Ben Okuka, Head of Product at STELLA Automotive AI, recently sat down with Brooke Furniss, Host of Facts Not Feelings, to discuss how Conversational AI is transforming customer service in automotive dealerships nationwide. Ben's motivation for customer service transformation stems from simply asking the question, "How can I help make sure that the next person walking into this dealership to buy a car or service a vehicle has a really great experience?" The full podcast is linked below, but for those who don't have time to listen to the entire recording right now, we've selected our Top 5 Takeaways.
1. IVR is not DVA.IVR is interactive voice reception. The technology has been around since the late 1960’s and uses a couple of switches to operate. If you want sales, press one. If you want service, press two. A computer generates the audio and options, but they're just preset selections that cannot be changed without manually updating the settings. There's no intelligence behind it.
A digital voice assistant (DVA) like STELLA is sophisticated, artificial intelligence. Conversational AI means it can understand what is being spoken. She retains the words in memory, takes in more information, and is able to speak back to you. You actually have a dialogue like you'd have with a human being. Do you want service? Sure, she can understand your asks, your intents, and helps you get to where you want to go. A digital voice assistant like STELLA understands and helps in a very graceful and professional manner.
2. Customers benefit from STELLA.You want your customers to get in touch with your dealership easily. AI allows that without the stress, frustration, or wasted time of a standard phone call. At one ring, STELLA is talking. And, if you're a known customer, she identifies you and starts working on what you need. If you want an appointment, STELLA starts to book it and you're done in two minutes. From a customer experience perspective, that's awesome.
3. Employees benefit from STELLA.STELLA saves employees time. Call volumes have steadily increased over the years. It's somewhat ironic. Given all the tools at our disposal, customers are still choosing to use the telephone. Dealerships must find a way to meet the demands of increasing call volumes. That's one of the beauties of what STELLA does. She alleviates that bottleneck of not being able to answer all of the phones at the same time. No one has time to listen to voicemails when there are customers waiting in the lobby of the dealership, so let STELLA handle those calls and book those appointments. As one dealer said last week, "The phones are quiet, but our service bays are full, and it's just a better experience all around".
4. STELLA helps dealerships treat customers like gold AFTER the sale. If automotive dealerships lose customers between Sales and Service, the lifetime value of the customer will never be realized. Why not use STELLA to close that gap? When dealers lose 70% of their customers after the sale, why not leverage STELLA to move that needle? By professionally handling the after-sales experience, STELLA helps dealership employees develop long-term relationships, increasing the long term value of that customer. STELLA has learned the automotive language and knows over 250 OpCodes – which is better than most humans!.
5. Customizing STELLA for each dealership is easy!
Onboarding is straightforward. STELLA receives a dealership's phone numbers and OpCodes, and the dealer can customize the messaging experience. STELLA integrates into the dealership's scheduler, so rules about advisor responsibilities and bay assignments are properly handled and respected. STELLA looks at available slots and returns options back to the customer. The customer makes a choice. STELLA follows the rules of the dealership - not the other way around.
For more takeaways and insights, be sure to listen to the full podcast. To get started with STELLA in your dealership today, visit: https://www.stellaautomotive.com/meetstella
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