Some Automation Required

I'm assuming that you, like myself, at some point have visited that particular Swedish furniture store and walked around its tens of thousands of square foot showroom. Eyeing, and gawking at the amazing setups of various rooms filled with great looking and designed furniture. The setups look great. The prices - phenomenal. Experience - amazing. So, you load your cart up with any and all items you can find. Beds, dressers, entertainment centers, end tables, etc. You leave, excited to get all these new items set up in your house or office. Eventually, it hits you...There is “Some Assembly Required.” That “some” is drastically underselling what truly excruciating work will be done over the ENTIRE weekend. Regardless, you unload, grab your tools, clear a space, and get building. The instructions are frustrating. So, like most things, you figure it out on your own. You use your own common sense and ability to just “guesstimate” which piece goes where, which screw fits in what hole, and which side is facing out or in. Then you think- if only I would have paid a little bit more to have this assembled before delivery. This plays right in line with automotive SAAS companies and any implementation of new products in the store. How many times have you visited an automotive conference, or listened to an amazing demo of a new-aged product and then signed up right away? You sign up not knowing the impact that it would or could have on your store. The increased tasks-based work items, the disruption in process, and the team’s frustration of having to “figure it out” on their own.

AUTOMATION FEARS

There's a reason why dealerships are often scared of automation, it’s because automation has been incredibly broad. A vendor partner will state they can automate everything, but then it's just a simple message response with no personality. It doesn't imply an understanding of the sentiment of the conversation or recognizing the intent of the customer.

If you can target specifically with automation, it will make the whole process and workflow easier as it relieves the dealership from valuable time. It allows them to be more proficient, efficient, effective, and profitable on their side, so that they can focus on the things that matter. Processes can be automated, but people can't. We can automate a process that makes sense and is specific to the customer and has an inherent feeling behind the process, but it can still be automated. We can still leave the emotion and the relationship building to the dealers, and the salespeople, and have that separated. The process may be automated, but the retail people (your people inside the dealership) should be able to do what they do best; functionally build relationships and communicate. It allows the dealerships to get better at building relationships and selling because a lot of their processes are automated. Salespeople have to be able to build relationships, better than most. So, we just focus on the relationships in terms of people and then use automation to functionally make the process simpler, and ensure the dealers are getting the proper information and more information on each customer. This way, they know how to engage with that customer. I think that's where we're hopefully headed in automotive.

CHANGING THE MEASUREMENTS

Things need to change. Dealers have to understand that once you start building the automation, you have to change the benchmarks of what is a successful rep. In the past, success may have been defined by someone who was able to generate a lot of foot traffic or make a high volume of calls. With automation, success should be defined by someone who is able to generate quality interactions that result in appointment bookings, sales, and customers for life.

Many things have gained importance: relationships with the customer and the community, somebody that has a good social presence and is able to make videos of their customers, and increasing publicity. Those are things that would make a good rep. Adjusting the standards of what a dealer sees as a successful rep will help automation be successful inside the dealership.

ADAPTING TOGETHER

Look at these large E-commerce Automotive Retailers. They saw the current model of retail automotive and decided to overcorrect by removing the relationships and creating non-emotional purchases. They thought, in order to fix the issue, we have to overcorrect, we have to go so far in implementing new technology and processes on how you buy a car, and completely change the way consumers purchase. Most people have a general idea of how to buy a car and are ok with experiences that are not complicated and enjoyable. The largest frustration that customers have is that there is poor communication. Automating the initial section of the customer's journey ensures that they will have fluid communication with the appropriate person in the store. So instead of overcorrecting the way we communicate with customers or their familiar journey, take baby steps. I contend that you get a far more increased level of adoption from not only the industry but from the consumers as well. As we go forward, we need to make these small baby steps instead of flipping the whole model upside down.

It’s similar to the digital retail revolution when COVID began and the industry was trying to survive and stay operational. They needed to figure out how to sell a car, so they adopted digital retail. There was no standardization of digital retail, every company had a different process, a different way of doing things, different APIs, and different connections and integrations. And because everybody just went through a mass market boom, there were so many companies that said they have a DR (digital retail) tool. But if we look at automation, and if we look at the way that processes should be adjusted moving forward, we need to create a standard on it so as to not disrupt the consumers' experience and increase their confusion. Confusion will equal poor customer experience and loss of faith in the brand further driving down brand and dealer loyalty.

K.I.S.S. METHOD

At Konect.ai, we're not trying to take over the entire sales process or the entire communication process, but we're helping out a specific portion. Because at some point, we need to hand it back to the store since they're the experts doing it. We're not going to say that we're the experts, and we're not going to step on their toes, we're not going to jump in and answer questions that we don't know. So, it's a baby step; moving forward in a way that we know that we can handle. We know that's an easy way to have it get adopted. Before we move into other portions to help with automation, we have to make sure that we're really strong in this one. We could say that we can take over the whole sales process, and some dealers may want that, but it would be a constant failure. There would be frustrations, and people are going to get confused about how the process works. Moving forward with baby steps will allow us to start really moving. It's one of those things where you can't take a train that has stopped and suddenly get it going. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy to move forward, and it creeps forward first before it starts rolling fast. But we have to slowly push it forward because eventually, there’s exponential growth in any technology. The capability of technology doubles every two years. It's the same thing with automation and the same thing with changing processes inside automotive.

One of the things with automation, or any change in technology is that there's so much integration. You can take 10 different software companies that do different things and could have one hub where you see everything. In automotive, you, unfortunately, have 35 browser windows open, 4 different software downloaded to your PC, and yet, another username and password to worry about. To be able to functionally run, you must have two screens now. There's really no reason for a dealer to have a browser window open for us. We notify, and we push into a CRM, and we do all the stuff that is necessary for the dealer to understand what's going on with the customer. But they don't have to log into the Konect.ai portal, they don't have to have a browser window open, and they don't have to go and inspect what we're doing. We make it non-disruptive. Continue doing your sales process the way that you want to do it because one of the frustrations that I always had was somebody on the outside, whether they had automotive or non-automotive experience, trying to tell me that I needed to change the process inside of our store because they're the expert. So, we don't want to be a disruptor. We're going to hop in this specific spot to create lift on the inbound to give your team more customers to communicate with. But we're not going to bother you, disrupt your processes, make your team confused, or throw a wrench into the wheel. That's one of the baby steps of allowing dealers to understand that every time you add a software piece or some kind of process piece with new technology it doesn't mean that it has to be disruptive.

About the author

Colby Joyner- VP of Sales, Konect.ai

Colby, a native Texan from Victoria, is an Automotive News 40 under 40 nominee with an eclectic resume covering retail automotive, automotive technology/software, and the integration and implementation of software products. His previous role as Platform Director for Bravo Auto Group proved Colby’s unmatched leadership, drive, and a passion to build everyone up around him. Colby’s personal motto is “a rising tide lifts all boats,” which fits perfectly with Konect.ai’s culture of innovation, automation, and collaboration.When it comes to Konect.ai, Colby is excited about the innovation the company brings to improve dealer’s engagement with their customers. He loves that Konect.ai is solving a problem that most dealers have tried to fix with additional staff, or unnecessary products. When Colby’s not working and making connections, he’s usually spending quality time with his wife, 3 kids, and friends. You can also find him nerding out on the latest technology, listening to Texas country music, or playing his guitar (although not well enough to quit his day job!) Colby’s eager to take his family around the world and experience different people and cultures along the way!?