#426 - AI Bots in the Dealership: How to Use Them Without Losing The Sale
The Independent Dealer Podcast
#426 - AI Bots in the Dealership: How to Use Them Without Losing The Sale
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Concept
customer feels like they can't trust the dealer
They’re saying customers may feel uneasy if they think the dealership isn’t being honest about how they were contacted. That loss of trust can make it harder to close the sale.
Concept
Buy Here, Pay Here
Buy Here, Pay Here means the car lot sells you the car and also handles the financing. Instead of paying a bank, you make payments directly to the dealership.
Concept
straw purchase
A straw purchase is when someone buys a vehicle (or other item) on behalf of someone else who is not the actual purchaser. The discussion frames it as a compliance and fraud-risk area that requires training to recognize and handle properly.
Concept
CRM conversations
CRM is the dealership’s system for keeping track of customers and their messages. Looking back at those conversations can show you why someone didn’t buy or where you missed a step.
Concept
internet leads
Internet leads are people who reach out online. If you don’t respond quickly and correctly, they often go to another dealer.
Concept
rapport over text
“Rapport over text” means trying to build trust through messages. The hosts are basically asking whether texting alone is enough to create a real connection.
Concept
get the customer on the phone
This means switching from texting to a real phone call. A call helps you answer questions quickly and keep the deal from stalling.
Concept
repo
“Repo” means the bank or lender takes the car back. If a customer can’t keep up with payments, a dealership’s slow follow-up can make the situation worse.
Concept
application
Here, “application” means the paperwork the customer fills out to get approved for financing. If the dealer doesn’t follow up after it’s submitted, the deal can fall apart.
Concept
down payment
A down payment is the money you pay at the start to help buy the car. Paying more upfront usually means you borrow less, which can lower your monthly payment.
Concept
customer service
Customer service is how the dealership treats you when you ask questions or have problems. If they respond poorly or ignore you, you’re more likely to walk away.
Term
goodwill work
Goodwill work is when a repair gets helped or discounted even though it might not be covered by warranty. The point here is that how the dealership manages these situations affects how customers react.
Term
preventative conversations
Preventative conversations are when the shop talks to you about maintenance before something breaks. It’s basically trying to prevent a bigger problem and a bigger bill.
Term
spark plugs
Spark plugs help your engine start and run smoothly by creating the spark that ignites fuel. If they get worn out, the car can run rough or start having problems.
Term
flush out your trans
This means changing the transmission fluid. The fluid helps the transmission shift correctly, and old fluid can lead to rough shifting or other problems.
Concept
automation of text messages
Automated texts are when the dealership sends status updates by phone message. It helps you stay in the loop without having to call and ask all the time.
Concept
referrals
Referrals are when existing customers recommend a dealership to friends or family. Dealerships often rely on referrals because they’re a high-trust source of new leads.
Concept
role play scenario
Role play is when people practice a sales conversation like it’s happening for real. Instead of guessing what to say, they follow a planned script and then improve based on what went wrong.
Concept
replaying the phone call
Replaying the call means listening back to a real phone conversation. It helps the team spot mistakes and learn what to do differently next time.
Term
warranty
A warranty is a promise that if something breaks, the company will help pay to fix it. The speaker says you should bring it up early in the call so the customer feels more confident.
Concept
score them
They’re talking about grading sales calls using a checklist. The idea is to show the salesperson exactly what they did right or wrong so they can improve.
Concept
scoresheet
A scoresheet is a simple checklist for how you’ll judge a sales conversation. It helps everyone use the same rules when giving feedback.
Concept
in-person vs over the phone sales
They’re comparing selling face-to-face versus selling by phone. Even though it feels different, the same basic steps can work—you just have to work a bit harder to keep the customer engaged.
Concept
AI bot
An AI bot is software that talks to customers like a chat assistant. In car sales, it can answer questions and guide people, but if it always says the same things, customers may feel like they’re not dealing with a real person.
Company
BlitzPay
BlitzPay is a company that helps businesses take credit card payments. The hosts mention it because it can work alongside new AI tools so the dealership’s checkout and customer communication are smoother.
Concept
automated email
An automated email is a message that gets sent automatically, usually as a reminder. The point here is that it can feel generic, while AI could make it more personal.
Term
oil change
An oil change is regular maintenance where the old engine oil is replaced. It helps keep the engine running smoothly, and dealerships use it as a common reason to schedule service.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is a car company known for its electric cars and lots of software features. When someone brings up Tesla in an AI-bot discussion, they’re usually talking about how those AI tools can answer questions fast for a specific brand or customer need.
Part
air filter
An air filter is a service item that can require replacement during routine maintenance. The key point here is that a bot may quote an oil change without clearly explaining that additional items—like an air filter—might be needed after inspection.
Concept
assisted (not replaced)
They want the AI to help the salesperson, not take over their job. If the salesperson feels the AI is replacing them, they won’t use it well.
Concept
play it off / roll with the awkward thing
This is guidance on handling imperfect AI responses during customer conversations. Instead of interrupting or apologizing (“that was my bot”), the salesperson should acknowledge the moment, keep the tone smooth, and continue the sales process.
Concept
salesperson relationship
Even if a bot brings the customer in, the salesperson still has to build rapport. If the customer really likes the salesperson, they may be more willing to spend more.
Concept
NIADA
NIADA is a group that represents independent car dealers. If someone says they’re speaking at NIADA, it usually means they’re doing a talk or workshop for independent dealers.
Company
C and M Coaching
C and M Coaching is the speaker’s training/coaching business. They’re sharing their website so dealers can contact them.
LIVE
You have to talk to your salespeople about these bots too.
They need to understand, hopefully it's not here to replace them,
but the biggest issue that we're seeing is salespeople hate it.
So the first chance they get,
they're telling the customer you were talking to a bot.
That wasn't good. Oh gosh.
And that's just flashing the report down to zero,
because now the customer feels like they can't trust the dealer, right?
So you gotta do that training and make sure that your salespeople
don't feel like they're being replaced, but rather assisted.
Hello and welcome to the Inde Pendant Dealer Podcast.
Luke, how are you feeling, buddy? You got a little under the weather?
Yeah, you know, we'll see how it goes.
I've been on spring break for a week and of course been out west,
come back sick.
But you know, luckily today we have one of our favorite guests.
Maggie, how many times have you been home?
This is number two, guys, but we see each other all the time,
so it probably feels like a lot.
Okay, okay. I thought it was three, but whatever.
Yeah, it definitely helps improve the overall appearance of the podcast.
Luke looks like he got hit by a train.
Maggie comes in looking like an angel, so it would be a YouTube episode.
If you're not listening on YouTube, this would be the one to do it.
Not just our ugly mugs on the episode.
So Maggie, it's great to have you because there's a lot of stuff going on in the industry
as far as it comes to what you are an expert on.
And so we really wanted to talk to you about some of the changes
and some of the new stuff that you guys are doing.
But first off, this is going to be a timely episode
because we are only two weeks out from Buy Here, Pay Here.
We're going to half by time to sling airs for you.
Yeah, so if you aren't already signed up to be a Buy Here, Pay Here United in Las Vegas,
you've got to do it before you listen to the rest of this episode
or you won't have time.
Right, Maggie?
Tell us about what your session is real quick
because I think it's one of the funniest and funnest sessions that we have this weekend.
Yeah, so I'm actually doing two different things.
I'm speaking at the compliance conference
and I'm going to be playing some compliance,
what do we want to say, related, issue-related phone calls
to kind of bring some light to that and talk about that.
And then we're doing a session in the garage
where we are going to be calling your dealership live for you while you sit there and listen.
Hopefully it's full.
I would squirm in my seat, Maggie.
That's going to be, um, man.
Yeah, so we'll do sales or service like we can do either.
Some people feel like their service department struggles a little bit with customer service.
So we'll do service calls too if you want,
you know, call and ask questions about oil changes, what have you.
We can customize anything really and kind of ask any questions you want or if you want
us to be a little pushy of a customer, you want us to be in a bankruptcy,
you want us to see if they will approve a straw purchase,
which is one of our favorite things to do because people don't do enough training on that.
We'll do anything you want and then of course we'll talk to you afterwards
and let you know kind of what happened.
We do try to kind of spread the room out so it's a little bit more private,
but I'm not going to lie.
Last year we had a lot of people grouping around other stores
because everybody wanted to hear what was happening.
Everybody wants to see a train wreck, right?
And what's bad is I think that so many of our phone calls are train wrecks
and dealers aren't doing anything about it.
Jeff, how many phone calls have you listened to at your store in the last 30 days?
You know, that's a really good point, Luke.
I have not, every so often I sit in my office and my office is located close enough
that I can hear my salesman speak and so I'll write on my little calendar,
like, oh, Tuesday, 10 a.m., you know, like there was a phone call
and from one side of this conversation I can tell
that things are not going the way they're supposed to.
So let me go back into my system and listen to that phone call and I forget.
I don't do it.
I don't get back to it.
I'm pretty good at renewing, like, reviewing my CRM conversations by text message,
but I've been really bad at reviewing phone calls and playing the phone calls back for myself.
Maggie, is there any benefit to doing what Jeff is talking about to eavesdrop?
Because every once in a while I'll just go sit in my showroom
and in my showroom I can hear a lot of conversations.
Is there any benefit to that instead of listening to the recorded call?
So Jeff said something really important.
He said, I can hear the one-sided part of the conversation
and that is not hearing any of the conversation.
So you do, I mean, he's right, like the fact that he notates,
all right, I heard something that might be a little sketch.
I want to go back and see what actually happened, but does he do it?
No, it's really easy to forget.
And one of the things that I like to tell dealers is you don't have to hire me.
I will help you even if you don't hire me.
You call me and you ask me, what should I be doing?
And I will tell you because I believe in helping the industry as a whole,
but you have got to listen to your phone calls.
If you don't have a lot of sales right now,
but you've got leads up the wazoo and you can't figure out why it's in your phone calls.
I would bet anyone a thousand dollars it is in their phone calls.
You can pick one random phone call and send it to me
and I can figure out what's going on just from hearing it.
Also your internet leads, people don't pay enough attention to those either.
And like Jeff said, I look through my text messages
and that's what a lot of people do, but do you build rapport over text?
I mean, do you guys genuinely as dealers feel like you can really establish
a solid relationship with someone over text
when they're bankrupt, they can barely afford to survive
and they desperately need a car?
Are we going to win them over over text?
Well, that's just a lot of emojis and that's the best solution.
Well, I tell you, smiley face car.
Yeah, you, text are super important.
Let's don't discount text, but there is a point where you need that customer on the phone,
whether it be sales, collections, service or after the sales service,
you have to have the confidence to get the customer on the phone.
And when you do, it better not go wrong because if you do,
if it does go wrong at that point, you lose the sale
or you may lose the customer to a repo, to a service related issue or whatever, right?
So I actually did a whole video on this like a year ago.
It was a series of text messages that went from really A to B with the customer.
Customer inquired about a car, took us a long time to get back to them.
We finally did.
We sent them the application.
They did it.
We didn't get it.
We never picked up the phone and called this customer.
We went from setting an appointment with this person to them backing out.
We talked them out of the sale via text.
And there were so many things that went wrong.
And I kind of recorded a video and put it on YouTube of walking through the series of text
and you could see right in front of your face that they were losing it.
It was a single mom.
She had a savings account, but she didn't want to spend it
because she was trying to save that money in case she needed it for an emergency.
She only had like $2,000 to put down,
which I felt like was a pretty strong down payment.
Like it might have been two years ago, right?
And you go back through and you see this and they were like,
we don't have any cars for that price.
And she's like, well, I just like, what am I supposed to do?
And she's like, just forget it.
I won't come in.
We should have called her and had a conversation with her.
And there was also no customer service and acknowledgement.
And I know we're going to talk about AI at some point,
but they never said the person never even said like,
congratulations on your baby.
That's great.
That little bit of empathy and humanization in a text message goes so far.
That's really interesting.
You said something too.
Sometimes we'll focus on sales and service or sales and collections,
but the service component, like I've never done phone call
or text message training with my service writer.
And we don't do retail service.
We just do in-house, you know, wanty work,
but I've never really sat down and said like,
hey, here's how you should talk to them.
And here's the things you should say to not escalate the problem
or diffuse it or not even have a problem to begin with.
That's really interesting.
I never really thought that my service writer needed sales.
You do.
You're a phone coach.
I tell you, you do because if you look at where so many repos happen,
they happen from the service department.
If you have a service department at your dealership,
from the way warranty claims are handled, from the way CPI claims are handled,
from the way after, you know, goodwill work is handled,
even stuff is not even covered under warranty.
If your service writer does anything that is,
and everybody at your dealership should have a customer service,
service writer, whether you have a shop or not,
because you need to handle the traffic.
But if they folly, that's a repo that's going to happen right then,
or it's going to happen a month from now.
So it's a big deal.
And it's not just what you say, too.
It's also the tone in your voice.
And that's something I think.
You know, in service writers, our service oriented,
like my husband is a mechanic.
Do I think he's got the best customer service skills
when it comes to explaining what's wrong with a vehicle?
Absolutely not.
Would I stick him on the phone with a customer?
No.
And I love him, but no.
Because he doesn't know how to explain things the right way.
And so it's not just what you say.
It's also the tone in your voice.
And when you're dealing with a situation with an unexpected repair,
and you don't have an empathetic tone,
and you're just coming at them matter of fact,
because you know the facts and the details, right?
You know why this car needs this repair.
They don't.
They don't understand it.
And even sometimes just preventative conversations
can be beneficial, like, hey, we should change your spark plugs,
because if we don't, XYZ is going to happen,
and it's going to be even more costly down the road.
Or, hey, we should flush out your trans, whatever it might be.
Those are all things that you want to have conversations
with your customer about.
And unfortunately, sometimes service writers
are a little rougher on the edges.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And just the, our thing is just the constant communication
and getting them the habit of like,
I know you have no update for him, but it's five o'clock.
You've got to text them or call them and tell them something,
anything, even if it's nothing.
It's like, just communicate.
Maggie, is this still a thing with service writers?
Always went by the, I think it's 11 and four or 10 and four.
Like, they need to update it in the morning by 11
and in the afternoon by four.
Is that still the deal?
I mean, so in this age of communication automation,
it's kind of unacceptable to not update them at some point.
Not only is that going to improve the customer's perception
of your service department and what they're paying for, right?
That they're getting what they're paying for,
but it also just keeps them informed on the situation.
So with the automation of text messages,
and there are softwares out there where you scan the vehicle in
and you can track that vehicle through everything
and it'll update the customer along the way.
I mean, there's apps.
There's so many different things that you can do,
but you do want them to feel valued.
And like, even though it might just be,
you know, your customers whose vehicles you're working on,
don't you want those people as repeat customers,
especially if they're good paying customers
and they're taking care of their car.
If you don't take care of them in service,
they're not going to buy from you when the time comes.
So you want to think about that snowball effect
and how good customer service and service
and good communication can really help you develop repeat customers or referrals.
Hey, sorry to break in real quick,
but make sure you guys know about Buckeye.
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I can't thank them enough for teaching me so much about reinsurance
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My customers have options of warranties and service contracts, gap.
I think it's just been great, Jeff.
It's absolutely been a great way for me to build wealth,
put away some money.
So if you are a buy here, pay here, lease here, pay here,
or retail dealer, it works for all dealers.
You can set up a reinsurance company.
You can ensure your own stop giving money
to those third party providers that aren't going to cover your stuff anyways.
Keep it in house, call the guys and girls over at Buckeye,
risk services and get set up ASAP.
Maggie, talk to us about the dreaded R word,
because I know a lot of dealers really, really push back
against role play in there, not push back.
I wouldn't say that's the word of voice.
It's scary, Jeff.
Yes, because it's scary for people.
But, and it's, I know it's scary for my salesman
and I know the other day we, so we, we become like ritual,
like every Tuesday morning and every Thursday morning of 10 o'clock,
we have sales training meeting and there is role play.
I don't want to talk about anything else.
We very quickly go over stats for the week and that's it.
This isn't a business meeting.
This isn't to talk about why the Ford ranger is not ready.
Like this is role play and we do the back and forth
and I know they're scared because I lead it and I like,
I hound on them and I say, okay,
I'm going to give you an example of how to do it right.
And we go through this scenario.
It's very defined.
I say, this is the situation this customer's called in.
They've got 3000 down your delivery and approval, whatever.
And I give it to them the right way and then I ask them to do it.
And then afterwards I say, okay, team,
what did they do good?
What could they do better?
And we go through it and everyone kind of chimes in and says,
well, I like how they did this, but they missed this, this and this.
Is that the way these things should be handled?
And what advice would you give us for making sure that,
A, we do our role play and B, we do it effectively?
So first off, everything you're doing is 100% right.
I love that you're doing it that way.
I genuinely enjoy having fun with it because it's good to laugh
and it's fine to say your name's Batman or Bruce Wayne.
I don't know, but silly things like that
help to kind of lighten the moon just a little bit
because it is embarrassing to role play.
Nobody likes doing it.
We do it as part of our onsites.
And the best way to do it is for everyone to listen.
And then at the end, even if you make a small checklist too
and have everybody kind of check it off and say,
all right, what did we forget?
Because sometimes it's something simple like,
we didn't get the phone number.
We didn't get their contact information.
But also for de-escalation, it's really good too
because everybody gets that customer service collections
more so than sales that is angry and they're hot about something.
And if you don't know what to do with those,
you can make it worse very, very fast.
So role playing those areas and taking real scenarios
that have actually happened in your store are also great.
I went to Luke's boot camp that he did,
his collections boot camp that he did,
and I was the designated customer
and I got to role play the room.
That was so much fun, Maggie.
And we're actually going to do that again on May 14th
in Atlanta during our boot camp.
But Maggie, the amount of people that engaged,
that when they showed up in the room that were shy,
but how you were able to kind of bring them out,
that's amazing.
Is that what you see when you normally go to somebody's store?
Well, so it depends on how comfortable they are with you too.
Like I was being a little over the top and ridiculous
because they knew that they were shy and they were stiff.
And it helped to kind of ease the room a little bit.
But I totally took real situations.
Like those were real phone calls I had heard
that I was using as examples.
Plus you had like some printed out and we use those too.
But as long as they feel comfortable with you,
yes, it may be weird for them with Jeff doing it
because he's their boss.
So we usually do it as part of our training
when we train people and they don't like it either.
I mean, there's just no way to make it comfortable
unless you throw some weird stuff in there.
Sometimes that can be fun,
but you never know what you're going to get.
But it is such an important part of it.
Even the other thing that you can do alternatively
is you can play the phone calls
as a team and stop and be like,
okay, we missed our first thing.
Does anyone know what it is?
And what should we have done differently
with an actual phone call?
And that can sometimes help.
The other thing that you could do too
is Jeff, for example, you see, okay,
May 3rd I wrote down at 10 a.m.
this phone call was bad.
I'm going to go back and I'm going to listen to it.
Now I'm going to write this role play scenario down.
Everyone's going to go through the room and role play it
and then we're going to play the call.
And you're going to hear exactly what happened
and then we can talk about what we should have done differently.
A lot of different ways you can take your actual data
and put it into the training for your teams.
And I'm actually going to be doing role playing
at MyHerPay are United in the garage session as well.
So come see me there.
Good luck.
Yeah, I like the idea of replaying the phone call
and the live phone call that you're doing at MyHerPay are United
because here's the problem I have Maggie
and helped me make that connection
is that when we do the role,
when we do the role playing one on one with each other,
they know what they, what I want to hear.
They know that they're supposed to go A, B, C, D, right?
In an introduction call or whatever it is.
And they'll do it.
And then when they're on the field on game day,
that's all out the window and they just decide to invent
their own sales process and their own word tracks.
And they just say whatever the freak they want on the phone call.
So that's why playing the phone call is great
is it's cause like, dude, you can't just say what you want
because you will be held accountable.
I'm going to play this phone call and training
and you're going to be called out.
So please just stick with the script.
It works.
I promise you, like you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
You don't have to try to short circuit sales process,
like stick with the steps.
It will work.
So Maggie, how do I help them make that connection of like?
That's a great question.
Yeah, why do people,
why do people go off the rails if they're trained?
Well, you know, you guys,
if I knew the answer to that, I probably wouldn't be here
because I would have some sort of magic key
to be able to fix all of these problems, right?
There is no real reason other than fear.
Hearing is really the biggest one.
I mean, over 40% of salespeople are afraid of the phone
and experiencing anxiety related to the phone.
And so I think a lot of times it's just a matter of
not necessarily believing in what it is
that you're asking them to say.
Sometimes when I'm working with a dealership,
like we're working with a very large dealership right now
and some of the staff is like gung-ho, some isn't.
And the ones that aren't,
I find it's easier to list off the things
that you're expecting them to do
and not so much provide them with a word by word, word track
because they seem to be able to associate better
with the things that we're wanting them to do
in the conversation,
as long as we're hitting some of these points.
Of course, a value statement,
talking about your warranty,
things like that should always be done
at the beginning of a call
and they should try to have that kind of memorized.
One of the best ways that you can do this though
is definitely listening to the phone calls.
If you hear a good call,
you got to pull that one and play that
because sometimes they need to hear examples
of it actually working from them in order to believe in it.
But there's no like magic trick I wish there was
because what we do is we listen to the calls
and we actually score them.
So they get points for everything that they've done
in that conversation
and then we will coach over it
and kind of give them some objection pointers.
And that's kind of where the accountability comes in
as they get a grade.
So that's something that you could do on your own.
You know, you could totally...
I did a podcast on it
talking about the things you want to score on.
You could 100% make your own scoresheet
and email it to them
when you've got some spare time
and go, hey, look buddy, we failed this call.
Like we missed all these things
and it's helpful for them to really see what they missed
and then for you to tell them why those things are important
because it's not just you miss this.
I want you to say this.
Here's why you should say it.
It's when you say things this way,
this is what's going to happen
or this is what your customers thinking
because there's so much psychology in sales.
And I would also say not to be long-winded
but think about how your sales person sells a car in person.
Everyone's got a process, right?
You walk up, you shake their hand, you introduce themselves.
The way you show a car,
the way you talk about the application in your programs
in person is a set process
that almost every sales person has.
But for some reason there's a disconnect
between doing that on the phone and it's no different.
It's just the process is different
because the customer's not in front of you.
So you have to work a little bit harder to get them there
but a process is a process
and it works in person.
So why do we tend to think
it's not going to work over the phone?
Yeah, I would think it'd be easier on the phone
because you're not a physical intimidation
of being in front of someone all that.
But it's weird that it works opposite, yeah.
It doesn't work either way for me in my place.
I do recall seeing a clip of the two of you
and I think I commented.
I think you guys need some phone training
because you were both like, do not call me.
Text me.
Yeah, I got a lot of flak from my mom on that one.
So even to this day, I don't think she's-
That was funny.
That was really funny.
Yeah, I wasn't good with that.
I stare by my statement.
So here's the thing, Maggie.
They don't do what I tell them to do
as many times as I tell them to do it.
They'll reinvent the wheel.
They'll come up with their own nonsense.
They'll hallucinate and create their own process
like their names on the building.
So why don't I just replace them with AI agents
and say, hey guys, I'm just going to train this AI.
They're going to say exactly what I want to say
every single time, exactly the way I want to say it.
They're going to follow my sales process to a T
and I don't have to worry about all this nonsense,
compliance, you going off the rails saying random stuff.
AI, once trained well, just does it, no?
That's like nails on a chalkboard to me, but so-
But why?
Because this is a people business.
People don't buy cars from places.
They buy cars from people
and they don't buy cars from people they don't like.
And we are in an independent challenge credit space
where nobody trusts anybody.
And sure, you can copy and paste everything
that you want a robot to say,
but you kind of set it like,
they're going to say the same thing every single time.
So imagine that I'm a customer
and I'm interested in buying a car from you
and I submit an inquiry today
and I have a whole conversation with your AI bot
and then six weeks later I decide I want to do it again
and I have the exact same conversation with your AI bot.
How does that feel to me?
Also, we love to play around with them
so we will ask them questions like,
I'm shopping dealership A and I'm comparing them against you
and almost every time the bot responds with,
well, we're here when you're ready.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, there's the magnitude.
There's got to be a spot for AI
because what happens in an independent space
is that we can't hire the amount of people
a lot of times that we need to answer
all of the leads in an appropriate time,
whether that be five minutes or 15 minutes.
Sometimes it's a day later, right?
So there's got to be a space for AI.
Where does it fit in your opinion for the independent dealer?
So I think that it is designed to be used as a support system for your staff.
If a lead is not handled in a specific amount of time,
you should absolutely have something chime in
in response to the customer, right?
Because you don't want to let that lead go.
I mean, studies show that we should get about 70%
of our customers on the phone if we call within five minutes.
Most dealers are over an hour,
which has a 10 to 30% contact rate.
That's not going to get you a customer, right?
If you have 100 leads coming in, you need to take over an hour
and you get 10% of them on the phone.
That's a bad ROI, right?
So you want something reaching out.
What you don't want is it to completely replace everyone.
And I do have clients that have tried it.
It has lasted about two weeks
and it has not worked.
And people are smart.
They pick up on it.
I don't like using it at all personally myself.
Like my local hospital has recently started using it
when you call to schedule an appointment.
And I'm just like, representative, representative,
because it's so awful.
And then the fake typing just kills me.
It's like, you know, like it's actually typing something.
Sure. Come on now.
So, you know, I think that support,
like using it for initial contact,
using it for follow-up.
If the lead starts ghosting the salesperson,
use it to chime in and do those things.
But you still want to have some of that personal connection
with the salesperson picking up the phone.
And honestly, Jeff, their name isn't on the building.
You could do that and replace them with those people.
And that is a conversation I would encourage
most salespeople to consider because it is real
and it is happening a lot of places.
And they're just using bots and AI voices
to contact customers and only really having people sign and drive.
I mean, in this day and age,
you can do most contracts online
and have the customer just sign and drive.
Well, how about AI when it comes to collections and service?
Where do you see that fitting?
Because there's a lot of accounts to get to sometimes
in collections and that hell, it goes a long way.
Yeah. And I love BlitzPay's tool, shout out to BlitzPay.
They have a great tool and I love the idea
of using it to collect simple payments.
When you get into more complex situations,
which is the primary function of my business
is listening to those tough collections calls,
there is a lot that happens in those calls
and it's just not my opinion that you want to use it for those things.
I think there does come a point in time
where somebody needs to pick up the phone and contact that customer.
That being said, your initial communication,
like before we started recording,
we were talking about the after the sale phone call,
your collector should be introducing themselves to that customer.
They should know you have an automated system
they can make payments with,
but you're here anytime they need you.
And studies show that when the customer trusts their collector
and feels comfortable and not judged,
they're 35% more likely to call you before they fall on hardship.
Not after, not when we're trying to catch up from behind,
but they'll actually call you ahead of time
and be like, this has happened, or I just lost my job,
how do I do this?
So you need that trust early on and I think it's a great support tool.
All right, Jeff, sorry to break in,
but we got to talk about putting money in the bank,
and how do we do that?
I do it through BlitzPay.
The guys and girls at BlitzPay are great, amazing, attentive on top of it.
I have had little to no issues since I switched over from that other company.
For sure, to me, they're probably the best services
when it comes to answering phone calls
and taking care of things that I've ever seen a vendor.
And the back in automation,
I've actually been working with that for a couple of dealers here lately
and going in and changing up these automated texts that go out.
Super simple, they work, the customers click and pay, it's fantastic.
And also they got this AI thing, Jeff, pretty cool.
Yeah, I'm stoked.
They got the audio AI, the phone caller,
and hopefully very soon the texting version of that.
So it'll help my collector be way more efficient in the future.
I'm super stoked to see the AI get integrated into the collections process
and BlitzPay is on the cutting edge of it.
So if you're taking credit cards at all,
whether you're buy here, pay here, lease here, pay here,
even retail dealers can take advantage of this
and use BlitzPay for their credit card processing,
incredibly competitive rates, super easy interface.
Call the team over at BlitzPay and move your credit card processing today.
100% agree with that.
The more your collectors communicate with that customer,
the longer they're going to be in the car.
That's 100%.
So you're saying that your collectors during that initial meeting
should explain to the customer,
hey, we do have this automated AI person that you may be talking to.
But when things hit the fan, it's better just to call me.
I'm always here for you.
You know, that warm fuzzy feeling.
I think that's a good deal of that.
I see the AI agents helping in those one day $1,
like the bucket one and doing the heavy lifting from the beginning.
So what I think that leads us to is instead of us having two or three
average collectors that are jack of all trades,
we're going to have one or two just black belt assassins
that have to be really, really good because they're going to get all the level two stuff
that the AI bot couldn't handle in the initial like,
hey, let me reschedule your payment.
Let me run your card on Friday, blah, blah, blah.
The basic step, they've got to be really, really good.
Because so I could see an area where they need more training
as a high level because now they're touching very, very important accounts.
Well, Jeff, what they should do is come to my boot camp
and then they'll get that extra special assassin training.
You're going to want someone better than that, I guess.
But if I find me and bagging boats are going to be there,
come on, it's going to be great.
What was that?
May 14th, Godwinconsultinggroup.com Atlanta, near the airport.
So here's my, just to put a pin in it, I don't see it working for service.
I just don't see a scenario where collections,
where an AI agent works for service, not your collections camp.
I think your collections camp will work for anybody.
No, no, no, I think for service.
AI on service, that makes no sense to me
because there's 10 million scenarios in service
that have to be handled delicately.
In collections, there's like five and in sales,
there's like five scenarios that handle the bulk of all incoming,
but in service.
Or what if it could, what if it could handle those,
hey, it's life already or an update?
Right, simple, simple updates.
It doesn't know.
It needs to communicate.
I think there's too many, unfortunately, you're right,
there's like so many scenarios, but I like to use service calls.
Is there anything else going on with your vehicle right now?
Like let's try to catch it.
I think for service, it can be tricky too
because we don't know how much time to schedule out.
And what if there's more than one issue and it doesn't understand?
And is it under warranty?
Is it not under warranty?
Was it a repair from before?
Was it not a repair from before?
Who touched it?
Did some other shop touch it?
There's just a million factors in mind.
Okay, Jeff.
I think a service writer's job is very, very safe.
And if it's not under warranty, we want to help the customer.
And now we're making these judgment calls on, well,
I text your guy and he said that he'd take care of it.
Oh, shiz, what my AI boss said that, but he didn't need it.
Like anyway, so I see that not happening.
So Maggie, let's talk about service sales.
If you have a real service format,
I think there could be ways for AI to work in service sales.
It would be probably not because you could schedule,
you could try to schedule old changes and things like that.
I don't know.
I found like, hey, you've had your car for three months.
Why don't you come in?
Right.
Yeah, something like that.
Super smart.
Because that's just brain dead work that either is an automated email,
but if it could be more personable because the AI agent can say,
hey, Bob, you've had your Durango, how's it running?
I know you have that issue, but it's time for an oil change.
Sure.
If it could be that.
You can even do press one to schedule,
and then it rings to your service department,
and then they can go through a series of questions too.
Like it could kick that stuff out.
I think that's great for that.
But for like the heavy stuff, again, I just,
I don't think we're there.
And I don't know that people really want that either.
Because for me, it's like.
I'm going to push back against that, Maggie.
I don't want a bad voice AI agent.
Because right now they're all me, me, me, me, right?
Like I call Delta whoever I called somebody the other day,
and it was all like in, and I'm, okay,
you haven't got that thing out.
Texting has gotten pretty darn good.
Because of the delay that naturally happens,
it's okay for it to think for a minute and then respond.
I don't care who I talk to.
I'll talk to a fricking pigeon if it gets me to the answer
that I want, right?
Like I just want the answer and I want it quick
and I don't want to wait.
So I think it's good enough to the point where it's like,
okay, cool.
Like I talked to some AI agent,
but it got me to where I wanted quickly and it understood fine.
Oh, Tesla, that's who I called.
Tesla.
Yeah, it's reacted to Tesla.
Wait, hold on.
The biggest technology doesn't have good AI?
Well, not for what I found.
Because I want a specific thing that they got rid of.
Then now they pushed it to AI,
whereas before I used to be able to call right
to a customer service person in Northern Utah,
and they would solve my problem and get the account transferred.
Now I've got to go through some automated system
that doesn't understand how to bend the rules.
And so that's the problem you have.
If I'm playing inside the box,
which is a big company problem anyways,
then it works fine.
So anyways, what I'm saying is,
yes, I am not nostalgic or romantic about who gives me the answer.
I just want the freaking answer.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not going to sit on hold to talk to a human
for 10 minutes or 20 minutes,
just so I can talk to a human,
but give me an AI agent if it'll answer my problem.
But the problem is, is it never does.
Yeah, or not, not, yeah, high level stuff.
I get it, yeah.
But low level stuff, like.
Sure.
It kind of can.
You just want to transfer a key,
and it doesn't have the authority to figure that out.
That's what you're saying, Jeff.
Yeah, and there's a million applications, obviously.
Which is a low level thing that should fix pretty easy.
Yeah, so as it gets better, I get it.
That's great.
Just give me the answer.
I don't care.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of customers get frustrated with,
even at our dealerships,
when they want a straightforward answer,
and either we don't have AI to give straightforward answers,
or we are not trained,
we're not training our people properly,
to give them the answer they won't.
No, and the bigger problem, Maggie,
and you can address this,
is they want the answer on Saturday of Easter,
when my salesman is out with his family.
But they want to go shopping.
And so there's no one there to respond to their text message,
and they're like, what the hell?
It's a Saturday.
Why aren't you open?
Why aren't you responding to me?
Well, my salesman's actually gone with his family.
So we'll see on Monday, maybe.
That's the problem.
They want the answer at 2 a.m. in the morning,
because that's when they're off their shift,
and they want to answer.
And again, that's when bots are amazing.
And that's when they work really well on those things.
But I think about back to service,
like imagine that you had a bot handling it,
and the customer's like, well, how much does it cost
for me to get my oil changed?
And we give them a quote,
but we don't preface in there,
that there may be additional things that need.
You may need to go and change that air filter
when you're in there,
and you may find something else wrong,
and it gives a quote, well,
hey, this is not what the bot said.
So there's still, like, that he said,
she said, you know, happening,
and there's still misinformation happening,
so you can train it to a point.
But I think it should be there when your sales staff isn't,
or after a certain designated period of time.
Like, that first five minutes is so important.
Kick something out.
The other thing, just real quick,
before we move on,
is that you have to talk to your salespeople
about these bots, too.
They need to understand,
hopefully it's not here to replace them,
but the biggest issue that we're seeing
is salespeople hate it.
So the first chance they get,
they're telling the customer,
you were talking to a bot.
That wasn't me.
Oh, gosh.
And that's just lashing the report down to zero,
because now the customer feels
like they can't trust the dealer, right?
So you gotta do that training
and make sure that your salespeople
don't feel like they're being replaced,
but rather assisted.
Yeah, 100%.
We fought that big time.
We had one salesman here that just,
oh, I just want it turned off.
Just turn it off.
I'll get to my leads.
Bubble, blah, blah.
I'm like, no.
Let's say the wrong thing.
It's not saying the wrong thing.
It's just not saying it the way you would say it.
So don't jump in and say, oh, sorry,
that was my bot.
Like, you're right.
It completely crushes it.
So just play it off.
Just roll with the awkward thing the bot said
and move forward.
That's a big issue of learning to use it as a tool.
Yes.
To get them more sales.
I'm like, look, man,
this is just going to get you more sales.
It's set an appointment for you on Saturday night
that's going to show up on Monday,
and you're going to sell the car.
You did nothing.
I've actually seen salesmen kill the bot deal.
Like the bot has set an appointment with the customer,
and the salesman calls and crushes the entire thing
down to bits.
So it's super important that they have a working,
trusting relationship with the bot,
and they understand like,
you can't be perfect all the time,
and it can do some basic things, and it should.
But you still have a very important role here,
and that is to build a relationship with this customer
so that they want to buy a car from you.
Because people, studies have shown too
that if somebody really likes a salesperson,
they'll pay more for a car,
as long as they like the place they're buying the car from
and the person.
100%.
You know, we do a lot of personal buying for people,
and I'll be like, guys,
you should just go buy a new car because it's going to,
you know, it's going to be cheaper in the long run.
They're going to, we trust you,
we want to shop with you, we're bound to mute.
And that's hard reported to gain.
And once you gain it, you can't, you can't lose it, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Which leads me, again, to the same point
we talked about as collections, just to wrap this up,
is we're going to have AI bots or whatever,
handling all the low level stuff,
let's say that Maggie's trained them well,
so they say the right things.
And then we're going to have salesmen
that are just personalities.
And literally, they don't have to have any skills,
they don't have to be good to follow up,
they don't have to even text ever.
They just have to be really great personalities
that people want to buy from.
And it'll be great because I won't need five of them,
I only need two of them.
And I just got two really great personalities
instead of trying to...
We just have to train.
We just have to train them up, Jeff.
Once we find those personalities, we can't,
we can't let them go.
They have to be here.
Yeah.
So people want to do that,
whether they want you training their human employee
or their AI employee,
how do they get a hold of you?
And what, like, what do you have coming up
that they can attend to kind of get,
get, get a little more taste of what you do?
So I will be at Buy Here, Pay You United,
CNM Coaching is a proud sponsor.
So we'll be there for that.
And you really should come,
even if you're an independent dealer,
lease here, pay here, or compliance questions,
because all three of those conferences are rolled into one.
So, like, go.
It's, you're not going to leave there
feeling like it wasn't like any other conference.
This is Dealer Lead.
So there's a dealer panel.
They pick the speakers.
They pick the agenda.
They pick the topics.
And there's an awesome panel this year.
So definitely do that.
I will also be speaking at NIADA.
They asked me to speak on sales service and collections.
And we're going to do our best to roll that
into a 40-minute session.
I'm going to try.
Good luck.
We do a whole day with that.
What are you talking about?
So, and then I'm also going to be at TIADA.
Russell said, put it on your calendar.
I want you to do something.
So I guess I'll find out what that is at some point.
But I'll be there as well.
Also, you know, you can go to our website.
It's C and M Coaching.
You have to type out the and.
C-A-N-D-M-Coaching.com.
And click Contact Us.
It comes right to me.
And I will be happy to answer.
I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn.
I mean, you can find me.
Yeah, she's all over the...
Yeah.
As long as you spell my last name right.
It's P-U-G-E-S-E-K.
That's the hardest part.
It is the hardest part, yes.
Haha.
Maggie Pete.
Go on.
Great. Hey, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for your time.
This has been informative.
And I'm going to go from this call
street to sales training meeting.
And I'm going to put a bunch of this stuff into action.
Go get them, Jeff.
Don't get off.
Thank you guys for having me.
Always fun to be here.
Thanks, Maggie.
See ya.
About this episode
Dealers are being told to use AI bots to respond faster to leads, but the real risk is trust: salespeople may blame the bot (“you were talking to a bot”) and tank rapport. Maggie Pugesek argues AI should support staff—initial outreach, follow-ups, and simple rescheduling—while humans handle the phone, empathy, and complex collections/service. The conversation also stresses training via role play and scoring real calls, plus the importance of service writers communicating updates to prevent repos. AI in service is debated as too many scenarios require judgment.
Original notes
In this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast, Jeff Watson and Luke Godwin sit down with Maggie Pugesek, Partner at C&M Coaching, to talk about one of the most misunderstood tools in the dealership right now — AI bots. From lead response and after-hours coverage to the ways salespeople are accidentally killing bot-set appointments, this conversation breaks down how to use AI as a sales asset without losing the human connection that closes deals.
What You'll Learn:
Why AI bots are a game-changer for after-hours lead response and appointment setting — and where they fall short
How salespeople are undermining bots by telling customers "that was just a bot" — and how to stop it
The right way to train your team to work with AI instead of against it
How to use bots to handle low-level follow-up so your best personalities can focus on building relationships
What the future of the dealership floor looks like when AI handles the process and people handle the rapport
If you're a buy here pay here or independent dealer trying to figure out how AI fits into your sales process without costing you deals, this episode is your starting point.
Support the businesses that support the podcast:
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Website: www.theindependentdealer.com
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Jeff Watson: /sendtojeffw
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The Independent Dealer Podcast
Jeff Watson & Luke Godwin
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