AI assistants now answer dealership leads around the clock, but the handoff to a human is where many appointments fall apart. On today’s CBT Live segment, Durran Cage, Founder and Owner of Cage Automotive, discusses how dealers can align their AI tools, BDC and sales teams so more leads turn into appointments that show up.
To start today’s conversation, Cage described a common situation in which a shopper requests a Tahoe at 9:57 p.m., and an AI assistant schedules an appointment for 10 a.m. When she arrives, the salesperson has no idea who she spoke with. Stores often add to the confusion by sending an automated message, arranging a BDC call, involving a salesperson, and having a manager confirm the appointment. Cage’s mystery shopping found an average of about four different names in the first 72 hours of a customer engagement.
The fix, he asserts, starts with a playbook that spells out who does what and when, built around the AI partner’s process, the dealership’s CRM and the human team. Additionally, Cage recommends that the AI identify itself as a virtual assistant and offer a path to a real person. Therefore, it’s imperative that a manager should review AI conversations regularly.
According to Cage, handoff time deserves as much attention as lead response time. Since some customers wait 12 to 24 hours for an answer the AI can’t give, dealers should also track how many appointments the AI sets alone versus with a human, by lead source, and aim for a lead-to-set rate of 30% to 40% or higher. Cage urged dealers to keep people at the center as the technology spreads.
