"Drowning in Traffic!" Why Dealers Are Drowning in Traffic They Can't Convert (+ How to Fix It) | Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs
Car Dealership Guy Podcast
"Drowning in Traffic!" Why Dealers Are Drowning in Traffic They Can't Convert (+ How to Fix It) | Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs
Car Dealership Guy Podcast · Jul 2, 2026
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40:47
Person
Scott Traylor
A successful car dealership manager who now helps dealerships use artificial intelligence to answer customer phone calls and schedule service appointments.
Company
EchoPark Automotive
A large chain of used car dealerships across the US known for selling relatively new used cars with fixed, haggle-free prices.
Term
single point
A term for a single, individual dealership building rather than a massive chain of multiple car dealerships spread across a region.
Company
Berkshire Hathaway Automotive
A massive group of car dealerships owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's investment company, representing many different car brands across the country.
Company
Sonic Automotive
One of the biggest car dealership companies in America, owning over a hundred dealerships and the EchoPark used car chain.
Term
RO's
The official paperwork and bill created when you bring your car to a dealership for repairs or maintenance.
Term
service advisor
The person at the dealership service center who greets you when you drive in, takes down your car's issues, and calls you later to explain what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost.
Term
service lane
The indoor driveway at a dealership where you pull your car in when you arrive for an oil change or repair, where a service worker greets you.
Part
key fob
The small plastic remote on your keychain that you use to lock, unlock, and start your car.
Term
dealer principles
The actual owner or top boss of a car dealership who holds the official license from the car manufacturer to sell their vehicles.
Term
IMR program
A special program run by General Motors that helps its dealerships pay for approved software and advertising tools, ensuring the tools meet GM's strict quality and security standards.
Company
General Motors
One of the biggest American car companies, which makes vehicles under famous brand names like Chevy, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac.
Person
Fred Beans
A highly successful and famous owner of a massive network of car dealerships and auto parts stores on the East Coast.
Concept
equity mining
A method where dealerships look through their customer records to find people whose current cars are worth more than what they still owe on their car loans, allowing the dealer to offer them a trade-in deal on a brand-new car.
Brand
Xtime
A popular software program that car dealerships use to let customers book service appointments online and manage their repair shop schedules.
Company
CDK Global
A massive software company that provides the main computer systems car dealerships use to run their daily business, from selling cars to managing their repair shops.
LIVE
The after hours is just icing on the cake.
My average store has revenue to the tune of like eight to
$10,000 a month.
Some of my stores are upwards of almost $30,000 a month
just after hours.
Scott Trailer on the CDG podcast.
Scott, welcome.
What's up, dude?
How are you doing?
Great to have you here.
Thanks for having me.
Start us out with a little bit about the business.
I think one of the things about you that I find fascinating
is that you are really at one of the companies leading the
forefront of automotive AI.
You work with some of the largest dealers in the country,
which we'll talk about that.
But what many don't know, and I do, I found this out,
is that you were previously at Echo Park.
Yeah.
That's public knowledge.
But you sold your your last two years at Echo Park.
You did 9,000 units out of a single point.
Yeah.
So just like explain that to us, I want to understand like
what happened here as you were as a retailer.
How did you get to that level?
Like, what was that like?
So you got to back up a little bit.
Before that, I was I was with Vantal then the Berkshire
Hathaway when it was bought out.
And one of the stresses of working for a large group
is that for me, and this goes a little bit into my faith,
but I wanted to impact the culture inside the dealership
in a way that I did not have full range to do so at my previous
stop.
What I truly mean by that is when you have a store that's
been around for decades, even though you can come in and
impact the culture, you're still going to have tethers to
the culture that was there before.
And I'm not saying anything was bad.
I just knew in my heart that there was more.
That's all I'm saying.
There was nothing bad.
BHA is probably the best rent dealer group in America.
I just knew that there was a calling that was in my heart
that I wanted to walk out and I needed a little
bit of latitude so that I can accomplish that goal.
When I started talking with Sonic Automotive, they gave me
a little bit more latitude to impact the culture in the
house is a brand new store and for anybody who's taken over
a store, you have what I was speaking to before tethers to
the culture that's been there for decades when you have a
brand new point, you can have a blank canvas and
that's what really intrigued me.
So rule number one, no Saturday meetings.
Just let that resonate for a sec.
When's the last time you didn't have any Saturday meetings
inside the standard?
It is out the door.
Why because it was a distraction Saturday is Super Bowl.
I want the guys to come in and just really get to work.
I mean, just start selling cars for a minute that we open
the door.
Okay, if the goal is to be a high volume store, then we
needed to we needed to appreciate that clients are going
to be in that door as soon as we open up that door and we'd
be running all day long.
So no Saturday meetings, but what you needed to have.
I'm right.
I was a huddle for 15 minutes every day during a week.
Monday through Friday, you'd have a 15 minute huddle and
that 15 minute huddle would be broken into three parts.
Encouragement any announcements and shout outs.
And so the encouragement is the leader needs to set the pace
in the house.
So five minute encouraging message to pump up your team
that speaks to something that's not just about cars.
The high level theory for me was this.
If I can impact this group of people and with everything in
my being helped them become better people, then you can't
you can't stop what will happen in that store after that.
And so my goal was not to get them to sell another car.
My goal was to get them to be a better person.
And because you pour into the people in such a manner, you
help them unlock themselves.
Then they run faster than they've ever thought they could
run before.
And now industry standards when you have 1012 is your monthly
industry standard for selling a car.
The people on this team were selling 2025 average.
If you didn't sell 20 cars, you look silly.
And so it was a combination encouragement every day.
You have announcements of something business is going
on and you and you encourage the team to shout out to each
other.
So hey, I had two customers and you'll see you resign the
customer that came back in.
I want to thank you for that.
It's got to be very intentional about calling out your other
teammates and what that the lessons they learn out of that
is they are a big team.
Even though they're competing friendly, they are a really
big team.
One big family and everybody would look out for each other.
I wanted to impact the people and because we were help.
I was helping them unlock their own potential.
The store took off.
So month number one, the company gave me a goal of 200.
We sold 250 month number two.
We sold 280 month number three.
We sold 350 and I'll be honest with you.
I was pissed off because I saw four but we lost a whole week.
We lost a whole week for ice and Dallas and then month
number five, we hit 595 and we were going cooking with oil
there.
Unbelievable.
How does a guy who loves people and you're not like I know
you, you're someone that you walk up to you and you smile
and you're warm to be around.
It's nice to be around you.
You can't say that about everyone, unfortunately, but
seriously, I'll give you that compliment, right?
So how does someone like you go to completely the other end
of the barbell as I've been talking a lot where today you're
really in the business of educating dealers on AI and
of course you're representing a solution, but you spend most
of your time doing AI education for dealers.
How does that happen?
It's an extension of what we're already speaking of.
I love people and I love the car business.
They work in tandem.
This is the space that I get to connect with the world.
And so when we originally were working out the solution, Mia,
I saw another opportunity to take this show on the road, you
know, and connect with people nationwide.
What is Mia?
Just for someone three years ago after chat.
Jpt dropped.
I saw that there was something for AI in automotive didn't know
exactly how to make it make sense.
I called somebody smarter than me.
Local University University of Texas Dallas campus.
They had AI society.
The president of the society was a gentleman named Brian Hong.
So I found him on LinkedIn.
I DM'd him.
So you're a dealer and you see Chad GPT drop.
It was a February when they dropped the open source.
I played around through in the March and I wound up reaching
out to Brian April like top of April.
Are you naturally just interested in tech?
Like is your yeah.
I'm not like a you know, I'm not like I can't code or anything
like that, but I'm I'm savvy.
I'm okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you see this thing drop and what compels you to reach out to
an AI professor like you're you're selling cars, right?
Like why you know what I mean?
It's not like you're building rockets, right?
So why?
It feels like the use case is so far departed from what you
need to do on a daily basis.
I got a nudge in my heart that something was here.
Here's the life lesson.
A lot of people will get that nudge in their heart, but they
will ignore it and I had to train my mind to take action when
I get those nudges.
And so I got a little nudge in my heart that there was something
here that I needed to unravel and I didn't have the intelligence
to do it.
So I love action.
I took action love the self-awareness and reached out to
somebody that was smarter than me.
And that conversation continued to this day.
That conversation turned into Mia and the company that we
get to where you're essentially offering AI solutions to dealers
and voice AI and there's much more on top of that.
We'll talk about it, but sure.
Okay.
So thanks for helping me understand that by the way, when
you were just mentioning that story about just taking initiative.
So we're hosting next month of retreat with 30 dealers in
Colorado and this is just kind of like a, I don't know, an
experiment for fun.
Not the retreat is far from an experiment.
It's very well produced and it's not fire festival.
But the idea is like, Hey, let's like try something different.
That said, the point I'm trying to make here is that the host
of the retreat was someone I know for for many years now.
He he put a picture on social media the other day, which I
saw, which is like a like a bird in a cage and it's not
actually a cage.
There's only like two bars, right?
But the bird is like holding the bars and it's like, it's
saying like, Oh, like, why can't I fly away?
Anyways, this is kind of like getting a look philosophical.
But the idea is like we build these like mental barriers for
ourselves.
Like we're like, we can't do this.
We can't do that.
And and then you realize like you can do anything.
Yeah.
Self-imposed.
You know, unless it defies the laws of physics, like you can
you can you can do anything.
You can and you just have to you have to retrain your mind.
I think that we are built to become the best version of
ourselves, but we get complacent in life.
We get comfortable.
We get comfortable and you have to sometimes stress yourself
out.
You have to put yourself in situations where you're forcing
yourself to grow.
And if you are getting comfortable, that should be your
alarm.
That something is wrong.
And or at least that's the way I see it.
And so so many years ago, I just always challenged myself.
If I was getting too comfortable in a space, I just make
myself uncomfortable and that doesn't mean I'm going to hurt
myself, but I'll learn something.
I'll push myself in a different direction.
I'm always seeking to grow some way, form or fashion mentally,
spiritually, business wise, my family, all of it.
I want to see how I can go to the next level in every aspect
of my life.
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So tell us now what is happening when you talk about growth?
Like what is what's happening in our industry?
Like you're at the forefront of this.
You were just telling me before this off the record about
you know, meetings with some very big groups and hundreds
and hundreds of stores and I'm giving you the you know, the
cloud here you didn't ask for this, but like you're clearly
in some big rooms discussing AI and implementing AI in these
stores, what is the first like start us with this sentiment?
Like what's the current pulse on just dealer sentiment on AI
adoption, whether it be chat GBT or like vendor solutions like
where are we at amongst dealers?
You'd have to go back about 25 years and remember when somebody
walked in your store and said you need a website.
What's this internet thing?
You know, you know, you need a website.
You need to you need a CRM, you know, and some dealers are
like, why do I need the CRM?
I get my leads on facts or you know, I put my ads in the
newspaper and people call my phone.
We're in that space.
We're in that space right now.
You think so?
I do and AI will never the genie's out of the bottle.
It's not going back in and so it's not a conversation that
AI is going to sell cars.
That's not the conversation.
This is a people business.
This is a human connection business that will never change.
What I am saying is that the AI will be heavily involved in
resale operations for the foreseeable future.
It is not going backwards and as we as dealers are extremely
competitive nature individuals, we're always looking for an edge.
The sheer fact that we can bring in a solution like mine or
you know, anyone any other version of AI and gain a competitive
edge in inside of dealership operations that resonates with
dealer leaders that absolutely resonates and then you have to
look at the human aspect over the last 20 years.
We've gotten extremely good at marketing cars.
Just think about that the last 25 years we've dialed it in.
You know, we can merchandise a car before it even gets from
the auction to my front line and start getting leads on it
and start working for conversions on it.
But the end result of that is that we have so much traffic
coming into our retail operations that it's not a coaching
problem or training problem or human problem.
It's a math problem.
We have so much traffic coming in that the humans at the store
level, they have no hope to try and convert it all in your
conversations and just your actual execution like what is
the what use cases are the most effective right now with your
AI is it like I call me or implemented after hours only is
it input, you know, 24 hours a day.
First off the after hours is just icing on the cake.
My average store is has revenue in the tune to the tune of like
eight to 10000 dollars a month.
Some of my stores are upwards of almost 30000
dollars a month just after hours just after hours.
Now the flip side of that argument would be well wouldn't
you collect that money anyway?
Well, let's look at that.
What do you mean 8000 dollars of revenue?
So people are calling that.
Yeah, people are calling it two in the morning setting appointments
and that appointment converts to RO's.
Some of my stores are seeing 2932 somewhere
in that range thousand dollars at the high end.
It all depends on how engaging the story is with our software.
But the real point is that that's low hanging fruit.
The bright now if you don't have a solution like that then
your customer is playing phone tag with your staff for three
or four days trying to get an appointment and there's no
risk for that because it's after hours.
I'm already losing it.
I'm losing 100 percent.
So if I lose 50 percent, it's even better.
That's a layup.
The real use cases when Mia is on the first ring and service
and she gets a triage to calls.
And so from all your service advisors that are on the service
lane, a lot of them are getting bogged down by the simple stuff.
If I go to any any dealership that's high volume, I'm going to
see that service advisor with a cell phone working with his
desk line working with his computer working and he's
possibly got a human being in front of all at the same time.
If he picks up that phone, a lot of times they see it as a danger.
Like if I pick up this phone, I'm going to get stuck on this
call for 15 20 minutes.
I got this.
I got this human being standing in front of the one thing I
can't stand a dealership.
The phone call not the phone not being answered.
And they can't stand getting bogged down on a simple conversation
like how do I replace my battery and my key fob.
And that's what's understandable.
That's it is on the really think about like on the human level.
I get it.
Yeah, I have so many hours in a day.
I want to maximize my income.
That's at least how you know someone's going to think.
So I get that.
So that's the key use case.
We put solutions like Mia on the first ring and take a lot of
that burden off of the service advisors.
And Mia will send the calls to them that they need to get on
the phone with.
Do I have a knock?
I have a knock in my engine.
Is that covered under warranty call triaging?
Yes.
So Mia will take the breath the blunt force trauma of how do I
replace my key fob batteries?
How do I get what you know what is your store on the right side
or left side?
Where's your night deposit for keys?
If I bring my car after you close up or setting an oil
change appointment or service schedule maintenance, Mia can
take the blunt force trauma of all those type of calls off the
shoulders of the team.
Is your competition other voice AI competitors or is it stubborn
dealer principles or is it another human that doesn't want to
give up these tasks?
I'm going to say it's other people in this space that are
utilizing technology to try and fill these calls as best I
can.
Some of the players in this space are SMS only and they're
coming late to the party trying to get to the voice aspect,
but they're they're figuring out that having a good voice is
key.
And so they haven't figured out how to get how hard is that
Scott?
It's extremely hard.
I mean, it's so hard that we've been averaging 1.9 seconds on
our latency and what does that mean?
That means like what you and I have been talking if I say
what's your name?
You'll see that's basically a two second latency, but the
average latency in this industry is three and a half to
four seconds.
So what is your name for every example and it's very it's
friction filled and I use this analogy all the time.
But when you call your bank or your credit card or the airline
you're talking to one of those auto means it's systems.
It's really slow.
We talked to we were looking at a store that we were going
to demo and they had a solution in their store.
The latency was five seconds.
The latency was five seconds.
I'll never name the so it was that an easy implementation.
I mean, it was it was as soon as he heard the voice.
He's like, I've never heard anything like that and we're
like, we get it.
Is that what dealers are buying?
Like ultimately when you're in that corporate office that
dealership wherever you are, like what are dealers ultimately
what's the problem then ultimately they're buying here
or the solution.
I should say is it is it that essentially like the highest
quality call it, you know, virtual agent to communicate
with my customer?
No, it's it's multifaceted.
They have to appreciate this.
The voice is one aspect of it and I'd say about a year ago
people that were early into the space.
When I say that early adopters of dealers that were in the
space, they would gauge it on the voice.
But then you have to look at how a group manages your account.
If I need technical support, do I have to match up my hours
because the technical supports on the other side of the world?
Can I get somebody on the phone?
If I have an idea of something that I want to customize with
this technology.
Do you listen to me?
So you're an AI company and you're leaning into human to
differentiate yourself that you have to love it.
And so I mean, these are lessons I learned being a dealer
for 20 years when I mean I work for some very large groups
and it would boggle me when if I came up with an idea that
this group would not listen said vendor put X out there just
said vendor would not listen and I'm not working for small
groups.
I work for some big groups.
I'm like this doesn't make any sense.
And for me my heart I want to listen to people.
I want to find out what makes them tick.
I believe that a next great idea possibly is in the mind of
this individual.
I need to get them to open up and share what they're thinking
about with me so I can help them.
I think it's a big reason why we're seeing I'm seeing a lot
of dealers tinker with their like own internal tools just
around the dealership like building random stuff.
Yep.
Whether or not it's cost efficient we can debate but like
they are doing it and it's because people want Taylor
people want personalized look at the state of media.
Yeah I'm in the media business right like today you can get
anything you want if you like you know flying pigs or you
know whatever like the horses that can sail like you can
literally find a YouTube channel for these things and
there's a whole community around
it right like people around the world that are like into
this stuff.
So it's just today everything is but or you've seen media real
talk is there a flying pig channel.
There is not or maybe there is someone should someone should
check but like there's some crazy stuff out there.
There's like hyper hyper niche and media was the first to go
through this and now it feels like we're starting to see this
in the SaaS industry.
It's like nicheification where everything is just becoming
really really personalized.
I think that's what I think in AI especially you're going to
find that software and AI is going to get into that space
and it's going to become more niche because pretty much
anybody can get with Claude and vibe cope something you know
and dude in many cases like you're spending more on tokens
and on Claude to get less of a product and spend more time
but like you can personalize it just shows you how much people
and dealers obviously are willing to pay for like a high level
of personalization.
What it really says is how much a dealer is not listened to
because if they had if software partners are actually
listening to their dealers and then trying to create the
solution that the dealer actually want with the dealer need
to go through all the effort of trying to code their own version
of a software.
No.
Well I think in many cases there is like non-commercial
pieces of software dealers want like if I just want a you
know dispatch app for my tow truck driver like something very
basic I can just one page I can vibe code that very quickly
that's simple.
If I wasn't more complicated that's why I agree with you like
OK this is you know we need to step it up one of the big
announcements you made I caught wind of this was that GM
you're or you're the first voice AI a pre-empt for their is
it I am our program I believe their I am our look how did
that come to be why did they approve you like just tells
about that process it's a it's a great it's obviously very cool
validation it's a great opportunity so first off hats
off the General Motors for being a leader in this space a lot
of we're having a lot of OEM conversations and what I can
tell you about these other conversations is a lot of the
OEMs have not created an AI category yet really that's
that's how far ahead like a full AI correct night we're not
thinking voice AI we're talking at all yeah voice AI full AI
they have a lot of OEMs have not committed to creating that
category inside of their dealer vendor relationship arena
General Motors saw the value and saw the future
price of SpaceX this this conversation maybe by this
conversation I mean who knows where it's going to be out but
I think today it's our three trillion or something so that's
bonkers dude that's crazy hats off the L I mean you can bet
against Elon though no you can't bro did you see that picture
from 2008 when he was standing I mean just sitting in the
rubble yeah that's it that's the uncomfortable part that I'm
that was speaking to earlier or is like he could have cashed
out how many times could that man have cashed out and gone and
lived on a boat somewhere I think when he sold pay value made
like 120 million or right you just dumped it all back into
SpaceX right and he could have cashed out a hundred different
times he had a nudge in his gut that would not let him sit
still and he forced himself to get uncomfortable but going
back to what we're speaking of before General Motors jumped
out there they saw the future to jump out there and hats off
to him for leading the industry you know when it comes to
partnering with technology to create the future of retail
operations and dealership is so what does that actually mean
are you right now already like did a bunch of GM dealers
just take you take me on and implemented now or where we had
so I'll walk you there this process started like last October
November I got the call now I'll share this with you I was here
in Florida somewhere I just landed I was waiting for my
colleague to land she was coming from an LA and I my phone
rings and it's my my contact at General Motors and he said I'm
proud to announce that Mia has been selected as the first as
the first voice AI company that oh so you get this notice to
your phone call yeah that's been approved by General Motors
while he goes you're going to get an email which will state
this and that this any other but I wanted to give you a call
let you know that you guys have been selected to be the first
voice AI company that's been approved for General Motor
Retail and I started dancing on chairs in the middle of this
airport and all these strangers are like high-fiving me and
they have no idea what is going on I'm fist pumping and I get
off the phone and they said what's going on and I said man
this the little engine it could story right for guys with
ideas started a software business in Dallas and General
Motors just approved us to have our software be the first
one that they partner with for this and these guys start
clapping they started high-fiving me right then and
there in the middle of this airport while and I mean it's
it was it was such a moment it was such a moment into your word
validation validation it was complete validation and I'm
not above saying I call my wife and I cry I love that it's
like raising money is cool but getting market validation like
that is very cool yeah it was such I
wish I had a video of that one how's it been since like how
is when you when you see as you you keep growing within the
industry hmm what are like dealers asking for what's what's
changing there so I think an early on Scott to preface this
early on a lot of dealers were telling me hey I feel like many
AI vendors out there and I'm not I'm not suggesting you but
saying many AI vendors out there are you know they're sort
of building their product on on my back right at my expense
they're doing R&D on me and this is not a fully baked product
like there's a lot of these you know this sentiment going
around and of course there's others who made it work I mean
I don't know if it's you know implementation whatever whatever
it is but there's always two sides of the coin so what's
what's the state right now where we are right now so we got
through the first adopters like the early adopters last yeah
and those guys were looking at the quality like okay well this
voice is quicker than that one then they got into well what's
my relationship with this vendor look like I can't even get
my guy on the phone I can't get a video call or anything you
know who manages all this stuff now they're at a point where
they're starting to realize that there are levels to the
game enterprise dealers deserve hands holding relationships
with their vendors they deserve to have people who are walking
in the door and talking to them every other day even if it's
not if it's just a two second check in or two minute check
in the product has gone from just answering the call to making
an outbound call to set texting next level is going to be the
email and the chat and email and chat's been around for a very
long time of course and that's why we left that to the last
and then from there you are pushing into the parts
department I see the parts department as a new frontier
when I manage dealerships I never saw technology go to parts
and I believe there's a space where we all our opportunity
so naturally it's a smaller opportunity for investment
dollars yeah it's a black hole I'm just that's the way I
described a parts department and a lot of dealerships so we
have some dealer policy and Fred beans parts apartment
absolutely is a partner of ours oh wow okay and we're in all
of Fred bean stores one of the largest operations across
country Fred bean is wow so he uses you in parts or not
no we're working on that oh you're working on that okay yeah
he's got us answering his calls wow yeah he's got us answer
you know Fred yes and he called me a few months ago he goes
Scott it's Fred beans I said sir I'm aware I say he goes
don't call me sir call me Fred I say oh yes Fred it's very
uncomfortable my dad says the same thing so uncomfortable to
call him Fred he's such a brilliant man yeah and so he's
asking me a ton of AI questions and I'm answering him and he
goes Scott I want to stay on top of this AI I was like Fred
has anybody told you you're 86 and he just busted out laughing
his wife's in the background laughing I'm like you're 86
I know but I want to stay on top of it I was like you call me
anytime sir well I'll answer any questions you got he is a real
leader what a legend he's a real leader I mean an incredible
leader where he's going to try and make you a better human
being but if he's got time with you well that's and that's who
I want to become a person that whatever time
I have with another individual I want to add value to their
life and so this is how we approach our relationships with
our our partners and this is how we approach speaking about
our product but just as a basic rule of life I'm trying to
seek out how I can add value to the next human being that
I've been connected with who taught you that it's faith
I wasn't always like that I'll be honest with you serving
yeah when I I'm a Christ follower and so when I when I became
a Christ follower something in my life to Christ you start
studying how Jesus taught you know whatever space he was in
it was always a opportunity to elevate this individual to the
next level of their life and just add value to them through
love through encouragement in truth you want to add value
to that individual's life learned a lot of great lessons
and I've been able to transfer a lot of those lessons into my
business relationships and it has never failed well
has never failed me all right real quick before we get back
to the episode I want to share with you something special
we've been working on for months the CDG dealer platform
it's built to give your dealership a competitive edge
benchmark your performance against thousands of rooftops
get honest vendor feedback from other dealers and see what's
working across the industry right now check it out at CDG app
dot AI that's CDG app dot AI or click the link in the show
notes I want to ask you a different question here which
is that you mentioned like building these partnerships with
dealers and I put out a feeler in circles you know our our
dealership I heard it's been going great
really well there's obviously it's just like any product you
know we're listening to dealers and it were it's we're
essentially a hub for intelligence this is how we've branded
it because we just launched what we call CDG app which is
taking circles taking all of our vendor reviews from dealers
taking now our temp checks you know temp checks are where we
ask dealers hey how's your month going they answer 10
questions we then take that we supply back to the dealer so
we just put that all in one place we said hey here's your
intelligence hub it's CDG app dot AI that's literally the URL
CDG app a P P dot AI and you have all this intelligence in
one place now so you know it's building a product takes time
but it's going really well there's you know many dealers
are subscribing the point I'm trying to make is I asked yours
hey like what do you want to know about this space I'm
sitting with Scott and two dealers echoed a similar sentiment
which I thought was interesting and they said hey we wanted
we want to know the road map and in other words there it
seems like you know there's a lot of promises being made in
the industry but dealers I mean they're being smart they say
hey I'm going to spend time here implementing some piece of
software whatever it is to make my dealership better more
efficient I want to know what am I going to get in the future
not just today right what am I betting who on
because it's a lot of work I get it and so from whatever you
can share like dealers want to know like what is the what is
the future look like for them what can you tell us about
what's next on this horizon for any prospective dealers
whether or not they're interested in me or another company
or in general what should we expect I want to understand
the impact in the dealership that's to come so currently
obviously we got the inbound and we're making outbound outbound
is a unique outbound automated calls to you right so that's
a unique monster okay why because most of outbound is what
we call a campaign so you take a Excel spreadsheet loaded
into the back in the Mia set the prompting for the conversation
you want to have and our team will do that with you and then
basically turn me a loose and that can be a conversation where
you have 500 people called for recalls special order parts
customer declines are on the sales side equity mining showroom
follow-ups are you doing that now yes oh wow okay yeah we're
already doing that and so how are you doing sorry to catch
out there but how are you doing like equity mining or you
connect well they we connect do the initial
conversation okay hey it looks like your lease is coming to
an end in about six months one to talk to you about the next
car that you want to purchase okay and they're like you know
Mitch Mia can answer certain questions about that like yeah
talk before I do that hey I got a little bit of damage on my
car you know how does how does that kind of be treated when
I turn my lease in Mia will tell you how that's you know she
won't give you exact numbers but she'll tell you hey listen
if you got a little damage on the car you can expect that's
going to be a little bit of a financial ding okay you know
for that damage I can set up an appointment with one of our
sales representatives to take a look at what you what you got
going on and you know basically do the outreach connect them
with a human being do the outreach connect and so the
vast majority of outbound is campaign we do fully automated
for elite right now we do a fully up late lead comes in
phone calls text messages the whole shebang how well does
that convert it converts well I won't give it
out the numbers right now but it converts exceptionally well
and it's giving us one of the largest contracts in America
well over this the automated aspect of it I would say is
one of the key components of our future roadmap mm-hmm so
we have to push further from E leads in the vent into the
other CRM and then to apply that on the service side so all
the service schedulers right now like I said most outbound is
campaign that's not just me that's industry wide we're
going to automate the outbound outreach across the board
so X time rental CDK scheduler my karma we're going to we're
going to dive into all those to create automated processes
to follow up with customers so sale side and service side
parts department definitely we're up to our eyeballs in the
parts department right now want to bring that's an interesting
wedge it is with like I feel like no one no one's focusing
on that from what I know no you know I haven't heard anybody
focusing on it and to your point earlier some people look
over it and say you know it's a small portion of the revenue
it's it's it's if you dial it in it every any incremental
increase in course out of a store is positive pick up a
basis point here basis right you know and so if we can affect
change and the way we've seen our increases on the service
side if we see anything close to that insert and parts it's
game over impactful yeah it's game over on that it's game over
well so automation on the outbound straight across the board
getting into the parts department that's our near term
there is a longer term roadmap but just being respectful I
can't I can't put the music right now so without giving us
the roadmap when you look at me as impact on the industry
within three to five years what has changed right what's the
vision help me understand what the industry experience looks
like you know three to five years time not too far but
enough to really make an impact so the thing is earlier I
said that you're the automotive the automotive industry is a
people business it's always about the people connection the
thing is we can accelerate how people get connected there's
just so much traffic coming in that we can take control of
that traffic management and get people in front of people
which is where the magic happens let people do the people
part and we do the follow-up chasing we make the
connections for them and then let them do the people people
connection opportunity let them seize that there will be
efficiencies internally as well currently we've been creating
efficiencies between the customer and the store sometime in
the next year I would say that you're going to see the
efficiencies turn inward well where the store starts getting
efficiencies you know getting efficient in their day to day
operations between each other between parts and service
between service and sales between sales and service between
accounting and everybody there's going to be a lot of that
going on as well and I really believe that even in the
marketing aspect of it the the AI is going to automate a lot
of the marketing also feeding people into this funnel into
this process where eventually they'll have this human human
come connection the thing is this I know that AI will never
take the place of a car salesman just can't happen people love
connection people love people and the soft underbelly of AI is
that it creates a world now if I look at social media I see a
video I always have a question mark is that real so hard to
know nowadays my dad said the AI videos like that is AI right
like are you sure I'm like yes it's sure which is like they
still valid content I'm like fair but it's AI you know which
emphasizes this point if I question that it forces me to
never question this this is authentic this is credible this
is real and so the more we can get people together and you can
utilize AI that space to create this space right here I think
that's the winning winning for me going forward on a powerful
way to almost wrap up the podcast because I would do want to
ask you one more question you wrap us up with some words of
wisdom what can you tell someone in the industry listening to
this right now I you know I do like to always encourage people
if I have an opportunity to do so and since we're an automotive
industry I'll share automotive encouragement on every car in
America every car out there there is an encouraging message
on absolutely every car if you sit in your driver seat you
look over to the right side the side view mirror says objects
in a mirror or what closer than they appear and so what that
means is don't trust your eye the promises that are promised
to your life or closer than the world would have you believe
what a legend Scott trailer me AI Scott thank you so much for
joining us here in Florida on the podcast absolute honor
thanks for having me sir thank you yes sir all right hope
you enjoyed that episode please give the podcast a rating
consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for
links to the sponsors of today's episode Uber for business CDG
platform and of course Mia thanks for tuning in and I'll see
you guys next time.
About this episode
Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs and former Echo Park powerhouse, joins the show to discuss the intersection of dealership culture and artificial intelligence. Traylor shares his secrets to selling 9,000 units from a single store, emphasizing a people-first culture and unconventional rules like banning Saturday meetings. He then explains his transition to automotive AI, comparing the current AI boom to the early days of dealership websites. Discover how dealers can leverage voice AI to capture missed after-hours traffic, streamline operations, and boost revenue without losing the essential human touch.
Original notes
Today I'm joined by Scott Traylor, Vice President at Mia Labs.
Scott breaks down how voice AI is pulling $8,000 to $30,000 a month in after-hours revenue at stores where customers used to just hit a voicemail, why service advisors are letting calls go unanswered on purpose, and how Mia became the first voice AI company approved by General Motors for their co-op program.
If you think AI is still a future conversation, Scott makes the case that you're already in the same moment as when someone first told you that you needed a website.
Topics:
02:30 The No-Saturday-Meeting Rule.
03:50 Why Salespeople Sold 25 Cars.
12:40 AI Is The New Internet.
14:20 The $30K Revenue Stream Ignored.
17:30 The 1.9-Second Secret.
23:50 The OEM Light-Years Ahead.
28:10 Parts Is AI's Next Frontier.
39:55 The Side Mirror Lesson.
This episode is brought to you by:
1. Uber for Business - Uber for Business pulls courtesy rides and reporting into one dashboard, so you can see what you're spending and set limits that hold. Visit @ here to get started.
2. CDG Dealer Platform – Dealer intelligence, all in one place. Give your dealership a competitive edge @ here.
3. Mia - Your 24/7 AI receptionist who speaks like a human, not a robot. Never miss another lead. Visit @ here for more info.
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