AI technology transforms service into car sales

Along with eliminating inefficiencies in dealership service departments, Skaivision's visual artificial intelligence platform also can turn service lanes into sales avenues.

Here's how it works: When a vehicle enters a dealership car lot or service lane, a camera picks up the license plate number and translates it into a vehicle identification code, said Skaivision CEO Mark Queen.

The system quickly analyzes the vehicle and determines if it's one the dealership wants as a trade-in. Then it uses customized valuations to determine a range of the car's market value.

Next, the system sends a text asking the customer if there's any interest in selling the vehicle or trading it in, Queen said. If so, the customer can opt in by saying "yes."

This process is significantly better than having a salesperson in the service drive approach customers in person and make what essentially is a cold sales call, Queen said.

"Customers hate being pressed — it's a very awkward process to approach them and ask them if they want to sell their car," he said. "With a text, they can just say yes or no, which is a softer approach that customers really like; it's a good ice breaker."

The process has worked well at Fred Anderson Toyota of Raleigh in North Carolina.

The store's service director, Bryan Newton, said the dealership now acquires nearly 100 vehicles a month using Skaivision, compared with 50 to 60 vehicles prior to the implementation of the technology.

The software helped the dealership identify a need for additional sales support in the service drive, which allowed it to leverage the Skaivision technology more often, Newton said. The service drive sales team expanded from three people to five, he said.

"In addition, it saves everyone time," Newton said. "As we keep moving ahead in this industry, we're going to find that time is the most valuable thing we can give back to customers.

"If we can give customers some time back, they're going to be much more loyal customers. So that's what we're trying to hang our hat on."

Much of the time savings on the dealership end comes from eliminating the need for people to do extensive research about car values and manually input customer information, Queen said.

"What dealership employee says they love inputting data?" he said. "Customers don't like it, either. There's so much repetitive and redundant data input associated with writing up repair orders or selling vehicles, which is what's to blame for elongated transaction times.

"So we're using AI to automate some pieces of the process — take it out of human hands and remove the human fallibility factor."