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NCM Event Conversations feat. Carol Marshall
NCM Event Conversations feat. Carol Marshall
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About this episode
Active Engage’s Carol Marshall explains why her team has prioritized in-person, human-to-human conversations for 16 years. She then lays out a near-term rollout: an AI tool coming in about a month that summarizes unscripted 10–12 minute calls and texts into highlights for sales and service teams, helping them pick up right where they left off. After that, sentiment analysis will follow—starting with an initial release in 2026—while keeping dealership websites interactive and the human touch front and center.
Topics:
human-to-human engagement
ai call summarization
sales and service follow-up
customer sentiment analysis
dealer website interactivity
customer skepticism and reassurance
NCM Event Conversations feat. Carol Marshall
In this special Series NCM Event Conversations we grabbed a few of our favorite guest to talk about their experiences and whats happening in our Industry. In this interview Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz speak with Carol Marshall of Active Engage, the event’s title sponsor, to discuss why in-person engagement and human-to-human conversations still matter in a noisy world. Carol shares how Active Engage supports dealers by having live, unscripted 10–12 minute conversations with customers, helping sales and service teams follow up with confidence and reduce “dead lead” fatigue.
Join us at NCM’s first-ever Fuel the Future May 18th-20th – An NCM Fixed Ops Summit, an experience built for leaders ready to elevate performance, profitability, and the customer journey through modern systems and by utilizing AI-driven innovation.
Register Now!
https://go.ncmassociates.com/Fixed-Ops-Summit.html
📲Stream it. Share it. Let's Brew.
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
carguycoffee.com
certifiedsolutionaries.com
In this special Series NCM Event Conversations we grabbed a few of our favorite guest to talk about their experiences and whats happening in our Industry. In this interview Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz speak with Carol Marshall of Active Engage, the event’s title sponsor, to discuss why in-person engagement and human-to-human conversations still matter in a noisy world. Carol shares how Active Engage supports dealers by having live, unscripted 10–12 minute conversations with customers, helping sales and service teams follow up with confidence and reduce “dead lead” fatigue.
Join us at NCM’s first-ever Fuel the Future May 18th-20th – An NCM Fixed Ops Summit, an experience built for leaders ready to elevate performance, profitability, and the customer journey through modern systems and by utilizing AI-driven innovation.
Register Now!
https://go.ncmassociates.com/Fixed-Ops-Summit.html
📲Stream it. Share it. Let's Brew.
Don’t forget to share and subscribe!
carguycoffee.com
certifiedsolutionaries.com
Select text to request an explanation
Hello and welcome to the CarGuy coffee podcast. You are listening to the inter brews at the
NCM client and friends event. Enjoy these conversations. Let's brew. What's going on
car guys and car gals? It's the Ramirez, the car guy, Fred Linard subprime hero. And we are
brewing solutions at the NCM and associates clients and friends workshop here inside of
Kansas City. And we're having a good time with the one, the only Carol Marshall. Welcome to the
show. Welcome to the show. No stranger to the show. And we will do that announcement for you
anywhere and everywhere you go. Every day when I walk in every room, that's what I'm gonna have.
Melissa probably recorded it. So we'll just play it for everyone as I walk in. I like it.
I did get the chance to see the video. I don't know if you saw the video yet. I haven't seen
the video yet, but I heard good things. But I'm excited just because those types of welcomes
are something that you should always have. Carol, you're amazing. When we've been able to grow up in
this industry and over the last five years, the people that we've been growing up with, you're
one of those ones that stick out to me all the time. It's not just that you love what you do. It's
the passion that you have behind it. And you're always trying to be innovative in the way that
you present what you do. So I can always appreciate something like that. You always take it to the
next level and you push other ones around you to take it to the next level. So thank you. I
appreciate that. That means a lot. I was excited to get up and be with you guys. First thing,
first lot in the morning, right? That's right. First one. We're gonna close with coffee all day
today. So we wanted to start it right. I was so excited because you guys too are very genuine,
very sincere and in a busy, noisy world when you can pause and acknowledge someone as I walked into
the packed elevator this morning with everybody. You could tell the lightness of the mood just
when people got acknowledged and the conversation started. And that's what we're about. That's what
Active Engage is about. That's what we've done for 16 years. And so yeah, to be able to be in
person with you guys today is a special treat. Well, you're making this treat for everybody
that's here. So you all are the title sponsor of this event, which means they get the big spot,
everybody. But ultimately, you are here to make sure that people get active and they do engage
inside of this entire event and with each other. Why is it that this was such a big priority for
you and Active Engage to be a part of? This, which was probably previously, as we know, David Cain's
client and friends, such a great group of dealers and speakers. When you look at the agenda, all of
the speakers you're going to hear today and over the next couple of days, so insightful. They're
going to bring a different take, different information. It's not the three same three letter
acronym that you're going to hear repeatedly, but different topics throughout the next few days.
And we wanted to be supportive of that any environment where people can broaden the way that
they're thinking, engage with each other. There's fantastic ideas. We had a V20 meeting
yesterday with V20. Yeah, multiple vendors and sharing best practices of onboarding.
Yeah, Curtis with the Capital Group spoke to us. So that was education. It really was. Everybody
kind of woke up and I thought I had a good onboarding process, but do I have an onboarding
process? And it was, it was neat to see the different perspective from a dealer side on what
the little things that make all the difference are. Right. And I really enjoyed seeing that.
And it was nice. And it is nice to be in a group of a room with a group of people who are
trying to take it to the next level for their clients. More importantly is, Hey,
what are we doing that we can do better at? Because everyone's doing good. But we've heard
a lot of records going on in that room, but it's about what can we do better? And that's the whole
keep growing mode, right? And that's how we stay relevant and what we do. And that's something
that I see that you guys are actively doing at Active Engage, right? You're constantly evolving
what you do, what you talk about, the people that you surround yourself with, even your clients
are evolving, right? And I love that because their clients are evolving. So if we're not evolving,
what are we doing? So I love that. And we're talking about Active Engage. It's something that's
near and dear to Lou and I, we love the fact that you have such a great human touch. You guys are
like one of a kind business out there. And I really respect that a lot. And I love how you guys are
really approaching it in a way that in today's world with the two letter acronym, with that two
letter acronym, by saying that a lot of people are like, Oh, that's the future. I don't think it's
not the future. But I think that the human touch, the human conversation person to person
will always top anything that computers bring us.
Yeah, some percent. AI is fantastic.
Oh, it is 100% correct way. And we're really looking forward to in about a month deploying
a new AI tool to help our clients without losing that human to human touch. It's because when
you look at the dealerships today, there's a lot on those false play to keep up with
tariff, not tariff. What's my OEMs response to that even if them domestic, right? And then
just the anxiety within the consumer body between the interest rates, the prices, their trade values.
Keeping up with all of that is enough to get poured upon a sales team, a lot of leads that don't
answer their phone, don't respond to a text, don't answer an email. That's like adding lashes
that just don't don't need to happen to a sales team. So our hope is with this AI summary, these
10 to 12 minute conversations that we typically have will be summarized for that sales person
or service team that they can get the highlights and pick it up right where we left off because
we are having unscripted human to human conversations. There's a lot of goodness in that
conversation. Huge amount of goodness in that. But I love that you're creating a tool using AI.
And I think that's definitely a great word to use in today's world. I know it's a two-letter
acronym that it is all over the place. It's in every business. home right now.
It's in everyone's phone right now. And if you're not using it, you're going to miss an opportunity.
But the way that you are using is genius. I know that my salespeople that I work with all over the
country and Lou works with, when we sit down with them, their apprehension is, what do I tell them?
What do I talk to them about? What did they do before? If there wasn't good notes or notes that
are from two years ago, it's hard for them to find it. So when you have a tool like that,
you can pull it out and say, hey, this is the time. They said two years ago, they're ready
to buy in two years. Let's reach out to them. I think that's a pretty amazing thing that you
all are doing there. Yeah, the conversation kind of surfaced up to me a couple weeks ago. It was
service department, didn't want to wait, chose to change the conversation, the call to a text.
And as soon as she started texting, she goes, if this is a bot, I'm going to hang up right now.
And our agent did such a great job of reassuring I'm a human. Last time I looked in the mirror,
I was definitely human. And then just continued the conversation. So you took a painful moment
and made it an amazing moment for the customer and for the service team.
And that's often our time to make a real relationship with the customer is in those
moments where they do have that frustration, they do have that pain, if you will, they do have that
that that hurdle to get over and then there and an anxiety frame of mind. And then you calm them
down, you bring them back in, you let them know I'm breathing just like you. And that does help to
settle somebody, especially when they really just want to connect to somebody and let them know
Hey, this is what I'm going through. And it is impossible to get a robot, if you will, to feel
that way. But being able to ease that moment for a customer does settle them to your store,
which is at the end of the day, what we're trying to provide, we're all here collectively,
trying to provide solutions that do make your life the dealer's life easier that does make it
easier for you to connect to your customer for you to connect to your community for you to
connect to your people. What have you seen? As far as inside of the stores, the community being
like when they're like, Okay, this is what we use. This is how we operate. And we are proud to say,
we don't have any of that communicating with our customers. Yeah, it gives that sales team so much
confidence that these are opportunities, real opportunities, they know when they send that
response text, they're going to have someone in a conversation, not just another death.
Now you don't have to force your team to follow up. Your team wants to follow up. They know that
customer's already been talking to you, the dealer for 10 or 12 minutes. And so if you're
looking at the service side, a lot of times, he've already made the service appointment.
And so that service advisor is just reaching out to say, I see you're coming in next Tuesday,
I'll be here to welcome you. And that's it. You're done. I love that. There's often so many fumbles
in the follow up itself, right? We follow up in so many different ways, or we want to follow
up in so many different ways, but we do fumble that so often. And when we can get people that are
really truly excited and engaged inside of the actual technology, now you're recreating the
atmosphere in a workplace, which ultimately is why we're here. We love the atmosphere of this
place where we come together to figure out how to brew and how to go to the next level,
our solutions. And you guys are always coming up with new solutions. You guys are always brewing
something special. What are some of the things that we can get excited about as we get ready to
run into 2026? 2026. So exciting. And we don't know. We talked about it yesterday. It's like
everybody's starting to think about an ADA. We're getting ready for an ADA. So that after our AI
summarization and that release in about a month, we will start looking at sentiment analysis.
So taking our human to human conversations, throwing it through AI, and then detecting
what was in that customer's mind when they came to your dealership's website. At what point in
the process were they? And where did we move them? So in the conversation, if I took someone who was
here, was able to move them through filling out that credit out, getting into that DR tool, and then
what tactically, how did we do that? What were the phrases, the words, and so what was a competitive
model the consumer may have discussed? Like all of this Intel really for a dealer as well as for
us internally to continue to hone our skills. I'm excited. So the first iteration of that will be out
in 2026. Wow. That makes a big deal. Honestly, I think that's really nice that again, it's just
taking it to the next level. Using these tools out there, AI and whatever tool out there that
you're using to be able to help grow your business is phenomenal. It will help you be able to get
better data so that you can talk to your people human and human in such a way that makes sense
to them, not in your way. It's like, it's never about our agenda. It's always about the customer's
agenda. And if you could be on their agenda at the time that they want it, they're going to be
happy and willing to work with you. And they're going to be excited to work with you because
you're speaking their language. So that's pretty awesome stuff. It's so important to really remember
he was a 2000 term. So I'm really aging myself. Our websites are not digital billboards.
They're not meant to just for a customer to see. That's right. They're meant to interact. Bingo.
And we know consumers are happier and that growth is higher when the process starts online.
So making sure that your website is interactive with a live human, just like you would want
someone stationed on your lot. When that shopper starts going up and down the line of vehicles,
you want a live human on your site as well. Make that interactive, get it started,
and then allowing your team just to pick it up and finish it.
And that will help to fix the fumble, right? As we pick it up, we take it down the roads,
and we complete ultimately what it is that the customer wants, which is why we're here to serve
them. This is why we are the professionals that we are, because we can provide solutions to the
community, to the customer. And right now, we are buzzing around with all of these other people
at this incredible event. So thankful for you to be here. So thankful that we get the chance to be
here. And next time you need to be here, Car Guys and Car Gals, you need to make sure that you make
your way to this event wherever it is that it lands. But we're close to the NCM actual headquarters.
What has it been like seeing some of the NCM staff get involved with what's going on here?
It's really neat. I love a green and growing environment, and everyone's here to
learn. And so it's really a joy. Yeah, I love that because it is, you feel it growing. It's like you
feel the grass coming up. I love that you said that she likes a green and growing environment.
And that's exactly what's happening here. And that's what's happening with you all. And I,
and that's what we love about talking about active engagement. Whenever we get a chance to,
we get to bring it up. There's something that we want, that we definitely want to make sure
people know is that the human touch is not going away. Matter of fact, if we work really hard,
it's going to be the biggest part of the future, biggest part of the future. But using tools like
AI and being able to have sentiment and being able to reach out the customers based off the data
that we have in the system at a more efficient rate matters. But having people that are inside
your stores, inside her business, inside so many other places talking to humans makes all the
difference. It gives people a sense of luxury in today's world. We thought AI and all these tools
are really cool communication tools. But at the end of the day, when it comes to me talking to you,
we're going to go a lot further. At the end of the day, we're providing a solution to people.
And that's what we want to be able to make sure that we continue to serve. Carol, we thank you
so much for your time today. And for setting the bar, getting things popping. That's right.
This room going for this entire event. But again, thank you so much for your support of this event.
Thank you so much for your support of us. But ultimately, for your contribution to automotive,
you are a champion inside of this business. And with this industry would not be the same without
you. We are better because we got you in our life. We appreciate you. That's right. So car guys and
car guys make sure that you do hype her up, reach out to active engage, reach out to Carol.
She is brewing some incredible solutions for the industry. And you've just heard it here.
Exclusively, folks, there's more that's on the way. But today you can reach out, you can find out how
to go to the next level. I am Lou Ramirez, the car guy. I'm Frail and art subprime hero. And
you've been brewing solutions on the car guy coffee podcast at the NCM and associates,
clients and friends workshop here in Kansas City. And we are excited to bring you the one,
the only.
Well, everybody see you soon.
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