NADA Show 2025: Kerri Wise & Joe St. John | AutoFi

We’re excited to welcome AutoFi‘s Chief Marketing Officer, Kerri Wise, and Chief Customer Officer, Joe St. John, to the booth for an insightful discussion about the evolving role of technology in dealership operations. From managing logistical hurdles to transforming the customer experience, Wise and St. John share actionable insights into how dealerships can harness technology to empower sales teams and streamline processes.

Key Takeaways

1. Wise emphasizes the importance of viewing technology as a tool to empower dealership staff rather than a replacement for their expertise. She compares the use of digital tools in dealerships to everyday apps like Google Maps, which enhance productivity and decision-making without replacing human drivers. She also explains that many dealers resist adopting technology due to concerns over losing control or undermining staff roles. However, she highlights that streamlining processes like payment calculations or deal modifications allows employees to focus on value-added tasks and improves customer satisfaction by reducing unnecessary delays.
2. St. John highlights the outdated nature of traditional sales training, which still teaches a rigid “road to the sale” approach that no longer aligns with modern consumer behavior. He shares how today’s customers often arrive at dealerships well-informed, having already researched vehicles online. This shift means that dealerships need to focus less on outdated steps like exhaustive fact-finding and more on picking up the process where the customer left off. His firsthand experience selling cars while testing AutoFi’s tools revealed that excessive back-and-forth during the sales process erodes customer trust and dealer profitability. Automating routine tasks can eliminate these inefficiencies and better meet customer expectations.
3. To refine AutoFi’s solutions, St. John spent time in the trenches, selling cars at dealerships to observe real-world challenges. He discovered numerous “dead steps” in the process—unnecessary pauses and redundancies that drained customers’ enthusiasm. By working directly with AutoFi’s product team, he helped iterate on technology solutions designed to empower salespeople and desk managers to act more autonomously. Wise and St. John underscore that these innovations reduce transaction times and foster trust by providing a seamless experience.