The Role of Call Center Artificial Intelligence Software in Increasing Dealership Bookings and Leads

Dealerships face numerous challenges in 2025, including high call volumes, limited business hours to answer customer calls, and a technician and receptionist shortage, which are impacting customer satisfaction, bookings, and sales. Dealerships that use call centers to handle calls often only have answering hours during typical business hours, meaning customers who need evening or weekend help are unable to get their requests handled. To solve this problem, consider call center artificial intelligence software to take over call handling to support your human dealership staff.

Understanding call center artificial intelligence software

What is call center artificial intelligence software? Call center artificial intelligence software refers to tools that enhance call center operations by automating tasks and improving customer interactions. Key features include natural language processing (NLP) for understanding human language, chatbots, and virtual assistants for handling inquiries, speech recognition for real-time call analysis, intelligent call routing to optimize agent resources, and performance monitoring for data-driven insights. Overall, this software aims to streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and improve agent efficiency.

This type of AI software differs from traditional call center solutions in that it is completely virtual, allowing for 24/7/365 availability without the need for human agents. It can handle a high volume of interactions simultaneously, providing instant responses to customer inquiries and reducing wait times. STELLA Automotive AI is a powerful example of a type of call center AI software that is designed for automotive retail.

Enhancing call handling efficiency

The main goal of implementing an AI answering service is to improve customer satisfaction and call efficiency. AI solutions accomplish this through:

Automated call routing and management

AI tools like STELLA can automate call routing to ensure customers are directed to the right department or agent. STELLA understands when a customer wants their call routed to a person or department and handles that request efficiently. 

STELLA’s technology provides the human agents with call details as well, so that they can take over the call seamlessly and help avoid frustration in the caller. 

Quick call routing and the passing along of caller information help reduce wait times and improve customer satisfaction.

24/7 availability and support

AI call management software provides round-the-clock service, capturing leads and bookings outside of regular business hours. STELLA answers all calls within the first ring, with the ability to handle multiple calls simultaneously. 

Multi-language capabilities

AI for dealership call centers also can provide bilingual support. STELLA, for example, can understand requests in Spanish, offering customers answers in their preferred language.

Increasing service bookings

A key benefit of virtual voice agents or software is the ability to boost service department bookings. It accomplishes this by offering personalization and streamlining the process.

Personalized customer interactions

AI can analyze customer data to provide personalized service recommendations, leading to more bookings. According to the Zendesk CX Trends report, 59% of consumers believe businesses should use the data they’ve collected about them to offer personalized experiences.

AI also assists with follow-up communications to confirm and remind customers of their appointments. These reminders help reduce no-shows and keep service bays more occupied.

Streamlining the booking process

AI simplifies the booking process through automated scheduling and confirmations. STELLA books service appointments in an average of 1 minute and a half and can cancel an appointment in less than 30 seconds.

Generating more sales leads

Beyond enhancing service operations, AI for dealerships can also capture more sales leads. Here’s how:

Proactive engagement and lead nurturing

AI can identify potential leads through data analysis and engage them proactively. In one example of how AI can be leveraged for sales, STELLA, Dealer Funnel, and Client Command partnered to create AutoPilot, an automotive AI offering. Utilizing outbound messaging, AutoPilot effectively targets both conquest and dealer customers, boosting revenue with minimal effort. It operates effortlessly in the background, functioning on "autopilot" to enhance performance while creating new opportunities for dealership staff to connect with customers. Without requiring any effort from the dealer, AutoPilot uses communication channels — voice, text, and email. Once the program is complete, dealer DMS data is extracted and analyzed against shopper engagement, offering clear insights into customer behavior and potential opportunities.

Potential challenges and considerations in implementing AI software

Implementing an AI solution to aid in call center operations can seem daunting, but with STELLA AI, the process is not so involved. STELLA is easily turned on and integrates with existing systems, allowing dealerships to focus on other operational tasks.

Another consideration is ensuring data privacy and security, as sensitive customer information is often involved. However, with STELLA AI, this challenge is mitigated, as it is SOC-2 compliant and is a secure, closed-platform system.

Getting started

Examining the benefits of call center artificial intelligence software for dealerships makes it easy to see why dealership managers should consider it a strategic tool for enhancing customer service and driving business growth.

To get a sense of how it could fit into your dealership operations, seek out a personalized demo from the STELLA team.

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