AI for Automotive Sales: How Dealerships Can Maximize Efficiency and Revenue

AI for automotive sales is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s actively transforming dealerships today. 

Artificial intelligence tools—whether specifically designed for the automotive sector, or adaptable to dealership needs—possess the potential to streamline processes, improve customer interactions, drive revenue growth, and expand customer loyalty. AI can enhance the efforts of every department within a dealership—including the sales team—improving what your team is already doing.

While sales is not typically the first thing that comes to mind when talking about automotive tools, in this blog, we’ll delve into how AI enhances every stage of the customer journey at an automotive dealership. We will focus specifically on how AI can elevate automotive sales, exploring how to fully leverage this technology, and the benefits your dealership’s sales team can expect to see.

What is AI for Automotive Sales?

When people think of automotive sales, they often envision the salesperson engaging with customers—whether on the phone, or guiding shoppers through the showroom. The common theme here is the presence of a real, live person facilitating the interactions, rather than a robot (though a few dealerships do indeed have them on the showroom floor).

What often goes unnoticed is the extensive behind-the-scenes work that empowers these salespeople to excel, such as learning the ins-and-outs of a shopper’s journey or researching what vehicles will suit their needs. By leveraging AI tools, the entire sales experience can be enhanced, enabling timely communication, personalizing offers, and creating a seamless customer journey. 

As technology continues to reshape the industry, integrating artificial intelligence into the dealership’s sales processes can unlock unprecedented opportunities for growth and efficiency. Here’s how AI can transform your dealership’s sales team:

1. Increase Efficiency: AI can automate numerous tasks that are time-consuming when done manually, such as list-building, identifying vehicles of interest, and drafting and scheduling emails. While not everything can—or should—be automated, allowing AI to handle repetitive tasks frees up your team to focus on responsibilities that require a human touch.
2. Enhance Personalization: By pinpointing the specific needs and interests of each shopper, AI helps tailor customer interactions, ensuring that each individual receives offers and information most likely to resonate with them.
3. Higher Close Rates: AI can help surface your most in-market opportunities, even if they aren’t recent leads. This insight enables your dealership to prioritize which shoppers to engage with and what offers to present, allowing data to drive your sales strategy effectively.
4. Long-Term ROI: Leveraging AI for more personalized and timely communication builds long-term customer loyalty, ultimately leading to repeat purchases and increased revenue over time.

The application of AI in automotive sales isn’t one-size-fits-all; it varies from dealership to dealership based on team size and their adaptability to new technology. There are numerous opportunities to integrate AI throughout the sales process. To illustrate this, let’s examine the typical customer journey and identify specific touchpoints where artificial intelligence can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales team’s efforts.

The Customer Journey Enhanced by AI

Not every customer journey is the same, but each one can be enhanced by artificial intelligence at various stages. By examining the following customer journey broken down into each main phase, we can have a better insight into exactly when and how AI plays a role in automotive sales.  

1. Discovery Phase

Before your sales team even has the opportunity to say “hello” to potential customers, you can already put AI to work. While market analysts are busy tracking new inventory, shifting trends, and seasonal purchasing patterns, artificial intelligence can operate 24/7 to deliver real-time insights into the current market and more. This technology not only identifies changes in the industry but also uses that information, in addition to any customer data it has access to, to predict customer behavior.

By utilizing a Customer Data Platform (CDP), your sales team can easily access valuable insights identified by AI that are relevant to your dealership. This includes information on which vehicles may need an extra push, which shoppers have been returning to your website, and the creation of audience lists that highlight shoppers with the highest buying intent for your sales team to prioritize. In addition to uncovering the hottest opportunities within your CDP, AI can enhance your sales efforts by providing individual insights for each shopper. This includes recommending the vehicles and offers that are most likely to resonate with each shopper, as well as supplying email templates and phone prompts tailored to their specific customer journey.

2. Engagement Phase

The next step is to harness these AI-powered insights and suggestions to create enhanced customer experiences. 

Consider this: While your dealership staff has a limited number of hours in the day, an AI assistant can work around the clock, automating tasks that would otherwise consume valuable time. For example, your AI assistant can engage with website shoppers at 11 PM, collecting key information such as vehicles of interest and financing concerns. By the time your doors open the next morning, you’ll have a new lead ready for follow-up.

3. Purchase Decision Phase

Now that you’ve captured the attention of your dealership’s shoppers, it’s time to convert that interest into a sale.

By quickly analyzing each individual customer journey, AI can precisely identify which specific vehicle, body type, model, or feature most interests each shopper. While a human can manually assess which emails were opened or which images were clicked, AI can seamlessly integrate data from emails, phone calls, ad engagements, and website visits, providing a much clearer picture of customer preferences. Based on this comprehensive analysis, AI can inform you about what the shopper is most interested in and cross-reference that with your dealership’s inventory to identify available options.

Once the most relevant vehicle is identified, AI can help formulate a pricing strategy tailored to your prospective customer. By analyzing the pricing models they have engaged with, AI can recommend the most suitable payment plan. If the customer has made a previous purchase with you, AI can also incorporate financial data from that transaction, such as monthly payments and equity status, to ensure their new payment plan is even more advantageous than their current one.

4. Post-Sale Phase

The customer journey doesn’t end with the sale. If it does, you’re likely missing out on maximizing customer lifetime value in the service lane and ensuring future sales stay within your dealership.

Dealership sales teams can use CDP insights to maximize customer lifetime value. With access to your customers’ activity with your dealership spanning up to 10 years, AI can easily identify when these shoppers are back in the market—or even better, just about to be. By surfacing these leads to the salespeople involved in their previous purchase, AI helps your team strengthen relationships with customers, allowing them to reach out when the thought of a new vehicle is still forming in the customer’s mind. With this level of customer insight and AI capability, you can get ahead of the competition by initiating the sales process before the customer has even begun shopping.

Additionally, AI can identify upsell opportunities by pinpointing which customers are due for service. Using data from the type of vehicle, purchase history, and previous servicing records, AI can easily determine when the next service is due and may even anticipate any small repairs that might be needed beforehand. By fully automating the identification of service upsell opportunities, along with the communication and appointment booking process, your dealership can effortlessly enhance revenue growth.

Common Misconceptions About AI in Automotive Sales

You’ve heard it all: “AI is taking our jobs,” “AI is for marketing, not sales,” and “AI is too expensive for small companies.” The key difference between those who voice these concerns and the industry leaders who embrace AI for success is that the latter have actually tried it.

“AI is taking our jobs.” 

This is true, but not in the way most people assume. Rather than replacing sales teams or diminishing relationships with long-term customers, AI enhances the availability of your sales staff for human-centered tasks taking over specific tasks, not whole jobs. By automating repetitive manual tasks, your sales team can dedicate more time to relationship building and outreach—areas where personal touch and attention truly matter.

“AI is too expensive.”

It’s understandable that adding a new line for AI-based solutions might seem like an added expense. However, the Return on Investment (ROI) from AI is well worth the initial outlay: 100% of dealers note an increase in revenue within just one year of implementing AI solutions. If budget constraints are a concern, consider exploring free or lower-cost individual tools to familiarize yourself with AI capabilities before committing to a more comprehensive platform.

“AI is for marketing, not sales.”

Many people envision AI solely as a tool for generating content, like ChatGPT, which assists with writing or creating email templates. However, AI offers immense value for dealership sales teams as well. It provides advanced customer insights for personalized interactions, helps with lead scoring and prioritization, powers chatbots for round-the-clock inquiries, automates follow-ups during the sales process and after the sale, and so much more.

The Future of AI for Automotive Sales

The learning doesn’t stop here. One emerging AI trend is the increasing sophistication of predictive analytics, which enables dealerships to anticipate customer needs more accurately than ever before. By harnessing advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, dealerships can refine their assessment of customer behavior, tailoring sales strategies to meet the evolving expectations of shoppers. Additionally, advancements in natural language processing are enhancing chatbots and virtual assistants, making them more capable of handling complex inquiries around the clock.

AI is empowering dealerships to seamlessly connect various customer touchpoints—from online inquiries to in-person visits—creating a cohesive and engaging customer journey. By investing in AI solutions today, your dealership is laying the groundwork for long-term success, increased customer loyalty, and sustained growth.

At Fullpath, AI-powered solutions are at the core of what we offer to dealerships across North America. From dynamic audience segmentation and ChatGPT-powered chatbots that provide real-time inventory information, to automated service reminder campaigns and the ability to identify your highest intent shoppers, Fullpath has your AI needs covered. Contact our team today to learn how to integrate AI solutions into your dealership. Click here or send us an email at get.started@fullpath.com.