa. It interacts with customers over the phone, a key step in the customer’s car-buying journey and a vital element in every part of a dealer’s business. Historically, dealers have had a tough time hiring and retaining staff to handle these calls. STELLA addresses this pain point for them.

Say a customer calls the dealership and has a bad phone experience. Not only does that leave a bad impression in the customer’s mind, but dealers that want satisfied customers also need OEMs to see high customer service scores.

Dealers had hoped that chatbots would be the answer, but they failed to deliver, whereas STELLA provides a world-class customer experience.

What were some of the biggest hurdles you had to overcome to bring AI technology to dealers?

The amount of software a dealership relies on is staggering. While you wouldn’t expect a business with less than 100 employees to run as much software as a Fortune 100 company, it’s not unusual to see dealers using more than 80 different programs. It’s a fractured technology ecosystem that lacks data-sharing capabilities—many of the software applications weren't designed to work together.

AI takes on the task of data integration much differently. AI doesn't really care where the data is held and can use natural language techniques to bridge various applications and assemble the data. We’re one of the first vendors that could cross the boundaries of the tech stack regardless of the software the dealership runs.

A publicly traded dealership organization or a large privately operated dealership group could have an even more complex tech stack to support its numerous stores. AI software isn’t challenged by volume or complexity like traditional systems are. We’re able to distribute and deploy a configurable, secure product that's agnostic to a dealership's specific technology profile and meets the needs of each unique business, all on one SaaS platform. It's radical. It's exciting. And it's a huge advantage of the STELLA AI solution.

What other advantages does AI offer?

AI is a fluid product that offers great flexibility in how it can be configured. Let’s say you have two dealerships, with vastly different service operations. One has a huge service department, and they’re open 24/7. The other is small and limited in the amount of service traffic it can handle at any one time. When a customer calls to have their car serviced, the conversation with these two dealerships will be quite different.

For the large service department, the phone conversation might be, "You don't need to make an appointment. We're open 24/7, and you can come in any time. When do you think you’ll be coming in? Tomorrow? Great. We’ll see you then.” It’s a straightforward dialogue with no specific restrictions.

The small service department might have more limitations that create a need for further interaction based on the type of service the customer needs. “You have 48,000 miles on your car? OK, then let’s get you in for factory maintenance. It looks like you have a recall, too.” Or “You need an oil change? We have Thursday afternoon, or Friday morning. Would either of those times work for you?”

The software and dialog rules driving those conversations can be completely different, but our software-as- a-service AI product is able to serve both of those dealerships. We configure the product to each dealer’s specific business rules and policies.

Are there other areas where STELLA supports dealerships?

As a customer engagement system, STELLA’s job is talking to customers, finding out what they need, and matching their needs to the dealer at hand.

We support just about every area at a dealership. We serve reception, booking, parts, and sales. On the sales side, we can start with an understanding of the exact car the customer has been researching. We book test drives. We check inventory and schedule service appointments. We're currently working on a parts module and expect to be rolling that out early next year. In addition to phone calls, STELLA handles web, chat, and SMS text. All our solutions can be adjusted to fit the individual guidelines and policies of each dealership.

What’s the one area where STELLA has the greatest impact?

Staffing—there’s no question about it. Most dealerships are short-staffed. They have a tough time recruiting staff and finding the time to train them once they do. 
—Josselyn Boudett, CEO and founder of STELLA Automotive AI

Anything we can do to help to provide relief from those constant staffing pressures is a win.

Beyond that, STELLA does much of what people don’t want to do anyway. Anything highly repetitive and frequent is what STELLA does best. Employees are happy to be released from those kinds of tasks.

STELLA frees people to work on the activities that create the most value for customers and that can transform the dealer-customer relationship. Staff can spend more time helping customers, whether it’s finding the car they want or having the service experience they need. Staff will also have more time to focus on your business, looking for operational improvements or developing growth strategies to boost your dealership’s financial returns.

What do you mean by “transform the dealer-customer relationship”?

Dealerships tend to operate on a transactional basis with customers. They haven’t been able to connect all the data they have and use it to enhance the customer experience.

Humans can be linear. A salesperson can think, who are you? What car do you have? Is it still under warranty? When was your last service? Are you due for service? Do you have insurance? What’s your credit score? What’s the value of your trade-in? That’s a lot of information to gather and process.

AI is the opposite of linear—it’s simultaneously aware. STELLA's going to remember all the conversations a customer has had and assemble it all in one millisecond. So instead of answering the phone with “Hello, how can I help you?”, STELLA can answer the phone, already having some idea of how it can help the customer.

If you want your dealership to provide an exceptional customer experience, you’ve got to be proactive. From the moment a customer walks in the door, dealers need to know as much as possible about them, including if they've been here before, under what circumstances, what conversations they’ve had, and what they might need. Dealers need that information upfront, right away. They need to provide their staff with insights and recommendations to help them anticipate their customers’ needs. STELLA is about putting more intelligence into a dealership, bringing in actionable data that wasn’t available before.

So, what’s next on the horizon for STELLA in the auto dealership business?

We’re thrilled about our partnership with Microsoft that we announced recently at NADA. As Microsoft’s Copilot for Automotive, STELLA can guide dealers through the performance and management of their business, integrating phone, email, web, and chat with big data, analytics, and intelligence.

We’re eager about where we’re going and what else we could do with STELLA, and the dealers have been excited to join us on this journey. We’ve had a large group of dealers join our advisory group, and those that have bought and are using STELLA are active in providing input for our product roadmap. We feel like these dealer relationships help us keep a finger on the pulse of the market.

Finally, what’s it been like for you building an AI business in the predominantly male tech industry?

I would say it's been a privilege. It’s true, there aren’t many women in technology, especially in deep tech, like AI. People tend to be a little wary of AI and how it works, but this industry has seen, firsthand, what it can do. The auto dealer market has been very welcoming to both me and the STELLA solution. I'm proud to be in this vertical—it feels open and ready for the world's next steps.

Learn about the groundbreaking impact that AI can have on the way you do business.

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How AI is transforming the auto dealership business

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/3-ways-conversational-ai-yields-more-satisfied-employees/)

By: Jennifer Sanford
Jennifer Sanford is the vice president of marketing and industry relations at Telepathy Labs for STELLA Automotive.

It’s 2023. Your dealership has survived a global pandemic and a challenging workforce for two years. Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and every media outlet — is forecasting a recession.1 It’s been a rollercoaster the past couple of years not only for your business or your customers, but also for your staff. Given that companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable than those with low engagement2, it’s critical to get a handle on this now. The only question is how. How do you keep automotive employees satisfied and thriving at your dealership — regardless of whether you have a single point store or a large dealer group? 

While there are a lot of areas that you could tackle — pay plans and commissions, for example — there are three small changes that can make a big impact.

**1. Provide Additional Training & Specialized Skills**
Good employees want to grow their skill sets while working for your business. Investing in training attracts better employees, and helps you retain them as well. In a survey conducted by Better Buys to 2,000 working professionals, 92% said that having access to professional development was important.3 The same study also found that employee retention increases by 34% when training and professional development opportunities are provided to staff. 

With 4.2 million Americans quitting their jobs in November 2022, providing access to specialized learning can help prevent your dealership’s employees from being a part of this statistic.4

Even if you did offer professional development or training opportunities, how do you create time for your employees to take advantage of them? The answer is simple — by removing redundant tasks.

**2. Remove Redundant Tasks from Their Workload &  
3. Honor Their Time Off**
Points 2 and 3  work hand-in-hand. If your service advisors or highly trained business development representatives spend all their work hours scheduling customer appointments, that’s a waste of their potential. It’s also a poor use of the salary you are paying them. Remove the redundant tasks — the oil change scheduling or the appointment confirmations — and suddenly, they not only have available time to learn new skills, but also time to focus better on serving customers and solving complex problems. 

Conversely, if your employees are not able to take necessary time off or have a backlog of voicemails to catch up on when they leave the dealership to go home at night, they will get burned out and leave. 

So, how do you remove redundant tasks from your employees’ roles and not worry about those same tasks at night, over the weekend or during the holidays? The answer is including intelligent conversational AI in your dealership. True conversational AI is just that — a conversation that the customer has with your store. It’s not a menu of options or limited selection. It’s as if the customer is talking to an employee regardless of whether he or she calls day or night, weekday or weekend. Want to remove your appointment scheduling tasks to free up your employees? Conversational AI can handle that. Want to offer appointment confirmations over the phone but don’t want your employees spending hours on that? Conversational AI can handle that too. 

Implementing intelligent conversational AI software in your store — whether in sales or service — is truly putting your employees first. It is choosing to help your employees’ career growth by honoring their time and leveraging their individual skill sets. It is partnering to remove the redundancies so that your staff enjoys working for your dealership. Want to begin offering development opportunities but need to create time for your employees to take advantage of them? It can help with that too. Intelligent conversational AI is a win for your staff, your customers and your managers. It’s a win for your entire dealership business.  

Sources:
1: What to Expect for the Economy in 2023 | U.S. Chamber of Commerce (uschamber.com)
2: Four Ways to Improve Employee Engagement at Your Dealership (cbtnews.com)
3: The Impact of Professional Development: Exclusive Research (betterbuys.com)
4: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary – 2022 M11 Results (bls.gov)

Implementing conversational AI software in your store — in sales or service — is truly putting your employees first.

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Auto Success February- 3 Ways Conversational AI Yields More Satisfied Employees

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/tackling-the-dilemma-of-automotive-service-scheduling-calls-part-2/)

**By: Jennifer Sanford**
Jennifer Sanford is the vice president of marketing and industry relations at Telepathy Labs for STELLA Automotive.

In [Part 1](https://www.stellaautomotive.com/news/auto-success-september), we reviewed the areas where current auto dealership internet voice response (IVR) phone systems and business development center (BDC) staffing are falling short when compared to vehicle owners’ needs. Complicating things further, dealership employee turnover is about 46%. Turnover costs are roughly $5,000 for each hourly worker. Assuming a dealership has 10 BDC team members earning $15/hour, annual turnover runs $25,000 at a minimum. This doesn’t include training costs for each new employee or the cost of management time for ongoing recruitment needs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 3.5% unemployment rate for July 2022. Individuals are entertaining multiple employment options, making it difficult to maintain smooth, consistent BDC operations.

**Appointment Scheduling Process**
When humans handle inbound calls, there are three potential pitfalls: 

**1. Professionalism-** To guarantee that all inbound calls are handled professionally and accurately, managers must provide training or hire consultants to work with their teams on a regular basis. With high turnover, management focuses on new hires, limiting the opportunity to cultivate and develop higher-performing employees.  

**2. Customer Experience Consistency-** Customers experience a car dealership’s brand in many ways. Marketing and customer support, therefore, must align. This requires that all teams are in sync so that the marketed value proposition mirrors the actual customer experience.

**3. Time Needed to Handle the Call-** The average inbound caller to a car dealership experiences a wait time of two minutes and 15 seconds during the call — usually when being transferred. As each minute passes, callers are more and more likely to hang up — and report a negative review. Handle time is a term used to measure the actual time needed to process a caller’s needs. As with hold times, lengthy handle times create frustrated customers. The typical service scheduler must complete the following steps to confirm a service appointment:
**1. Answer call**
**2. Access service scheduler** 
**3. Ask name** 
**4. Ask vehicle** 
**5. Ask for the service needed**
**6. Negotiate appointment time**
**7. Confirm appointment** 


**What Can Dealerships Do?**
The perfect scenario is for humans to answer calls and route them to service managers to book appointments. Unfortunately, this isn’t consistent. Callers suffer long waits and poor customer service, in addition to leaving voicemails in lieu of setting a service appointment. A backup or replacement to human engagement for inbound calls is optimal. The primary solution is the use of AI-enabled digital voice assistants. 

Current digital voice assistants are limited in their processing ability to hold conversations and reach objectives. When enabled with real, multi-intelligent AI systems, a digital voice assistant can resolve problems and manage routine or repetitious tasks. This enables employees to focus on more complex work assignments, such as business development. Managers can invest in high-performing employees, improving retention while confident that the AI software is managing tedious, repetitive calls. Additionally, AI-enabled conversational assistants work 24/7/365, guaranteeing that calls are answered and handled on nights, weekends and holidays.

A typical service scheduling call for a conversational AI platform takes two minutes, not four, because it simultaneously accesses both the customer’s records and the scheduling calendar. Each call is handled the same, guaranteeing professional and branding consistency. It can be used as an employee back-up or as the first touch with inbound service calls.

Dealership benefits include increased appointments and fewer voicemail messages. Businesses using third-party BDC companies have seen their bills decrease as teams focus on outbound calls. 

In summary, dealerships are facing a multitude of obstacles with managing their customers’ phone experience. Among all of the options available, a smart, multi-intelligent AI platform is finally ready to help dealers optimize both their customers’ time and their staff’s productivity. 



A multi-intelligent AI platform can help dealers optimize both their customers’ time and their staff’s productivity.

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Auto Success September - Tackling The Dilemma of Service Scheduling Calls, Part 2

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/tackling-the-dilemma-of-automotive-service-scheduling-calls-part-1/)

**By: Jennifer Sanford**
Jennifer Sanford is the vice president of marketing and industry relations at Telepathy Labs for STELLA Automotive.

The current automotive service scheduling experience is failing vehicle owners. Over 80% of service appointments are scheduled by phone, even though most dealerships offer online service schedulers. Unfortunately, appointment scheduling processes are inconsistent, increasing customer frustration. 

I decided to dig into this further to determine where the process is broken and what, if anything, can be done about it. It became clear that the telephone methods currently used to book appointments suffer from numerous challenges. These unique challenges include phone systems, staffing models and appointment scheduling processes. In this article, we’ll examine the issues facing phone systems in automotive dealerships. We’ll dive into the other challenges in subsequent articles.

**Phone Systems**
Most businesses have a basic Internet Voice Response (IVR) phone system. In some dealerships, it is used as a back-up for receptionists, answering every inbound call. An IVR is an efficient and practical solution only if it:

**1.** Contains less than five menu options
**2.** Can transfer to a live human
**3.** Offers an opt-out to reach an actual receptionist if needed


Some IVR systems have as many as nine options, even though most people can’t remember more than four at a time. An IVR system simplifies the process of reaching the right person only if that person is available. IVRs cannot offer other solutions if someone is unavailable or a method to even return to the original menu options. Callers experiencing high-priority issues need the option to speak to an employee fast. Many IVRs prevent callers from reaching a human and do not include an opt-out option. About a third of callers never even accomplish their intended call objectives. Call abandonment can occur at several places throughout the process and, unfortunately, leaving a voicemail does not help. 

**Staffing Models**
Dealership owners know that people prefer to speak with live representatives, so most use some form of person-to-person experience as the initial point of customer contact, including:

**1. Receptionist:** A receptionist is usually the first touchpoint for inbound callers, but they work standard hours and are limited to one call at a time.

**2. Internal BDC:** BDC management models differ based on the dealership or group’s size. Compensation typically includes a base salary and split commission for appointments that show. When BDCs are responsible for handling inbound calls, then up to 80% of the staff’s time is spent handling those calls. Making outbound calls designed to generate new business becomes secondary. Peak times for inbound calls must be staffed accordingly. It’s no wonder that industry averages indicate that only a quarter of BDC calls result in hard appointments when BDC teams don’t have time to make those calls.

**3. Third-party BDC:** Third-party BDCs help generate new business and can also be deployed to handle incoming calls. While rates vary, all external BDCs have variable per-minute fees, which can become incredibly expensive for scheduling oil change appointments.

Many dealerships have IVR systems as back-ups but as noted above, that is a conditionally acceptable option. 

Current IVR phone systems and staffing models fall short of addressing the issue — customers want someone to answer the phone who understands their questions and addresses their needs. Fortunately, a truly conversational AI platform does both! These are just two of the areas of opportunity for automotive dealerships today. In part two of this article series, we’ll discuss employee turnover, appointment setting processes and recommendations for your store.



Most appointment scheduling processes are inconsistent, increasing customer frustration. What can be done about it?

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Auto Success September - Tackling The Dilemma of Service Scheduling Calls, Part 1

[Originally seen on Automotive News](https://www.autonews.com/video/video/what-companies-consider-when-selecting-artificial-intelligence-provider)


### Retail Special Report:
By Angelina Czarnecki


[![AutomotiveNews-SpecialReport.png](https://d3cgi8elok2uzq.cloudfront.net/Automotive_News_Special_Report_9f418dc0de.png)](https://www.autonews.com/video/video/what-companies-consider-when-selecting-artificial-intelligence-provider)



As the automotive industry implements digital tools, artificial intelligence is moving forward.

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Automotive News - What companies consider when selecting an artificial provider

[Originally seen on Automotive News](https://www.autonews.com/commentary/how-digital-assistants-can-help-retain-dealership-staff)

**By: Lindsay Vanhule**
Reporter covering dealership technology and auto retailing for Automotive News


**Companies behind digital phone assistants say they can take over some job responsibilities from humans, allowing employees to focus more on the customer experience.**

One thing I heard while meeting with providers of digital phone assistants at the NADA Show in Las Vegas last month was how the tools can alleviate dealerships' challenges with hiring and staffing.

And that doesn't necessarily mean having fewer employees.

My story this week explores the role of technology in picking up calls after hours or during peak times: improving consumers' experience on the phone and helping dealerships avoid losing business from missed calls.

But the creators of the tools — some of which take human names, such as STELLA and Brooke — say that having a machine answer phone calls also can have a positive effect on employee retention by taking over some job responsibilities, such as setting service appointments and answering questions about store hours.

"It really helps lessen the churn that you see in BDCs," or business development centers, said Tiffany Peeler, vice president of sales and operations for Proactive Dealer Solutions, which introduced its virtual assistant, Brooke, last summer.

"Their performance is measured a lot on the inbound [calls], but they're incentivized more on the outbound — but they're terrified to make the outbound calls because they're going to miss the inbound calls," Peeler told me. "By putting Brooke as a safety net in place for them, where they know they can pivot now and make their outbound calls, and if they miss an inbound, it's OK because they have this help, this additional layer of support, we're seeing these BDCs become better environments, and people stay longer and ultimately make more money because now they're making the outbound."

Filling open jobs and retaining employees has become harder for dealerships in today's labor market. To be sure, dealers can choose to reduce their overhead expenses, such as in the BDC, by bringing on a digital assistant. But using one also can allow dealers to repurpose their teams to make more outbound calls to generate appointments and provide more attention to customers who need additional help.

"There's still going to be people who don't want to talk to an AI," said Hunter Swift, vice president of product at Telepathy Labs, which launched its STELLA Automotive AI tool in February. "There are still people that are going to ask questions that STELLA can't answer, and we transfer those and pass those through. And those are the customers that usually need additional attention. But we take the easy stuff."





Companies behind digital phone assistants say they can take over some job responsibilities from humans, allowing employees to focus more on the customer experience.

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Automotive News - How digital assistants can help retain staff

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/want-more-zeros-deliver-more-zeros/)

**By: Jennifer Sanford**

There’s a lot of buzz floating around the automotive industry today concerning people — both dealership employees and customers. Refocusing on people is not a new concept but it’s popular everywhere right now. I posted an article on LinkedIn recently to discuss this and was blown away at the level of response it generated. Passionate about creating a good customer experience, I know that it takes the entire business working together to ensure customer satisfaction and retention. The high cost of customer acquisition alone should make everyone stop and evaluate their existing people processes and structures.

In automotive dealerships, there are a few initial questions to ask when evaluating this. Is everyone clear on your dealership’s specific value? Are the benefits that your store provides, both to customers and to the local community, expressed clearly? Are your products and services receiving high customer reviews? Are the customer-facing team members delivering the same value proposition that is promised in your dealership’s advertising? Is the dealership experience that’s stated on your website actually the dealership experience that your team provides?

As dealerships refocus on their people, it opens up the opportunity to create a truly excellent retail automotive experience for customers. In a recent podcast/article by Tiffany Burns and Tyler Harris at McKinsey, they discuss the “Five Zeros” associated with excellent customer experiences. 

In short, they are:  

**Zero Difference in Channels**
Retailers, regardless of the product, must deliver an omnichannel experience. In automotive, some stores still optimize their digital and offline channels separately. We’ve seen how easily this can backfire. Consumers don’t think of a dealership’s website, online advertising or social media as different from an in-store or phone experience. To today’s car buyers, it’s all a reflection of the same business, no matter how they interact with that brand. 

We’ve talked about this for years in automotive, and somehow we still struggle to get this basic point right. Consumers expect, and frankly demand, today’s online experience to match what the phone call or in-store would deliver. Is your website marketing outdated offers? Is your chat taking too long to connect with a real person at your store? Is your phone IVR easy to use to schedule sales or service appointments?

**Zero Desire for Assistance**
Speed and efficiency matter to American shoppers. Self-check-outs and automated machines have become commonplace for simple tasks. But, when help is needed, today’s shoppers still want it to be provided in person. Can your team deliver that?  

**Zero Wait Time**
The “same-day-delivery” mindset that was jump-started for consumers by Amazon is almost impossible for retailers of new cars or trucks today. What about same-day service appointments for oil changes? Can your store offer a 24/7 fast and reliable turnkey online and offline scheduling service? 

**Zero Tolerance for Inaction on Equity and Sustainability**
Consumers want to put their money behind issues that matter to them. For dealerships, this means that they want to use their money to promote equity and sustainability. How is your dealership managing the customer experience in a sustainable way?

**Zero Wiggle Room for Talent**
It is hard to hire and retain frontline retail workers in automotive. Employee engagement and experience means developing your store’s staff. Are you leveraging technology to manage repetitive tasks so that your teams can increase their skill sets? Are you using technology to help create more developed, specialized employees?

The five zeros can be implemented in any retail environment, but certainly fit in automotive today. With so many transformations and growth opportunities happening in dealerships — whether it’s because of a global pandemic or supply chain shortages — now is the time to make sure that your people and your processes are set up for future success. Take inventory of what your dealership is delivering and how technology can be used to get ahead of customers’ expectations for years to come.

Jennifer Sanford is the vice president of marketing and industry relations at Telepathy Labs for STELLA Automotive.

The high cost of customer acquisition alone should make everyone stop and evaluate their existing people processes and structures.

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Auto Success June - Want More Zeros? Deliver More Zeros

“The reception in automotive has been better than I could have ever imagined,” says Josselyn Boudett, CEO and Founder of STELLA Automotive. 

In May, STELLA Automotive AI participated in three major industry events. Leaders from car dealers across the country responded with curiosity and commitment. We appreciate the interest, engagement, and enthusiasm for the solution that STELLA offers dealerships. 


**Kain BDC (Business Development Center) Internet Manager Group**

“Who can explain the term ‘artificial intelligence’?” asked Josselyn Boudett as she kicked off her session teaching AI fundamentals to the BDC and Marketing leaders assembled in David Kain’s NSM 20 Group. No one raised their hand. She then asked if anyone was using “artificial intelligence” in their dealership. Every hand shot up. Then the conversation began. What “really” is artificial intelligence? 

David Kain knows that the term “AI” is used very loosely to describe business intelligence tools and invited technology veteran and entrepreneur, Josselyn Boudett, to educate his 20 Group. 

After forty-five minutes of highly engaged conversation regarding the features of ‘true’ artificial intelligence, the group asked to know more about STELLA. Josselyn honored the request and called one of our dealerships currently deploying the STELLA conversational AI tool. They all recognized the value STELLA offered to resolve weaknesses associated with the current phone protocol at their dealerships. The conversation became electric with ideas and questions surrounding how they could adopt artificial intelligence themselves to ease their own staffing problems and customer service experiences. 


**Digital Dealer Tampa**

“Are you STELLA?” was the most frequently asked question at the Innovation Alley booth that STELLA Automotive had at this year’s Tampa Digital Dealer conference. After a few laughs, STELLA team members would introduce dealers and vendors to the real STELLA by calling dealerships using STELLA to manage their service scheduling and reception needs.  

The introduction to the digital community at the Tampa event was successful with demo’s given and follow-up meetings planned. We will return to the Fall conference with hopes that Hunter Swift will be asked to be a speaker. AI is a hot topic these days, and AI-enabled digital voice assistant technology offers dealerships an elegant solution – and a bigger bottom line. 

 
**DMSC (Digital Marketing Strategies Conference)**

Do high quality wines and gourmet food facilitate learning? Absolutely. This year’s DMSC in Napa Valley had all the above in a comfortable setting ideal for networking.  

At this year’s DMSC, hosted by Brian Pasch Enterprises, over 100 dealers gathered to meet each other and some of the industry’s most innovative suppliers. From Digital Retailing tools to multiple AI offerings, the vendor partners offered learning highlights and expertise guaranteed to help dealers advance in the new retail landscape. 

Hunter Swift, VP of Product for STELLA Automotive AI, participated in a panel entitled “Will Artificial Intelligence replace 50% of BDC and Serice Call Center Staff?”. In that panel, vendors and dealers discussed the value of AI for employees and managers – it is not about replacing staff but empowering them to better serve their customers.  

 
For more insight about artificial intelligence, stay tuned for Q&A sessions with STELLA executives on our website and YouTube Channel. www.stellaautomotive.com/news
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftR0XbhcnkHMCKVt5yZIUw


 

 


 



 



In May, STELLA Automotive AI participated in three major industry events. Leaders from car dealers across the country responded with curiosity and commitment. We appreciate the interest, engagement, and enthusiasm for the solution that STELLA offers dealerships. 

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May 2022 Automotive Dealer Engagement 

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/stop-making-your-bdc-staff-do-it-all/)

**By: Jennifer Sanford**

Process implementation and consistency within dealership Business Development Centers (BDC) doesn’t have the best track record. Though many dealerships have processes in place for service BDCs, they are hard to manage and maintain. 

Traditionally, a dealership BDC trains employees to handle both outbound and inbound calls for the store. In the case of the service BDC, that effort is focused on setting service appointments, alerting customers to vehicle recalls, ordering parts and conducting follow ups, just to name a few. These are all individually time-consuming tasks, so it’s no surprise that new and used car dealerships have opted for extra help via automated phone systems. 

With automated systems, the options are preset: “Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Service,” etc., which, in theory, seems like it would help. But what about customers that call with questions that don’t fit nicely into one of those options? That customer gets rerouted until he or she either hangs up and goes to another store — or sends an incredibly frustrated email, posts a negative review about the store’s “customer service” or, perhaps, does all of the above. 

Even dealerships with audio interactive voice response (IVR) systems experience this problem. If a customer can’t get through the yes or no voice prompts in a timely fashion to reach a live support representative, that customer is gone. Additionally, since customer data isn’t captured in these systems, there’s no history of the customer’s concerns for an actual BDC rep to address. 

From the customers’ standpoint, the dealership’s phone system should route them to the right person or department. The problem is that purely automated systems don’t do that. Instead, customers experience inconsistent options, longer hold times, awkward pauses and a general lack of professionalism. During a recent mystery shop experience, an 18-store dealer group with a centralized BDC of just under 20 representatives had an average customer wait time of over three minutes — just to answer the phone! 

While your people are, and should be, your highest priority, simply hiring additional BDC staff isn’t the solution. Spending the time and money to hire, train and manage additional staff doesn’t make sense if their tasks aren’t better defined. Ever heard the expression, “jack of all trades, master of none”? Well, that’s what your BDC becomes, no matter how much staff you put in there.

The solution is two-fold. First, your BDC staff simply cannot do it all. There are not enough hours in the day or days in the week to handle every inbound call, and make revenue-driving outbound calls, follow up with every customer, alert customers to vehicle recalls, schedule service appointments and check on inventory. This creates a never-ending cycle of underperformance for employees, which only fuels their desire to leave your store and work for someone else. If you haven’t mystery-shopped your store in a while, I highly recommend doing it. You’ll be able to experience the exasperation of your employees firsthand. 

Second, as this may come as a surprise, your BDC staff doesn’t have to do it all. Take your service BDC for example. Would you rather have your staff handling in-bound service scheduling or outbound vehicle recall conversations? Would you like your staff confirming preset appointments or contacting customers about available vehicle parts that are in inventory?

The mundane, repetitive tasks, such as service appointment reminders or service scheduling, can be easily handled via conversation artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In addition to answering the call in one ring, the use of dynamic dialog AI, not automated systems, doesn’t limit customers’ options. Rather than being frustrated, customers have productive conversations with natural language AI technology, while your focused and trained BDC staff is targeting more important tasks for your store. 

Rather than generalists, your employees become specialists, elevating not only employee satisfaction but output as well. By lifting the burden of time-consuming, but simple and repetitive, transactions from your BDC representatives, dealerships can flourish with productive employees and happier customers. 

Jennifer Sanford is the vice president of marketing and industry relations at Telepathy Labs for STELLA Automotive.

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Auto Success April - Helping your BDCs

[Originally seen on Auto Success magazine](https://www.autosuccessonline.com/ai-for-automotive/)

**By: Hunter Swift**

## What is AI, really?

We use this to describe all kinds of technology these days- predictive analytics, dynamic chat, digital assistance, and bots. But true Artificial Intelligence, as defined by Oxford’s Dictionary, is “the theory and development of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages”. Given that definition, does your dealership’s technology actually offer you an AI service? Does your automated phone menu respond to customers’ questions? Does it even sound natural? Does it recognize vocal tone or inflections that can provide indicators of a customer’s frustration? Are there long pauses between when a customer responds and when the automated menu proceeds to the next question? A chatbot, an automated menu, round robin phone system or an automated interactive voice response system is not real AI.

### Why does AI matter for Automotive?

The overall goal for using AI within retail automotive dealerships is to improve productivity.  Today, AI can empower your teams by handling the most basic items – service scheduling, for example – that can require a lot of an employee’s time. It allows employees to focus their skills on more complicated issues, while also providing a consistent, fast, and easy experience for the dealership’s vehicle owners. Current tools that may be referred to as “AI” really don’t help ease the workload on dealership staff; they often are just used as a back up when staff members are busy. This is compounded by the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to find, hire, train and manage automotive BDC personnel. But the obstacles don’t stop there. If your dealership is lucky enough to find and hire great employees, inbound appointment phone calls can take up to 80% of an agent’s time in the store. This prevents BDC employees from being able to focus on revenue-generating outbound calls, not to mention true customer complaints, and leaves phone systems flooded with thousands of afterhours and overflowing voicemails. 

Automotive customers are bombarded with poor dealership experiences. Outdated IVRs contain inconsistent steps and extensive call waiting times. It’s not uncommon for customers to sit on the phone for over a minute before speaking to a live person. The traditional phone directory assumes that customers know exactly whom they’re trying to reach, while the automated phone tree offers a limited number of options. If the customer’s need doesn’t fit nicely into one of the preset options, that customer gets bounced around in an endless loop.

And, this is just the beginning.  As these AI tools mature, they will be able to handle more processes to empower and enable your teams. We will rely on AI for processing information the same way we became dependent on Internet Search Engines to help us get answers and the same way our grandfathers and grandmothers embraced the telephone.  

#### What’s the Next Step?

Do your research and identify where AI can improve your business.  One of the biggest pain points is in phone handling and staffing.  While there is absolutely no replacement for talented, well-trained and effective employees, we all know that we would prefer that these talented people handle important jobs.  Artificial intelligence tools can provide the knowledge and skills to allow that to happen. Using artificial intelligence to relieve your employees of mundane tasks, such as appointment setting, in favor of larger ones is vital in order for your dealership to flourish.


Hunter Swift is the Vice President of Product of STELLA Automotive AI, automotive’s most intelligent digital assistant that handles inbound calls, answers questions and books appointments.


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