Among the conversations on-location at the CBT News Auto Leadership Summit, reporter Jaelyn Campbell spoke with Michael Affronti, Chief Product & Business Officer at DriveCentric, to discuss the Federal Trade Commission‘s (FTC) evolving pricing policy landscape and how dealers can navigate compliance amid mounting regulatory complexity.
"It becomes critically important to make sure that your engagement platform... uses a unified record of the customer and also uses a set of unified pricing information... [to stay] consistent, clear and transparent." – Michael Affronti
Key takeaways:
- According to Affronti, FTC pricing rules have become less of a single policy and more a patchwork of overlapping requirements. Dealers now face state, local, OEM and potential federal regulations layered on top of each other, a complexity one dealer described to him as resembling Swiss cheese.
- He contends that complexity starts with how dealerships manage customer data. Scattered information across disconnected systems makes it difficult for both staff and AI agents to deliver consistent, accurate communication. DriveCentric addresses this by building its platform around a unified customer record paired with standardized pricing data, ensuring transparency across every interaction, whether handled by a person or an AI agent.
- Dealers must also balance consumer protection with reachability, Affronti said. Features like spam call and text blocking benefit consumers, but they create friction for dealerships trying to maintain effective communication with shoppers. Striking that balance, while keeping pricing consistent and auditable, was a central theme of his summit panel discussion.
To check out more interviews and event coverage of the CBT News Automotive Leadership Summit, click here.
