Car dealers adopting AI-powered marketing may be disappointed by the results due to the high proportion of inaccurate records in a typical customer database.
That’s according to Auto Data Solutions (ADS), which has warned that AI tools working with inaccurate information will only scale up and accelerate wasted marketing efforts.
ADS said it analysed more than 1.1 million customer and vehicle records across nine dealer groups and found that 44.9% of the 731,006 vehicle records and 22% of the 435,027 customer records analysed contained inaccurate information.
Among the findings were that 31% of keeper changes since the customer had last been seen were not recorded, 45% of records had incorrect or missing MOT dates, and in one dealer database 3.3% of customers were deceased.
ADS said that records such as these would need to be updated before AI marketing tools were able to benefit dealers.
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Instead of correcting every record, ADS suggested that dealers should focus on cleansing the records of customers who had visited a dealership within the past seven years – although it noted that 35.1% of these still required correction, based on its research.
Reputational risk warning
ADS, which has partnered with marketing automation company Force24 for its data campaign, said that as well as being wasteful, AI communications based on inaccurate data also carried a risk of damaging customer confidence through increased inappropriate communication and contact timing.
Jon Sheard, operations director at ADS, said: “Dealers are right to be excited about the opportunities of AI and ever more sophisticated marketing and customer journey processes.
“AI is very good at following up, but if a customer sold their vehicle six months ago and is still receiving automated service or MOT reminders, every additional contact risks causing more frustration. Without getting the underlying data right first, dealers risk their marketing simply failing faster and at greater scale.
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“Our latest dealer analysis across more than a million customer and vehicle records shows that even the most powerful tools could fail to deliver their promised benefits without first addressing those discrepancies.
“We share dealers’ excitement about the opportunities created by AI to foster stronger customer loyalty, but it will only work on the basis of accurate campaigns – and those must always begin with accurate customer and vehicle records.”