This Tech Is for Real

Though artificial intelligence’s presence in business has deepened, including in automotive retail, many people harbor some wariness of the fast-developing technology. This, Carl Grane acknowledges.

He hears things like, “This whole AI thing kind of creeps me out,” he told guests at Bobit’s 2024 Agent Summit. Or, “What impact is it going to have for our industry?”

Then the head of business development for Anomaly Labs, he wisely stayed in the reality of the skepticism about what he calls “the science of machines that can think like humans.”

“A lot of folks are reluctant to say, ‘I want this in my business,’” said Grane, who since started his own training and consulting agency, The Driver’s Seat Automotive Solutions. He says it uses AI tools to help dealerships improve performance and is developing new AI uses for compliance, process improvement and role-playing.

In his talk, Grane also didn’t deny the capabilities AI can enable in auto dealerships. In fact, his summit presentation centered on how AI can actually increase finance-and-insurance sales through its various extra-human abilities. Anomaly Labs is a startup whose AutoTrainer AI software products help dealers do just that.

Pros and Cons

Of course, no one in the audience denied, at least not out loud, that AI can provide such services or that its abilities can outstrip human effort by miles, saving time and money in the process, or that it can provide customer insights that people also couldn’t produce, at least not easily or efficiently.

Grane also pointed out that the technology can enhance decision-making; improve the customer’s experience at the dealership because, unlike people, it doesn’t call in sick or hung over; and minimize human error, such as keystroke mistakes. Unless there’s a power outage and no backup generator, it works around the clock.

But he acknowledged AI’s drawbacks: accuracy questions, ethical considerations, potential job displacement, and the absence of the all-important human elements of emotional intelligence and relationship with the customer.

“There is nothing, in my opinion, that can replace that desk-to-desk interaction with the client.”

But so far, Grane said most dealerships have relegated the technology to answering phones, “chatting” with shoppers on their websites, and scheduling sales and service appointments. He advocated that AI is also a natural fit to improve performance in the F&I department.

Practice Makes Perfect

For one, he said, Anomaly is using AI to coach and train F&I professionals. To illustrate that application, he demonstrated how an AI-powered bot can help them practice handling consumer objections with aplomb, even the most difficult customers.

To demonstrate his point, Grane offered to give a $100 “bounty” to any volunteer from his summit audience who convinced a very difficult bot named “Assertive Alex” to buy an F&I product. A woman named Meghan took on the challenge, though the bot didn’t appear to acknowledge her, so Grane took over the role of the challenged F&I manager for the demonstration.

Listening to the exchange, you had to feel sorry for him.

Assertive Alex represented a single business owner who was trading a BMW 330i for a Mercedes E 350. Grane explained that Alex entered a dealership with a clear idea of what he wanted, self-educated on market rates, and unafraid to push back.

Grane presented him with a vehicle service contract, telling Alex that it would be in his and his new car’s best interest. But Alex, in his deadpan AI delivery, indeed pushed back on every single point and question. To make things worse, he sounded a lot like the evil HAL computer system in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Alex: I appreciate the concern, but…

Carl: You look like you go to the gym. You’re fit. Is that correct?

Alex: Yes, I take care of my health. But I appreciate a more direct approach.

Carl: In your medicine cabinet, I’m sure I’d find some pain reliever, wouldn’t I?

Alex: Correct, but…

Carl: To wrap up my analogy, you’re in great shape, just the way your E 350 is in great shape, but just like your own body, it’s going to wear out … We can administer some pain relief with a vehicle service contract. That way, you don’t have to worry about out-of-pocket expenses.

Alex: I appreciate the analogy, but Mercedes-Benz is known for its quality … This is not worth that much more per month.

And on and on until Grane mercifully stopped Alex, drawing a collective exhale from the audience.

He said that Gerry Gould of automotive coaching and training firm Gerry Gould and Associates, when he tried unsuccessfully to win over Alex, was ready to “punch the computer.”

When one of Grane’s listeners asked if anyone had ever gotten Alex to buy anything, he said just one had broken through the bot’s steel trap-like “mind.” The successful salesperson appealed to the ego and time-saving desire of a typical BMW consumer who has all the facts and for whom money is no object.

Dealerships can use other AI applications to determine customers’ personality types so they’ll know how to approach them with sales pitches, including assertive types like Alex or an analytical person who asks a lot of questions, said Grane, who asked the audience if they thought that kind of information would be helpful. He got some nods.

More in the AI Grab Bag

On top of training, AI can help F&I managers with aspects of their sales approach that can result in increased business, said Grane, who encouraged his listeners to think of AI as they would any other tool:

• It can figure out customers’ buying styles ahead of F&I appointments.
• It can analyze deals to identify numbers and trends.
• AI can transcribe F&I transactions “in real time,” a benefit on many fronts, including compliance.
• It can grade and give immediate feedback on F&I managers’ adherence to the dealership’s F&I process.

There’s no telling where its potential ends, in fact, Grane said. And though the technology is imperfect, there’s no putting this cat back in the bag, he pointed out while seeking to reassure people put off by the possibility of job losses.

“It’s nowhere near the point where we are replacing individuals,” he said because “somebody needs to be managing that tool” and test-drive it before deploying AI in real-life scenarios.

But it is advancing rapidly. Grane said AI technology developed in a big way over the past two years.

“Some features we have today in our product did not exist four months ago, that’s how quickly AI is evolving.”

Hannah Mitchell is executive editor of Agent Entrepreneur. A former daily newspaper journalist, her first car was a hand-me-down Chevrolet Nova.