You went to NADA 2023 in Dallas, Texas. You made your way through the thousands of attendees – dealers, managers, and vendors – only to stumble upon STELLA's booth in Hall F. It looked interesting. You decided that a free cup of Stella Artois beer would go great with that demo you’ve been meaning to do with their team. You listened to a STELLA call and knew when the appointment was scheduled in under two minutes that this was the conversational AI solution your dealership needed.
You joined the many dealers who signed up at NADA to implement this conversational AI in the dealership’s BDC. Congratulations! The question is, now what? Before launching this powerful new technology in your store, there are a few items to consider, such as:
1. What phone tasks do you want your conversational AI tool to handle?
You’ve suddenly realized that STELLA can handle any and all inbound dealership phone calls with a simple, “How can I help you?”. It’s the ultimate open-ended question. The possibilities are endless. Fortunately, the team at STELLA understands the unique circumstances behind individual dealerships and caters the degree of conversational AI support to meet your comfort level. Would you like to begin by simply having STELLA answer dealership calls on nights, weekends and holidays? That’s not a problem. Want to have STELLA be the first to respond to all inbound BDC calls, and only involve your employees if an escalation is necessary? That’s possible too. Whether it’s 10 calls a day or 100, there’s built-in flexibility to accommodate your preferences.
Most dealerships begin using STELLA to answer calls during non-business hours (after hours on days, nights, weekends, and holidays), as well as back up support for BDC representatives during the day. Once dealers, and their staff, see how well STELLA consistently performs these tasks, they’re quick to expand STELLA’s workload!
2. Conversely, which tasks would you like to keep with your (human) BDC employees? Just like the first question, this is equally important. Want to route all Spanish-speaking calls to certain employees in your dealership? STELLA can be set up to do that. Would you like STELLA to handle all service appointments, but you’d rather your BDC staff work directly with customers on repair orders? That’s not a problem. As your dealership’s confidence in this conversational AI grows, these tasks will change. Once STELLA is handling all inbound service appointments and repair orders, your Service and BDC staff can then focus their complete attention on customers walking into the dealership or outbound, revenue-generating calls.
3 How are you planning to set up your BDC staff so that they’re ready to excel with conversational AI support?You’ve decided which processes you want STELLA to take on, and are ready to get started. But implementing any new software brings change to the dealership, even when it’s one as seamless as STELLA. So how do you set up your BDC staff for success? Some of the best ideas for this have actually come from other dealers! When STELLA is handling inbound, redundant tasks, your BDC staff has the freedom to make customer-centric outbound calls. With STELLA handling basic tasks that typically absorb much of an employee’s time, he or she can now learn specialized skills that could launch them into new roles within your store.
It is critically important for your employees to understand that STELLA will support them. The level of support is up to you, but at the end of the day, STELLA is here to support your customers and your staff alike. Conversational AI is not only a win for your customers, it’s a win for your employees as well. It’s a choice to invest in something that can improve employee morale while also increasing your CSI scores. Your dealership has chosen to implement this software so that you can provide a more fulfilling work environment for your employees – one where mundane, redundant tasks are removed so that they can learn new skills and accelerate their careers for years to come.
4. What’s needed in your dealership to roll out a conversational AI voice assistant smoothly?This really depends on what you want your intelligent voice assistant to do. If you want it to book all of your service appointments, then STELLA will work in tandem with an automotive service scheduler such as Xtime. Once you decide which processes you’ll offload to STELLA and which ones you’d like to keep with employees in-house, it becomes very simple. You just need to communicate the new changes to your staff and turn on STELLA! There’s no extra software to purchase, or hardware to install in your store. You don’t have to replace your dealership phones, your service scheduling tool, or your CRM.
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