A panel of automotive experts discussed how technology can be used to improve dealer efficiency in a recent AM online workshop.
The online webinar recording – available to watch now – featured:
- Simon Bottomley, non-executive director and board advisor to SAAS Business.
- Victoria Crawford, CRM manager at Sinclair Group.
- Matthew Patchett, senior customer experience strategist at Reputation.
Continued cost pressures across labour, energy and inventory mean dealerships are under pressure to do more with less. However, technology can be used more effectively to improve efficiency across sales, marketing and aftersales, while supporting stronger commercial performance.
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Value, efficiency and ROI
Panellists identified the biggest areas of value and efficiency gains that technology is delivering.
Bottomley noted that every area of a business can be affected by technology, and that looking at individual elements is not effective.
“It’s only an enabler,” he said.
“What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to make sure that all the processes, the systems and all of the things that go on day-to-day in the dealership mesh well with the technology – you can’t look at it in isolation.
“The most efficient use of technology is the one that meshes with the business.”
Crawford added: “The biggest efficiency gains are coming from the areas where technology can help our teams to prioritise better and remove unnecessary manual work
“Efficiency is not just about more activity or doing it faster, it’s about the right activity, the right customers, the right time, and using the technology to take away low-value admin to improve visibility and help our teams to focus on where human input really makes a difference.”
Ways that technology can be used to deliver value and return on investment (ROI) were also defined.
Bottomley pointed out obvious areas where value can be delivered by creating greater efficiency and optimising operational elements of the business, like routes and workshop utilisation via vehicle tracking – but emphasised that ROI can be achieved beyond cost reduction.
“You don’t necessarily just need to think about cost reduction, i.e. we will reduce some headcount,” he said.
“What you can actually think about is redeploying that headcount. If you redeploy the headcount into more value-added activities, moving people away from repetitive stuff, putting them in front of customers, looking after customers more. There’s actually a value creation.”
Crawford added: “A lot of the technologies that are delivering measurable ROIs are often the less glamorous ones, really, they’re things like we spoke about automation, call analytics, review management, better reporting, they’re not as exciting as some of the, you know, newer agentic AI, but they actually solve real day-to-day problems in our business
a product can be the best product in the world, but if your business is already strong in that area, the gain is only ever going to be minimal
the starting point is always you’ve got to look at in your business what are the pinch points and what are the bottlenecks, is that missed calls, is that poor lead management, is that you know aftersales retention, is it capacity and workshop, and then once you’ve got to understand the problem, it’s then easy to look at the technology to fix it
The ROI really comes back to simple questions. Does it improve bookings? Does it reduce missed calls? Does it save admin time, does it improve retention? Does it fit within the customer journey as well? You know, and then if it does those things, then it’s easier to justify really the benefits of it.
Patchett highlighted customer relationship management (CRM) systems can be used to deliver useful customer insights, saying: “With CRM data and customer insight, the ultimate goal is that you can actually start to utilise that data to predict behaviours; so actually knowing who your customers are, how engaged they are, what they think of your brand, and based on those experiences and engagement, are they then going to interact with you again as a brand?
AI, data and the customer experience
Artificial intelligence (AI) became a focus of conversation, with panellists noting how the technology has developed to enable customers to complete a lot of the pre-sales process using AI summaries without engaging with dealers.
Patchett said: “The first time the dealer knows they’ve got a customer is when the customer’s turned up at the door and said: ‘I want this make, I want this model, and I want to speak to Simon because Claude tells me that he’s the best salesperson that you’ve got.’
“The customer has bypassed you as a business, they’ve just taken that AI answer and they’ve made a decision on it, and that’s really, really powerful.”
Bottomley explained that AI is enabling a generational shift in the customer journey, saying: “If you’re going to change your mortgage, would you go on the comparison sites, or would you stick the question into Claude? Because I know which one will be quicker, easier, and just as accurate without large spam emails.
“Forget Google, forget search engine optimisation (SEO) as it was, if you’re not in the AI chatbot or the AI large language models (LLMs), then you’ve got a problem.”
Crawford noted that, with information on businesses being utilised by AI to inform prospective customers, accuracy, consistency and value are paramount.
She said: “Information has got to be consistent whenever it comes from; it’s important that with used car adverts, for instance, if AI tools are going to compare vehicles or recommend options, then the quality of the adverts really matter – the vehicle descriptions, the specification, imagery, price, all of those details – plus then factoring in the review side of it.
“We need to be conscious of every single bit of information out there about our businesses, because that’s what AI is looking for and picking up on.”
Personalisation and overcoming customer friction
Panellists defined areas of friction, with Crawford noting that communication and visibility are consistent areas in need of improvement.
She said: “Customers get frustrated when they can’t get through to us, when they don’t know what’s happening, when they have to chase for updates, be that sales or aftersales, and when they’ve got to repeat information they’ve already given, so I think technology can ultimately can help us by giving customers more proactive updates.”
She also emphasised that ease and simplicity are important for customer retention.
“Customers increasingly expect simple digital main options, they want to be able to book and get an accurate price online.
“Not every customer wants a fully digital journey. A lot of our manufacturers have strong online booking journeys, but still 85% of our customers choose to pick up a phone.”
Patchett added: “Not everybody wants the same approach.
“We talk about omnichannel; some people phone, some people email, and you’ve now got these AI bots trying to just pull all that information together.
“We talk about personalisation, and that is still key. We’re hearing more and more about the younger generation wanting less technology.
“We talk a lot about technology and maybe assume that everybody’s on the same wave, but that’s not necessarily always the case.”