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Why Most Service Departments Leak Calls – And What Actually Stops It | Pre-NADA AI #5
Why Most Service Departments Leak Calls – And What Actually Stops It | Pre-NADA AI #5
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About this episode
Exploring the challenges of high service call volumes, this episode features Luke Sontag from Kissy Ford and Ari Polikoff from Fly discussing how voice AI transformed their service department. The conversation highlights the dealership's commitment to maintaining a personal touch while integrating technology to improve customer interactions. They share insights on the importance of effective AI solutions, the challenges faced with previous vendors, and the impressive results achieved since implementing Fly's system. The episode also touches on the future of AI in automotive service and the potential for further enhancements.
In part 5 of our Pre NADA AI Spotlight series, Sam sits down with Luke Sontag, Marketing, & IT Manager at Kissee Ford and Ari Polakof, CEO & Co-founder of Flai.
We explore how one family-owned dealership used voice AI to capture after-hours and rollover calls without losing its local, human feel.
Ari explains why most “bolt-on” AI fails, how deep DMS integration changes outcomes, and what it really takes to get service advisors to trust automation. The result is real appointments, immediate ROI, and less chaos on the service drive.
This episode of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast is brought to you by Flai:
Flai - Your best people know how to turn an opportunity into an appointment, but they can't be everywhere. Flai is an AI communications platform that handles calls, texts, and emails so every call gets answered, every lead gets followed up, and appointments get booked. Some dealers have seen appointments double. Book a free pilot at http://useflai.com
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Topics:
02:27 What are Kissee Ford's operational challenges?
08:45 How can AI solve service call problems?
14:46 What is "The Flai Solution"?
20:45 What were the early AI successes?
21:53 How were vendor issues solved?
23:57 How did "Amanda" impact operations?
26:00 How was AI integrated and onboarded at the dealership?
32:03 What are future AI plans?
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Brand
Isuzu
"...it was an Isuzu, then we got Kia, and we were probably 30 people or so..."
Isuzu is a car company from Japan that makes vehicles like trucks and SUVs. They were well-known in the U.S. a while back.
Isuzu is a Japanese automotive manufacturer known for producing trucks, SUVs, and commercial vehicles. They were particularly popular in the U.S. during the 80s and 90s.
Brand
Kia
"...then we got Kia, and we were probably 30 people or so, and we did everything..."
Kia is a car company from South Korea that makes affordable and reliable cars. They have become quite popular in recent years.
Kia is a South Korean automotive manufacturer that has gained popularity for its affordable and reliable vehicles, especially in the compact and crossover segments.
Brand
Ford
"So you're a Ford operator and Ford has had a lot of funds that Ford as an OEM has put into mobile service."
Ford is a well-known car company that makes many different types of vehicles, including trucks and sports cars. They are famous for models like the Ford F-150 truck and the Ford Mustang sports car.
Ford is an American multinational automaker known for its cars, trucks, and SUVs. It has a long history in the automotive industry and is recognized for popular models like the Ford F-150 and Ford Mustang.
Term
OEM
"...that Ford as an OEM has put into mobile service."
OEM means Original Equipment Manufacturer. It's a term used to describe the company that originally made the parts for a car. For example, if Ford makes a part for their cars, they are the OEM for that part.
OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It refers to companies that produce parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. In the automotive context, it typically means the original manufacturer of the vehicle or its parts.
What are Kissee Ford's operational challenges?
How can AI solve service call problems?
What is "The Flai Solution"?
What were the early AI successes?
How were vendor issues solved?
How did "Amanda" impact operations?
How was AI integrated and onboarded at the dealership?
What are future AI plans?
Select text to request an explanation
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Cardiola Ship Guy
Industry Spotlight podcast.
I'm your host, Sam Dark, and today we talk voice AI
and how one multi-generational Ford dealership
in Spaltown, America found a creative solution
to the problem of huge service call volume
at a busy Ford service department,
one that preserved the promise of service, connection,
and delivering on their longtime mom and pop vibe,
plus learned three red flags when considering voice AI.
Joining me today, Luke Sontag,
marketing and IT manager, Kissy Ford,
and Ari Polikoff, CEO Fly.
Today's episode is part of our ongoing
pre-NADA AI spotlight series,
and supporting today's content is Fly,
who will be at NADA this year at 6913N at NADA,
as will Kissy Ford dealer principal, Steve Kissy,
who will also be attending NADA
and accepting a Time Dealer Award.
Let's get into today's episode.
Welcome to the Card dealership guy industry spotlight podcast.
Great to have you here.
Thank you, Sam, nice to be here.
So Luke, one of the things that stands out to me
right out the gate, you're the marketing
and IT manager at Kissy Ford.
Tell us a little bit about Kissy Ford,
and then how does someone do marketing and IT?
Those are two off, rarely combined positions.
Sure, yeah, so Jack Kissy Ford and Claire Moore,
Oklahoma, we're a family-owned store,
been in the same family since 1958.
Long time.
Long time, and our dealer principal,
he is here every day.
He's typically number one sales guy,
and so the rest of us, who I also sell
and do quite a few other things
in a small family-owned store,
you've got to wear a lot of hats.
Yeah, IT and marketing are just two of the hats I wear.
I'm also one of the sales managers.
I have my own customer base as well.
I've got quite a few fleet customers that I take care of.
And my background was more in IT
from previous things I did in my life.
And so I also manage our 50-person organization
and our entire network.
And yeah, but some days I'm back there washing cars too.
So it just kind of depends on what the day brings.
You know, Luke, I started a car dealership in the 90s.
It was an Isuzu, then we got Kia,
and we were probably 30 people or so,
and we did everything.
And I love that.
I love small-town America, smaller dealerships.
How many cars do you guys sell a month?
We average around 80 a month.
80? That's good volume.
Yeah, we're a decent-sized store.
We're not huge, but we're not, you know, too small.
So it's...
How many salespeople do you have?
At the moment we have eight, seven, sorry, seven.
Eight, yeah.
Yeah, but it kind of fluctuates.
We like to be around nine to 10.
We've got a good core team,
and then we've kind of got a constantly rotating
cast of characters.
Yeah, how many technicians?
So we've got, I think we're right around like 10
or 12 right now.
That also is constantly in flux.
And that...
How many service riders do you have?
So we have three service advisors,
and we do average about 700 ROs a month.
And...
So you've got a pretty robust service operation
for the size of Unity.
So what does your service absorption look like?
How much of your dealership expense
does service cover as a percent?
We're on the edge of a big market,
and we strike hard into that big market.
Oh yeah, yeah, we pull.
Yeah.
You know, part of it is just how long we've been here
and our reputation.
I mean, that's, you know, we're 4.7 stars
with almost 2,000 reviews on Google.
And how much everybody around here knows us.
And we're the type of store
where a human being is going to own your problem.
And if you've bought from us or you've serviced with us,
you probably know somebody here by first name.
And they know you or I know you or...
And we're that kind of mom and pop place,
but we do enough business for it to be interesting.
And we're just all about taking care of people, man.
The way we look at businesses,
if we take care of our customers,
then the rest of it takes care of itself.
So you're a Ford operator
and Ford has had a lot of funds
that Ford as an OEM has put into mobile service.
Do you do mobile service in your marketplace?
How many vans do you have if you do?
We don't do mobile service,
but we do a tremendous amount of pickup and drop off.
Pick up and drop off.
Okay, very similar.
Yeah, we've just kind of gone that route
rather than the...
We're cautious in how we allocate resources
and the mobile service thing,
it's a little bit questionable for us.
So the pickup drop off,
so that we've got two to three drivers
any given day that are out shuffling customers' cars around.
We do do mobile recall.
So, and that's been pretty hidden pretty good.
So we just have a little escape
that runs around and does that.
Okay, so your employee, it's not contracted out
and they go do the recall work directly
at the consumer's location, however that works.
Correct, and it's very specific.
If it's airbag stuff or software update stuff
that we can do or just recalls
that are ultimately inspections,
we'll do those mobile and then bring them in house
if we need.
So you know, it's interesting in our world today,
being able to compete as a single point standalone
smaller stores getting tougher and tougher.
How have you staved off all of these years
attempts by presumably larger groups to buy you out?
Is it the commitment to the community?
Is it the dealer's commitment to the employees?
What has caused, it's always interesting to me,
you guys are an anomaly
and you're winning in a very competitive marketplace.
It is, and I feel that too,
that it's, but honestly,
it really comes down to our dealer principle, Steve.
I mean, he is his commitment to the community,
his commitment to the employees here.
I mean, we've got people that have been here
for my entire life, for 45 plus years.
And yeah, 20 years, 30 years is a normal thing here.
And a lot of employees that have retired over the years,
they come back, they visit.
I mean, there is a tremendous sense of family
and at this place.
And that's a big part of reason why I'm here,
but it's, and then the commitment to our customers.
I mean, he is the shining example.
We joke about Steve's little old lady customers,
but he takes care of people
just the way everybody else in the store does
and he sets the tone.
And I mean, it's a vibe that is impossible to beat
at any big store.
And so that's for people that come to us from Tulsa
and surrounding communities that have options
to buy elsewhere, they come here
because they know we're gonna take care of them
and they know if there's a problem
that he's sitting here.
He's not a backseat operator or anything like that.
But mostly the managers here,
we are empowered to solve problems
in a way that at corporate type stores,
you've got to get permission or whatever.
He empowers us to solve problems.
Well, let's talk about solving problems in your role.
So you're needing to deliver a level of service
to your clientele that is unparalleled in the industry today.
So you're a 50 person organization, 80 cars a month,
you've got seven salespeople, 12 technicians,
three riders turning 700 ROs.
You've resisted the urge to go crazy
in the unproven areas.
Like you wanna deliver to your core above
and beyond anyone else.
And that's what keeps you strong as an organization.
So AI is a challenge in today's world
because some of it's proved out, some of it's not, right?
But one problem that many dealers are seeing,
CDK reported on it recently,
average whole time in service department is seven, eight minutes,
which for most consumers is crazy.
You can't wait that long in order to communicate.
How are you, have you discovered any challenges
with how quickly service advisors and riders
are able to respond to customer need?
And if so, what is the challenge
and what is the cost of the organization
if left unsolved for Luke?
Lost business.
I mean, it's easy for anybody to choose to go somewhere else.
Call another dealer, something, book an appointment there.
So I mean, if we can't respond,
then that's business that's going elsewhere.
And that's a huge, huge problem.
I mean, it's, again, with our proximity
to a huge market or a large market here in Oklahoma,
our response, our ability to respond quickly
and with a person is huge, so.
Yeah.
And in service, it's the battleground for attention,
it's battleground for continued relationship
with that customer.
You don't pick up in that timeframe,
it's gonna be a challenge.
So you're here to share a solution that you discovered,
but before you discovered the solution,
what did you realize about how long it took for people
to pick up the phone and what it was costing in business?
Well, I mean, the main thing that we saw
was a whole lot of calls going to voicemail
and then us tracking it, we were not doing a very good job
of replying to those emails in a timely,
or those voicemails that were transcribed to emails,
replying to those in a timely manner.
I mean, we were just, by the end of the day,
the stack would keep stacking up
and then we'd get maybe somebody called back the next day,
but they'd already made a move elsewhere.
And by the way, that's not on you,
that's an industry problem, right?
Like our technicians and our service riders
have got to love the one they're with,
which means a lot of the problems
customers come in now with today,
especially a Ford number one recalled OEM in 2025,
good, bad or indifferent, right?
We need to be able to spend time with them
to connect, to explain the challenges
and you have customers calling for status updates
or even more complicated calls after hours.
Sometimes it's an overwhelm to those three service riders
to be able to get back to everybody in a timely fashion.
And so that was a problem, it impacts CSI,
it impacts retention.
What was the trigger moment where you said,
look, I've got to find a better solution.
And for a dealership that's as conservative as you are,
who said, hey, I'm not gonna run out and do mobile service,
what was the threshold where you said,
hey, look, I'm willing to look at some solutions
that are a little outside the box, Luke.
The AI thing, everybody is looking at what's going on
and we had recently switched to drive centric
in our Ford CRM.
Great CRM, yeah.
And so we were kind of getting some experience with it
and it was working and it's like, hmm,
what more can we do here?
And with our service manager,
I talk with him every single day
and it's like, this is the pain area.
And so we kind of started looking at different things.
And we looked at, you know,
quite a few AI voice vendors out there
and, you know, cause it's very early in that space.
And we were kind of, we're the type of store
where you call our main number,
a human being answers the phone.
It's not press one for service, press two for sales
or anything like that.
It is straight up human being answers the phone.
And, you know, transfers you
or owns that issue right there, depending on what it is.
And our, you know, the main thing
that we were having issues with was roll, you know,
calls, hold time, go into voicemail.
And then just, you know, really nothing for after hours
and showing up every morning
and having 20 voicemails to try to respond
to the top of everybody's stand in front of you.
But that was kind of the impetus
for looking into, you know, what can we do here?
We didn't want to do the whole press one for this or that,
you know, it had to be something.
And, you know, my belief in the AI
has kind of grown it quite a bit,
primarily from our drive century experience.
And so we started looking around
and Fly was one that came on our radar
and Mia and Pam and a couple of the other ones,
you know, we're on a radar.
So I reached out and talked to and got demos
from all of them and just kind of did my analysis
of, you know, what I thought.
And there was, there was one thing
that really stuck out with Fly and it was their hyper focus
on after hours and rollover calls.
They weren't, you know, they just very specifically
weren't trying to sell, you know, everything else
that it could do and outbound calling
and whatever else, right?
And in, from my role and, you know,
in what vendors were using and stuff like that,
it's super important to, you know,
have vendors that deliver, you know,
not over promise under deliver,
but fully deliver on the simple thing that I need.
And they were hyper focused on that
where some of the other vendors
were got way down in the weeds
of talking about all these other problems
that really weren't relevant.
For me, it's like, hey, you need a specific solution.
Exactly.
If you can solve after hours in rollover,
then, and you can win there,
then we can do all sorts of stuff,
but let's start right there and see how you do.
Because frankly, if you can't do that,
then, you know, none of the rest of it matters.
So Ari Polikov, CEO of Fly,
you get the phone call from Luke and look,
it's a multi-generational Ford dealership.
They are hustling 80 units a month, 50 people,
a ton of tax, 12 tax, three service riders,
you hear their problem of, hey, look,
we want to connect with our customers after hours
and overflow in a way that gives us
a competitive advantage above anyone else out there.
How did you see that problem
and how did you approach crafting a solution to it, Ari?
Yeah, so it's very interesting
because one thing that we always talk between each other
and also with our customers is that is the first step,
like overflow and after hours makes so much sense,
there's nothing to lose there, right?
Those are calls that are basically missed,
that are going to voicemail.
So with every single customer, that's the first step,
we always suggest them, let's start there,
let's start small, and then we can obviously expand.
And for us it's obviously an honor
when we get to work with family stores, right?
Because actually those are the hardest ones
if you think about it from an AI perspective,
it's very challenging, right?
You have a store that has very different rules
that wants you to work in a given way
and that makes it much more challenging,
but it's also much better for us.
Well, your technology has to take on the persona
of that family-owned store,
which by the way, that's my next question,
Ari comes in, Luke, with this solution that says,
hey, we're gonna take care of this after hours phone calls,
we're gonna do it in a way that respects the family
and the culture that the Ford store's created.
We're gonna take a big risk
and these are employees that have been
with the company for decades who easily could say,
we don't want any of that big city AI stuff,
we want a manual operator that's willing to take calls.
How did you, what kind of pushback initially did you get
when Ari brought his solution in
and how did you deal with that with your employees, Luke?
Well, it didn't start out with necessarily pushback,
it was a challenge to Ari and his team right out the gate
and it was if you can make our particular situation work,
then we're good to go.
And he committed to making that work
and then executed on it flawlessly.
And the challenge for us is communication
with our employee, our customers is everything
and setting and managing the right expectations
through the entire process.
And so if you call us to book an appointment
and it's an oil change
and while you're booking that appointment,
it's like also my check engine lights on or whatever.
The way we schedule our shop,
that's two different appointments, right?
And so we needed the AI to recognize first and foremost
that that's two different appointments, right?
It's an oil change and a check engine diagnosis
and book two different appointments.
But then it also needs to consider our calendar
and book those if it's someone who's coming in as a waiter
it needs to book those back to back, right?
So it needs to look at the schedule
in a way to understand,
hey, I'm gonna book the oil change right here
and I'm immediately book the diag right afterwards
with this other tech that's available, right?
So to look at the calendar in a broader perspective
and that was the thing, it's like,
if you can do that, then we got something.
If you can't do that, then they're probably
not gonna do this and that's what.
And by the way, Luke, if you fail at that,
at that simple step, Ari, you don't get a second shot
because you've got veteran service riders, salespeople,
staff within the dealership.
You lose faith in the overall capability of the tool.
And Ari, one of the challenges,
I've already learned this with AI, it can do everything.
It can do anything, but we needed to do one thing
and do it well so that confidence credibility is created.
Ari, how did you rise to that challenge
as part of your company and see the importance
of delivering on that simple single request
rather than trying to do everything, Ari?
Yeah, and you got exactly right.
And I think the biggest challenge about AI
is what you're saying, which is how do you align it, right?
You, as a human, you know exactly what you wanted to do,
but then you got aligned perfectly well.
And obviously AI can jump around and do anything,
say anything, so that is the biggest challenge
that we as an AI company figure out, right?
Which is how do we make sure
that we align our AI perfectly well
and how do we make sure that we have that same brain
working so differently across our customer base, right?
For Luke, like when we had that onboarding meeting,
I remember the first thing he mentioned is,
look, I'm scared because I have,
my operation works very differently
to our customers, I can tell you for a fact.
And we had other vendors before
and they cannot figure it out.
And so he was giving me some stories about that.
We had this vendor, they brought someone twice to my store
and they still couldn't figure out our operation.
So I like, this is hard.
I don't, I'm scared that you won't be able to handle it.
And we told Luke, look, we are running the same AI,
completely different across our stores.
And let me tell you, like,
we will be able to deliver this very easily.
And in less than, I think a week,
we were already live with Luke.
And I think he was pretty impressed.
I remember some of his emails,
he was like, wow, you're actually doing
what you told me you were gonna do.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that was very cool.
Yeah, because the second you don't deliver on that,
then we lose credibility
and you don't have the credibility to do anything else.
So Luke, what were some of the initial results
as you first implemented this system and tool?
And also, all doesn't go perfectly.
We learn as we grow,
what were some of the challenges initially implement?
Yeah, so initially, I mean, the other thing for us,
the price point was a no-brainer.
And where it's like, we're gonna try this
and you're either gonna make it fly or not.
So if we look at appointments booked
and our average RO,
we recouped the first month in the first three days.
Like, so.
Wow.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, and I mean, even to speak
to some specific numbers.
And we've been live on it since November.
But in November,
it answered 616 calls and booked 110 appointments.
In December, it's 180.
Yeah, and this is just rollover in just after hours.
December, 688 calls, 137 appointments booked.
And a month to date right now,
348 calls and 69 appointments booked.
I mean, it is absolutely killing it.
It's one of these vendor decisions that,
yeah, I mean, it's blown the doors off
of what my expectations were.
And as Ari mentioned,
we had been working with another vendor,
not so much in the voice space.
It was more of a recall type tool,
but they just couldn't get it right.
And it was a human deal where they were,
human BDC was doing the outbound calling
and booking appointments.
And it was an absolute disaster.
And I mean, they sent a guy down here twice
from their HQ to try to rescue their relationship.
And it was just, they just couldn't figure it out.
And Ari, I mean, like they crushed it.
Was the element, Luke, for our audience to learn from?
What was the element that they couldn't figure out?
What kept breaking?
It was the multiple appointments.
It was the somebody having more than one problem.
And those problems needing to be segmented
into two different appointments,
our main shop versus our quick lane.
Really basic, right?
But the other organization,
their focus was just on booking an appointment,
not quantifying what kind of appointment
and how it was gonna translate
when the customer showed up.
Because if you're booking an appointment for us
and the customer shows up with an expectation
that their entire problem is gonna be solved
and we're only prepared to solve one
without just burning up our whole workflow for the day,
it's a problem.
And we were having just nonstop customers getting mad.
And that was, and that's where, with Fly,
I mean, they solved it.
And in the first calls,
because with their platform, you can log in
and you can see every transcript.
You can see every call.
You can look at all the data.
You know, I mean, on the first few calls
in that first few days,
it was already doing exactly what we had asked for
and exactly what these other vendors
just didn't seem to be able to pull together.
And so that was a thing.
And then for our staff, I mean, Amanda is her name.
Our staff loves Amanda.
I mean, it went from a very skeptical,
what in the hell is Luke doing?
This, you know, what is this?
You know, to a few days later,
due to Amanda rocks, you know,
and everybody's, you know, kind of,
so we have a joking thing with the team now, you know,
where it's like,
hey, is Amanda screwed anything up today?
And it's like, nope, she's booked,
that, that, that, and it's like, awesome.
So it really truly is for us in a store
where, you know, we wear a lot of hats
and gotta jump and,
but our customers are the main focus.
It has freed up our team on the drive
to focus on who is in front of them
and maximize those opportunities, you know.
And then even when we're returning a phone call, right?
Because Amanda, if it's a,
there are certain situations where
we just have to get an advisor on the phone
with the customer.
We're not, you know, booking appointment
is not really the, is not the optimal path.
It's simply get an advisor.
So Amanda is well aware
because we've, we've dialed this in over time
with Ari and his team of here's these edge case scenarios
where deferred to an advisor.
And so in those scenarios,
Amanda is gathering all this data, right?
She's asking all these questions.
She's taking all these notes.
So for those calls that we, where we need to return,
Amanda tells us,
hey, you need to call this customer back.
They want to book an appointment.
They have all this stuff.
We're, we're, we're fully armed
to call that customer and just pick up where we left off,
where Amanda left off and, and get the appointment booked,
set the right expectations and they come in and it's just,
it's just, it's, it's clicking on in a way that, you know,
if it was a human involved,
taking notes and trying to keep that all down.
Is it too hard cluster?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So I've got a few questions for Ari
based on what you said.
So first of all,
Luke said this other company just wasn't able to solve
for the problem.
What approach differentiated your ability to solve it
versus their inability Ari?
Yeah.
So we, I think something we nailed as a company
is being really good about,
hey, this is the templates.
This is how service should be booked.
And this is what we've seen works best
across our customer base.
But here is how you can instruct the AI
to do all this different things.
And in our onboarding meeting,
those are all the things we asked, right?
We always ask about what works differently
in your dealership so that we can add all that context
to the AI as it's handling that call.
And so a lot of everything that Luke mentioned,
that was all mentioned in that onboarding meeting.
And that's why when we went live,
that was already there, right?
Which is what do you want the AI to handle
and what do you not want it to handle?
Actually, the main reason why people will get mad
with an AI is because it's trying to handle things
that it shouldn't, right?
That it shouldn't be handling.
And so that is the main challenge
when building an AI,
which is how do you make sure that your AI
is fully aware of this is all you should do
and it's all you shouldn't.
And then how do you make sure
that the process works great after, right?
You transfer to right people.
You alert the right people.
You organize all that communication
so you're not only automating
but also helping with retention, that call.
Which Ari sort of accentuates a point
I've made many times on this show,
which is the better the AI,
the better the people you need to have
implementing it on the other side.
Cause to your point, if you don't do great onboarding,
if you don't truly understand what Luke's goal is,
AI, I think a lot of times wants to solve everything.
And in trying to do everything,
it doesn't do the one thing
that the dealer needs it to.
And that is credibility loss.
So props to you guys for listening to Luke and his team
and figuring out how to match that up.
The other thing Luke mentioned is Amanda's ability
to like collect data points and information
so that when the human needs to get involved,
the human has a ton of data points
and information to more to better serve that customer.
So where is that information deposited Ari?
And does it integrate back to a CRM?
Does it integrate back to a database like XTime?
How do you take that data that Amanda collects
and make it usable to the human?
The first important thing is
when Amanda is taking that call,
it's gathering all this information, right?
Yeah, yes.
And if we ever need to transfer that call
when the person picks up,
Amanda is sort of giving you a summary.
It's literally telling you,
hey, this is what happened in the conversation
and this is what you should do.
So once you're joined the call,
you are already fully aware of what happened, right?
You're not starting over,
which is by the way super annoying for a customer, right?
The second part is we,
you can use this very successfully
without ever logging into fly itself, right?
We're fully connecting to the schedulers
and we're reading all the information from there
from the DMS.
And so for example, Luke, they use Techian
and we recently announced our official integration
which by the way is extremely strong.
And so what that means is that
obviously you get to listen to all the calls in fly
if you want to,
but you can just live in your Techian scheduler
and not change much about your operation
because we're just fully reading
and writing directly to them.
So you'll deposit those notes about prior calls
when the human gets involved right into Techian.
So I can go straight into Techian
or I would assume you've also got a dashboard
where you could go to one of both places.
Although I would argue the less different logins you have
like allowing you just to go back to Techian
is going to be the gold standard, Luke, right?
You don't want your people
to have to go to five, six different programs.
That's 100% business.
I got 20 dashboards I don't need anymore
and my people do too.
That was actually one of my very early things with them
is just going to require another dashboard
and they were adamant that they didn't.
And again, like Ari just said,
I mean, the integration is seamless
and the phone system integration too,
we use go to connect, go to for our phone
and I mean seamless so.
So why not Techian has some AI capabilities
born into its TMS system?
Why not use their already existing capabilities?
Techian and everybody's got something AI now
and it's a, you know, I'm not trying to shoot down
what everybody else is doing
but a lot of these bolted on things are just,
you know, it's like the executive said,
hey, we need some kind of AI to get something here
so that we can sell some AI stuff
and it's just garbage.
I'm not speaking to their stuff specifically
but in general, my experience is that
and you know, where something like with Fly,
it's AI from the get go, right?
They're not building from, you know,
legacy product perspective
and how do we bolt AI into this situation
and make it functional?
You know, it's full blown, you know,
we're building this on top of the AI models
that are available to us
and that it's completely different.
It's a rethink of the workflow and the product.
So I think it's interesting,
you've got AI implemented into your CRM,
now you've got through Fly,
you've got AI implemented into your service call handling
with overflows and after hours.
Obviously the capabilities of Fly
and other AI companies are more expansive
than those two, you know, applications.
Now that you have the credibility with your team,
having implemented a system that does what it says it'll do,
is there a 2.0, is there a next step
where you're saying, hey, there's another problem
I'd like to solve with this
or are you looking to just prove this out
over the coming months and continuing to lean in, Luke?
I mean, we're going to continue for sure,
but no, our next step is outbound recall scheduling.
So all powered by Amanda or Fly.
But, and we've, we could have turned that on
right out the gate, you know, Ari mentioned that,
not as part of their initial pitch,
but, you know, shortly after when it was very obvious
that this was working well,
we've taken a little bit of a slow roll approach
to rolling that out just yet,
simply because I wanted everybody comfortable
with it and, you know, but the comfort level,
I mean, like I said, at this point,
Amanda is a member of the team on that service drive
and everybody loves her because, you know,
she's booking appointments,
not only appointments that she, you know,
that we would have missed,
but even for the customers
with just really simple one to call us,
get an appointment scheduled,
don't need a lot of overhead,
they can do that so quickly now
and Amanda is getting it done
and they don't have to wait for their advisor, right?
We've got our customer base is the sort where
a lot of our customers,
they have a certain advisor they like to work with
that they go to, right?
But that advisor or those advisors
being that we only have three,
we got customers that go to those three specifically,
they may be busy and they most likely are busy.
They are, they are busy.
Yeah. Right, exactly.
Yeah, they are crushed most of the days.
And so, Amanda is their personal assistant
and they love it because she's booking
their regular appointments, you know,
and handling that overhead.
So again, when they've got a customer in front of them
or they're on the phone on a serious,
you know, on a bigger issue deal,
they're able to focus and I mean,
that is definitely translate.
I mean, we've always been really good on CSI,
but I see the initial uptick
in that at this point.
So, and just as a reminder, this is voice AI.
As Amanda reaches out, it's a voice.
It's not text, email.
It is a, so Ari, tell me this,
couple of things that I hear often on this show.
Number one, voice AI isn't quite there yet.
Actually, Luke, maybe you give me your perspective on this.
Not quite there yet to be able to do the outreach piece.
And then the second challenge
is there's so many privacy issues
and so many call laws and rules
that voice can't really be as effective as texting or email
because you're gonna run a foul of some rule or regulation.
Luke, would you address the voice quality
and then already the laws and regulations?
Sure, and I might throw something
on that laws and regulation thing too.
On the voice quality deal,
that was actually another differentiator with Fly,
to be honest.
There, you know, all of the vendors we looked at
were fairly, you know, in the same realm,
but the smoothness, the continuity of Fly's
was really, it was top class.
It was top class.
I'm not saying that the other vendors weren't, you know,
in somewhere in the same ballpark,
but they definitely, theirs was conversationally
more human than the other experiences.
To the point where our customer,
I mean, we've got people that do recognize that it's AI
and we've had some old timers that don't care for it.
You know, they wanna talk to whomever.
I don't want that AI fancy AI.
Exactly, but overwhelmingly people are, they like it
and then we like it
because from a numbers perspective, it is a no-brainer.
And then, you know, the voice side of it
on the outbound calling stuff,
we haven't done that yet,
so I can't really speak to what that looks like,
but we're ready, you know, we're excited to give that a shot
and how that translates versus text is, you know,
if the AI is able to call and it handles what I need, right?
That's what matters, you know,
whether I'm talking to a computer or a human,
if my appointment's getting booked
and then when I show up down there at that store,
the people are friendly and smiling
and they know exactly what's going on,
not having to stand around and wait
and I'm not like, oh, dang,
we didn't get this properly loaded
and we didn't know you needed that too, you know,
they don't care if it's AI in that case.
And then, you know, the text side of things
versus the text side of things,
there's so many regulations and stuff with text
and opt in, opt out
and whether the opt is in the system or not,
that's a cluster in and of itself.
So I'd much rather have a phone call.
Yeah, yeah.
Ari, how do you make sure the outbound voice calls
don't run afoul of rules regulations
that exist all over the place?
Yeah, so a few details there,
addressing the AI voice is not there.
I think I also hear that all the time.
And my answer to that is always very simple.
It's just, our AI is public.
So just like go to our website and try it
and try to break it.
We always tell our customers, ask whatever you want,
ask for a loan or ask for this, ask for that,
whatever you come up with and break it.
And I think that's when every single prospect
gets like that tracer of like, okay,
maybe it is there actually.
Maybe I do feel comfortable in putting in,
in my family business.
On the outbound side, we do a lot of outbound
and it's more so texting.
And the reason why we have focused so much on texting
for the outbound is because we've seen it
to convert much better than anything else.
And so for the recall side,
when we run campaigns with customers,
we're seeing all the way from five to 10% conversion rates
on recalls and that's awesome, right?
That's, it's a win-win for everyone.
It's a safety thing.
The customer needs to know that they have a recall.
The dealership is obviously getting paid by the OEM
and then it's free for the customer.
So it's just a win-win.
And with the regulations, especially which recalls,
it's much, much safer, right?
Because again, it's safety is not marketing.
So Ari, to those dealers that say,
hey, Voice AI just isn't quite there yet.
What are the top red flags to look for
when selecting a Voice AI company
that would distinguish the difference
between Voice AI that works and is effective
and the Voice AI can only frustrates customers?
There's a few things that I would definitely suggest
for every dealer to check even with us.
The first one is just try calling it, right?
That's the easiest.
Try calling it and try coming up with all the cases
that you will in real life, right?
Because booking an old change, that's easy.
What about when they call after hours
and they need to drop off the car
and the dealership is closed?
What about what happens in all the actual situations
that will actually happen when you go into production, right?
People will literally call an AI under their car is on fire.
So we better make sure that we're really careful
with how we're handling that.
So that's one thing.
The other thing, call AI's that are live
and ask them for things that will definitely need a person
and see how fast they will get you to that person.
That is the main thing that will make customers smart.
Actually, what we've seen is that customers are not mad
if they have the chance to do something with AI.
They're definitely mad if the AI is sort of a gatekeeper.
And so I'm like, no, you got to talk with me.
And Amanda is the opposite of that.
She's like, she will do what it can do.
And then if it ever needs a human,
she will instantly make sure to connect you to them
and to alert them to make sure
that they come back very, very fast.
And I think that will actually make customers happier
because on the long run,
we are automated what can be automated.
And then advisors and BDC are more free
to those follow-ups very, very fast
when they're actually needed.
And so that contributes a lot for the customer.
Well, I'll tell you what, Luke Sontag,
marketing and IT manager, Kissy Fort,
not only marketing IT manager, sales manager, sales person,
Jack of all trades in the best way possible
in small-town America,
delivering really a great product to your customers.
It is awesome that you've brought to us such a cool tool
that allows you to weigh out your size
in terms of connecting with customers
and delivering to them.
So Luke Sontag, marketing and IT manager,
Kissy Fort, Ari Polikoff, CEO, Fly.
Thanks for being on the Card dealership
guide industry spotlight podcast.
Look forward to getting possibly an update
in the future, Luke,
as to how else you've implemented this
and other AI tools into your dealer operations.
Thank you both.
You bet.
Thank you, Sam.
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