dealers · 2026-09-08 · 40m13s
09-08 Consultation: VCA GenAI Rollout for Brian Harris BMW, Audi Baton Rouge, and Harris Porsche
Date & Time: 2026-09-08 13:04:01 Location: [Insert Location] Customer: Lance Overview The consultation covers configuring and rolling out a Virtual Conversation/Contact Assistant (VCA GenAI) to replace Podium across three dealerships: Brian Harris BMW, Audi Baton Rouge, and Harris Porsche. Objectives include replicating and enhancing Podium’s nuanced, campaign-specific messaging for varied lead types (e.g., manufacturer lease maturity/NCI vs. standard web leads), enabling natural initial SMS via the new Established Business Relationship (EBR) setting, and implementing role-based guardrails, tone/persona customization, and dealership differentiators. The VCA will automate follow-ups, appointment setting, trade-in info gathering, vehicle interest confirmation, and support Internet and showroom processes, with clear sequencing and suppressions to avoid overlap. A controlled rollout is targeted before the “go dark” date on September 21, followed by monitoring and iterative optimization, including portfolio-style engagement for NCI lease leads. Background
- Lance, a seasoned consultant supporting the three dealerships, seeks full adoption and a seamless transition by September 21.
- All stores currently use Podium; the integrated VCA GenAI will replace it. BMW has Predictive Insights (underused), and all three stores have access to the Insights VCA dashboard (attempted/actual contacts, appointments, active conversations).
- Training is scheduled for next week, with a 5–7 day buffer before go-live; the system will run the last eight to nine days of September with early October review.
- Processes include timing (e.g., 25 minutes within business hours after a 12-hour window), suppressions to prevent overlap with salesperson activity, and generic tasks to notify reps.
- Audi NCI-like manufacturer leads arrive as web leads with distinct source codes; BMW receives explicit NCI (e.g., 270-day lease portfolio leads).
- The assistant has been renamed to “Chloe,” with planned profile updates for consistency.
- Replicating Podium’s nuanced, lead-type-specific messaging: BMW FS/NCI vs. Audi web leads require distinct scripts and rules to avoid generic outreach and awkward first messages.
- Initial opt-in friction: Default VCA opt-in as the first SMS feels unnatural; EBR should enable immediate, relevant conversation for inquiry-based leads.
- Guardrails and conversation policies: No predefined rules for sensitive topics (e.g., pricing), risking misaligned conversations and compliance issues without explicit hand-offs to sales.
- Reporting access and visibility: Permission settings risk oversharing; managers need dashboard access while limiting reps’ visibility to all customers.
- Process design complexity: Timing, suppressions, and task sequencing must be tuned to avoid misfires, duplication, and clutter.
- NCI strategy uncertainty: Limited precedent for VCA engaging manufacturer lease maturity leads; differences in OEM feeds complicate routing and tone.
- Duplicate after-hours messaging: Podium and VCA both sending messages created confusion; after-hours VCA was disabled across stores as a temporary fix.
- Adoption and training risk: Managers and reps need clear guidance on pause lists, inbox/notes visibility, sentiment interpretation, and escalation to ensure consistent use.
- Fully replicate and surpass Podium’s capabilities by September 21, including tailored flows for distinct lead types and natural initial SMS via EBR.
- Configure tone/persona, dealership differentiators, and explicit guardrails (e.g., pricing escalation to sales) prior to go-live; measure appointments, engagement quality, and reduced escalations.
- Establish reporting permissions so managers access dashboards while restricting rep overexposure; verify Insights favorites and data accuracy.
- Enable and tune Internet and showroom follow-up processes with minute-based offsets, suppressions, and clear task wording; copy processes to accelerate setup.
- Pilot NCI engagement with portfolio-manager voice (pre-inspection, supportive messaging) for BMW 270-day lease leads and Audi source-coded leads; iterate based on early results.
- Conduct role-based training, reinforce adoption, and monitor pause lists and sentiment 2–3 times weekly; schedule pre–September 21 final check and early October review.
- VCA adapts to preferred channels (text/email) and switches mid-conversation; reps can pause VCA, and logs are visible in inbox and notes/history.
- Negative sentiment may be productive (e.g., scheduling conflicts) and should be interpreted carefully.
- Customer prefers keeping “disengage virtual assistant when a human contacts the customer” disabled so VCA can re-engage if a salesperson lapses.
- Upcoming Acquisition feature aligns with Audi’s KBB ICO vehicle acquisition leads.
- Lance functions as first-line support across stores and is comfortable with technical configuration.
- Lance: Enable EBR in SMS settings for all stores to ensure natural initial conversations.
- Lance: Review Podium campaigns and lead handling rules to prepare VCA replication; compile dealership differentiators and finalize tone/persona and pricing guardrails (within 5–7 days post-training).
- Lance: Update VCA user profile to “Chloe” (name, email) for consistent communications.
- Consultant: Provide configuration guidance for lead-type-specific conversational flows (BMW FS/NCI vs. standard web leads); review and enable Internet/showroom processes with tuned timing/suppressions and task wording.
- Admin: Set reporting permissions (enable “CRM reports and my dashboards” for managers; restrict reps); favorite the VCA dashboard and verify metrics.
- Team: Design and launch NCI pilot (map Audi source codes; draft portfolio-manager scripts for BMW 270-day cadence); iterate post-launch.
- Training team: Prepare role-based materials (pause list cadence, inbox/notes use, sentiment handling) ahead of next week’s sessions.
- Managers/Lance: Establish monitoring cadence (pause list 2–3x weekly; spot-check negative sentiment); document escalation rules and hand-off scripts (e.g., pricing inquiries).
- Scheduling: Final review before September 21; go-live for last eight to nine days of September; follow-up review in early October and additional check-ins over the first four to five weeks.
- Lead Source-Based Workflow Mapping: Workshop every lead source and communication path, then configure VCA triggers and scripts to preserve “little tweaks.”
- Phased Rollout/Pilot: Validate complex lead types (manufacturer/NCI) at one store (e.g., Audi or BMW) before full cutover on the 21st.
- Configuration Playbook: Create a modular playbook for guardrails, tone, lead-type scripts, and escalation triggers to enable ongoing tweaks.
- Dynamic AI Responses: Train GenAI to recognize lease maturity context and adjust tone/questions beyond rigid rules.
- Guardrail Implementation: Add rules-based suppressions and keyword triggers (price/discount/out-the-door) to auto-escalate and pause VCA; use templated hand-off scripts.
- Controlled A/B Tests: Trial guardrail variations on a subset of Internet leads; measure appointments, escalation rates, and conversation quality.
- After-Hours Strategy: Migrate fully from Podium to VCA to eliminate duplicates; if both must remain, consider time-sharing or API-based handoff; clarify role-based specialization to avoid overlap.
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No device highlights on this take.
0:00
But they did roll VCA to all three. There's Mr. Lance.
0:05
What's happening, guys?
0:06
How y'all doing? Good, sir. How are you? Man, I'm great. Good. Good to see you this week again.
0:13
For sure. Just got off the phone with our training guy and set up trainings for all the sales managers and salespeople next week.
0:24
Herbert. Um. So real quick before we get started, I'll introduce Adam Lands. Adam's with me today. He's kind of one of our VCA GenAI predictive insights experts that I just like to bring on sometimes in some of my setup calls and implementation, just to make sure I'm not missing anything, you're not missing anything. He can help pick up the pieces where I may not ask the right question.
0:54
So we're rolling VCA GenAI to all three stores. Yep. You've had Predictive Insights at the BMW store for a little over a year now, which is the buying signals. How's that going? How are you guys using that?
1:12
Feedback on that? Um, I mean it works great. I don't have any.
1:22
Feedback on it so much as you know, our guys have always just used it. I think, I think if there's any feedback, I think it actually is underused. You know, I think we could probably do more with it. That's all.
1:42
Okay, yeah, I I just wanted to touch on it. I mean, it's I know it's so. This is kind of the the third. Third part of that suite, right? We kind of call it a, you know, an AI suite with predictive insights, VCA, and GenAI. So, BMW being the only one that has the full suite, but we can still, what we'll probably do today, Lance, is just go through, talk some about. So wait a minute.
2:05
What you saying that the other two stores don't have predictive insights.
2:09
Not that I just saw. Do all three have them?
2:14
Thought so. Two.
2:18
They they should be set up with it. When I was looking through some of your settings over here, it looks like they are. They are.
2:23
I apologize. They've all just had it for as long as I can remember.
2:27
No, I apologize. You're correct.
2:30
Yeah.
2:30
Okay. My apologies,
2:33
Good sir. All right. So it sounds like our focus, our primary focus today, is with virtual assistant. Is that correct?
2:41
Yeah. Yeah. That is our only focus.
2:43
All right. So, give me an idea of some of what are your thoughts. I know you've got another tool that's in place that's going to be peeling away. But tell me a little bit about how you like to use these the virtual assistant type tools side by side with your sales team.
2:59
So, Podium is the tool for all three stores, and they the three stores use it each use that to to varying degrees of success. And then, even within each store, I've got different levels of usage with each salesperson, right? So, at Brian Harris BMW and now in Porsche and Harris Porsche, I think those two stores probably use it to its fullest extent. Hang on, I'm closing my doors so I don't make too much noise out here. I think you know, if anything, one of the things that I'm looking forward to most about.
3:39
Having this built into Vind now, instead of being a separate tool, is actual full usage by all of the staff. That being said, my main concern is that we set it up. So, and you can imagine, it's just like moving in and out of a house, right? It's like we've had Podium for quite a while, and we've done a lot of little things and tweaks, and a lot of like adding this campaign and that campaign, and Hey, let's make sure we're treating this lead specifically, and then this lead specifically, and make sure the conversation starts correctly. So, if I've got a lead, for example, Brian Harris, BMW and and Audi, both have leads that come from manufacturer that are, you know, BMW FS leads. So, customer's CPO is about to expire, loan's about to mature, or lease is about to mature, and we're we get those messages in like so.
4:36
When we get those as leads, on one set of stores at BMW, it's an NCI lead, so non-customer initiated. But from Audi, it just comes in as a normal web lead. But we don't need to talk to them like we do a normal lead. They didn't submit anything, right? Right. Some of the some of the tweaking that I want to make sure we do, and I guess it doesn't all have to be done right away. We're not fully folding this or rolling this over until the twenty first. But the the thing about it is like. I want to be able to pull up Podium and say, "Hey, here's what's going on inside a Podium. Here's all, and some of this may be some conversations I have with some of my Podium people to kind of make sure I know where all of my my different pieces are, and we kind of set it up. So, and some of this can be done organically, right? Like, for example, just starting right now, how would we go in and tell it, "Hey, treat all these BMW FS leads like this."
5:33
And talk to them like this, so yeah, that's kind of my main thing. Is I just want to make sure, and then the other piece we can we can look at this under dealer settings, the SMS settings. So I was just told that we'll be able to use this EBR established business relationship, yes, to have it be a more natural start of the conversation, which is what Podium has done. So in Ven, we all know like if if one of my guys needs to text somebody, they can manually check the box and say, hey, this person is opted in, and we want to just start texting them. Right. But as far as I know, VCA, the default is it sends that it sends this opt in request message first, which I want to change it so that it sounds more natural and has an opt in. But also using that checkbox, the trainer was just telling me, hey, you know, ask your guys about that, so we can set that up for your three stores.
6:27
So that'll give us. Hopefully, I'm hoping that you can tell me how to make it work, and that it'll be a more natural start to the conversation. Instead of customer sends a lead, then the first thing they get from us is, " Do you want to talk to us?" When, yes, they want to talk to us because they asked us for information, right?
6:44
Anyway, yeah. So, so checking this box is going to because they've submitted a lead allow us to go ahead and immediately start communicating with customers and. Once we get to the you know the end of that time frame with that established business relationship, then at some point when we're trying to communicate, it will send the opt in message again, or at least a message letting them know that they have the ability to opt out if they ever wanted to. Got it. And that time frame is going to vary depending on on the results of the initial lead too. So you know, a customer that purchased, we have a much longer EBR than we do a customer that submitted the lead but never ended up doing any kind of a transaction. Okay. So.
7:23
You know, basically the difference between a prospect versus a customer. So, okay, and these are settings that you guys can make. We can't make any changes on these pages on your behalf, but absolutely, if you're ready to, you can go ahead and and check that box, and that'll allow you to to start running with the EBR. That's a piece that we just put in. It's probably about a week old, so that's a brand new enhancement that we've added to the tool here. So,
7:48
Super.
7:49
There's a few things that I want to touch on when it comes to the virtual assistant. Before we even looking look at some of the follow up that we've got in here, number one, under the virtual assistant settings, and I'm under settings, dealer settings, virtual assistant settings. There's a couple of pieces in here that I want to make sure that that we touch on. Number one, you know, we're we're allowing the virtual assistant to set appointments, so it's going to have a conversation, try to get the customer to commit to coming into the dealership. It will schedule the appointment.
8:19
And then it will assign the appointment to whoever the salesperson is on this lead. That way, they they've got visibility, they've got notification. If for any reason you never wanted it to set an appointment, if you shut that off, when the customer gets to a point where it is asking about an appointment, it's going to fire that task that says the virtual assistant needs help. My recommendation would be that you go ahead and allow it to try to do that work for you, because we we've had dealers that say, you know, I come in on a Monday morning and it's already set two appointments for me.
8:46
Yeah, yeah, we want to leave that, and that's what. You know that's the way Podium's operating right now. It's setting appointments.
8:52
Okay, good. Next one: gather trade - in information. If we don't have a trade, this gives it the ability to ask: Do you have a trade? How many miles are on it? Do you still owe any money? You know, anything that we can do to help gather additional information. This allow virtual assistant to confirm vehicle of interest. Now, this ties in a little bit with some of that predictive insights information. So, if we see that the customer is looking online and they're they're gravitating towards a specific make or model. This will allow the system to go ahead and confirm that yes, this the vehicle they're looking for. Now, that's primarily for a customer that did not already submit a lead on a specific vehicle. You know, if they've just submitted a general ask us question or a finance application or something along those lines, and we don't know the vehicle of interest, then this option here would allow it to start trying to identify or confirm the yes, this the kind of vehicle you're looking for.
9:46
Yeah, this one's kind of up in the air. We're about fifty - fifty with what we see with dealers choosing whether or not to enable that.
9:52
I just enable it. I think that I think Podium's doing that right now, and we like it.
9:57
Okay, good, good. And then the last one here, this disengaged for a tool assistant when a human contacts the customer. I do like the idea of keeping this one disabled for for a couple of reasons. Number one. If the virtual assistant ever disengages because of this setting, it will never reengage again. Yeah. Which means if we've got a sales rep that drops the ball, the virtual assistant's not getting back involved. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So, so I do like the idea of keeping that one shut off. And my my recommendation is, as your team starts to get involved and they feel there's not a need for the assistant to get in step back in.
10:37
On every customer dashboard, there's this pause assistant button, and so they can go in and they can just click that button to tell the virtual assistant to stand back. But you'll still have visibility of all those customers because you do have a pause list right here, that you can see all of the customers that have been paused, what's been going on with them, how long have they been paused? Do we have unreplied messages? And then if you wanted to, you could reengage the virtual assistant.
11:02
Okay, where was the pause?
11:05
It is same place as the the settings.
11:08
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yes, right up at the top.
11:10
All right, and then next one's really just kind of general. You know, when we assign appointments or tasks, who do you want it to go to? If you've got a BDC, you can fire it to that sales rep, or if you have specific agents. This acquisition appointments is a little bit of a new piece because. Have you guys seen the the acquisition section of the tool? Doesn't look like it yet.
11:35
I haven't, and I definitely want to make sure we set it up.
11:38
Okay, so we're we're getting ready to roll it out. We're we're doing a couple of final tweaks, but it's going to allow you to have acquisition leads as well as sales leads, and then we can handle a completely separate workflow with those. The virtual assistant is going to work with tools like KBB and identifying those customers, and knowing that this is more of an acquisition type of lead rather than a sales type lead, and it'll have the appropriate conversations.
12:01
Cool, yeah, because that's going to be perfect for this store. This Audi right now has KBBICO set up.
12:07
Okay, good, good. All right, the virtual assistant information really up to you whether or not you want it to treat to act as a human or a virtual assistant. I'm I. I'm fine with either option. The only thing that I always caution with having it act as a human is if it asks some kind of funny question, it's a little bit harder to overcome. Versus it acting like a virtual assistant and a salesperson needs to step in. You know, then they've got that. Oh, you know, it's we've got this virtual tool that's helping us out with it, and it's a little bit easier conversation. Versus I've got a sales rep that that may not be confident. So got it, and.
12:46
But it's really your preference. I see dealers run both ways. I also noticed you changed the name of your virtual assistant here. Did you change any of the other options when it came to the virtual assistant, as far as email address or any details?
13:00
You got to change everything, right? Except I stuck the name. I stuck the name Chloe just because it was the day that I was fooling with this thing. I think it was probably the first day it showed it to me. Yeah, and it just matches the other one.
13:11
Okay. So what I would suggest is here in your user settings, for the virtual virtual the Vanessa virtual assistant. What I would recommend is change the name here to match as well, because if it's sending any communication and we've got signature lines, we want it to match here in the signature. We want it to match down here in the signature line below. And I would even take the step to change the eon the CRM email address to match. That way, everything looks like it's coming from a consistent.
13:41
So this is in. The thing that just says Vanessa Virtual Assistant, Audi Baton Rouge. Yep. The orphan is that where she is now? Yep. All right, I'll go in there and change all that shit. So yeah,
13:51
And I would just make sure that the naming convention on that is going to be the same. That way, if they see it, they're getting an email from Chloe at Audi Baton Rouge versus it says Chloe, but the email address says Vanessa.
14:02
Got it. So what's the last name? Oh wow, that's funny as hell.
14:12
Is it going to require me to put a last name,
14:14
Or can I just delete it? You do need a last name. You could just leave the last name at Audi Baton Rouge if you want. So when the when the email goes out, instead of saying Vanessa Virtual Assistant, it would say Chloe at Audi Baton Rouge.
14:32
And I can just leave username alone,
14:33
Right? Yep, you can leave that one alone. Let's see. That's never going to be customer facing.
14:42
All right, a couple of other pieces down here. You call yourselves people, sales consultants?
14:48
Client advisor.
14:50
Okay, so let's let's go ahead and get that updated. You want to make the change, or do you want me to? I know you've already started clicking some buttons in there. So you, all right, and then you'll want to make sure you hit that save button down at the bottom. The other thing that you're going to want to make sure that you dive into here is flip that toggle for the advanced options. Because this is going to give you an option to be able to do things like: Do you want it to have conversations about pricing? Do you want it to have any kind of special customization when it comes to things like vehicle designation? So, you can click on that link here, and this will take you to the conversation topics page, where you can start throwing some more specific instructions in here with what you want it to do. So, if you've got things like.
15:33
Like the example here, be warm and family - owned. So the conversation is going to be a little bit more of a casual conversation versus a very professional conversation. If you wanted to act certain ways,
15:44
Go to virtual contact customization. The button,
15:47
And you can also get to it directly in that dealer settings dropdown by going to virtual contact assistant customization. Got it. Yep. And so you can give it some instructions here if you wanted to mention things like you guys offer lifetime oil changes or or. You know anything that's a differentiator with your dealership. As you throw this stuff in here, it's going to make sure that it includes some of that in its conversations, as well as helping direct the direction that the conversation will be. Is it going to be more casual, more professional? Do you want it to be very abrupt with its conversations, or do you want it to be more long-winded and friendly? Really, this just gives you the ability to help kind of customize what the personality of that virtual assistant is going to be like.
16:32
Got it. And then where are the guardrails? Not configured.
16:36
What are those? There's nothing in place yet. So as you start throwing things in here, your guardrails would be like when you do and do not want it to get involved, or if there are ever things that you don't want it to talk about, pricing being a great example. You know, so you can throw some you can throw some direction in here that says. If a customer asks about pricing, tag a salesperson in or tag them.
16:59
That'll stay as one long block of stuff.
17:01
Yeah, and and you can you can add stuff and then enter a couple of times so it's all broken up into like paragraphs. That way, if you ever need to come back in and read it, it's pretty visible. But that does give you a little bit more flexibility in how that virtual assistant is going to work. You do in your insights. You're going to have some reporting that gives you visibility about what's going on with these customers and how the virtual assistant is engaging too. Once your insights page loads up, you're going to want to go to the dashboards filter over on the left, and then you'll see a virtual assistant dashboard as an option. So this may be something that you go ahead and mark as a favorite so that you can get in here and and review these quickly. But it's going to tell you how many customers has it attempted contact, how many actual contact, it's already set an appointment for you.
17:47
There's two active conversations that are going on right now, and anything in here, I can click in, and I can see what kind of conversations it's having, where it's going with them. Again, as it's working with that with customers, if it gets to a point where it's going to need some help, it's going to fire a task to somebody asking for help. If the virtual assistant does start to engage with sales with customers down the road, once we once Podium is shut off. It's even going to fire a generic task to the salesperson, letting them know, "Hey, the virtual assistant is getting involved with your customer. Go review the conversation." And again, your sales team can always pause that assistant if there's a point where they don't need, they don't want it to get involved. Got it. All right. Some of the other big pieces with this detail that you've got in here. Again, do we have tasks that are hanging out there that we've asked a salesperson to get involved and and get moving with them?
18:39
You can see the summary of the conversations, and even go through and read specific communication, as well as seeing a breakdown of the recent conversations it's had. So you can see how it's engaging with customers, and if you decide we need to make some adjustments to those customization settings, this gives you a little visibility.
18:54
So, okay, tell me this: this dashboard is it set up where who can see this right now? Who can utilize it?
19:02
This is set up so that anybody that has access to reporting can get into this dashboard. So. Whoever you've got set up in your reporting settings here, to be able to get to these CRM reports, custom reporting, and dashboards, that's who's going to see those.
19:21
So I need to make sure it's all of the managers. Where was that? Users and then.
19:27
Users reporting settings. Got it. And then, if you've made any custom dashboards, it doesn't look like you guys have many. But if you've made custom dashboards, you can grant them access to those too. Those aren't necessarily going to tie directly to the virtual assistant. As long as you give them basic reporting access, they'll be able to get to this page.
19:46
Okay. So right now, I'm just looking at this. If I need, do they just need to have the box checked for custom reporting.
19:55
I would. I would check the one underneath it. CRM reports and my dashboards. Okay, custom reporting would allow them to create their own reports.
20:06
Okay,
20:07
So and then managed version sharing is once they once they've created a report, can they share that report with others?
20:13
Okay, so I just need to make sure all my salespeople have and managers, I make sure they all have CRM reports in my dashboard.
20:19
I got you. Yeah. Now be careful with your salespeople creating.
20:23
Don't. But I just wanted to make sure in case somebody didn't see it.
20:27
Yeah. And I would be careful with your sales reps because if you do grant them access, they're going to be able to see everybody's customers, not just their own. Oh Lord! All right. Okay. Now, your sales reps will know when the virtual assistant is getting involved with their own customers. Like I said, they're going to be getting tasks, notifying them that they've been involved. Those appointments will be scheduled in their names, and they'll see right here all of that Vanessa activity. So even without giving salespeople access.
20:57
They'll still have some visibility about what the system's doing, working with their customers,
21:01
And then they'll be able to. I think Gage was showing me they'll be able to see all the conversations in the inbox, yeah, wherever that is.
21:08
They will. Yeah, so they'll both in the inbox and in the notes and history. Either option, I can scroll down and I can see all of that communication down here at the bottom of the page. See what's going on. So you can see right here, it started to communicate with the customer, and then the customer replied and said, " I don't want to talk to you by text." And they opted out. So, but at least I know everything that's going on, all of the conversation that's happening here. So email. This is also another one of those tools that when it starts engaging with customers, it's going to try by both email and text message.
21:45
However, the customer responds is going to to default as its preferred method of communication. So, if they reply to an email, it's going to send emails. If they reply to a text, it's going to send text. If they switch mid conversation, it'll switch too. Okay. So, those are your biggest settings when it comes to a lot of your follow up in here. I would pay a little bit of attention to your sentiment, and this even goes to the predictive insights. A negative communication isn't necessarily anything that's bad because if it is asking for an appointment and it says, "Are you available at 10 o'clock tomorrow?" and the customer says, "No, I'm busy at that time," that's a negative sentiment, but it's still a productive conversation. Got it. So, I wouldn't worry too much about seeing negative on here, but it might be something that's worth investigating to see if you need to to follow up and have some additional conversation. So, right here, you can see this customer cannot come in on the 23rd. Maybe the next day.
22:41
All right, all right. So, those are the general settings that I wanted to walk through. In there, when you get into your processes in your sales and service processes, the the big things to focus on here is when you've got the virtual assistant involved, and it's not turned on right now. It's this one that's got the strike through on it. But as you get closer to being able to make that switch, you may want to investigate this and make sure that you're comfortable with the timing. You can see, you know, its first step is going to be a 25 minutes during business hours. It's going to try to get involved with a customer, but you'll notice there's also some suppressions in here. So if the sales rep did their job, the virtual assistant's going to stand back and let them continue to run with it. But if they did drop the ball, then it'll jump in and get involved too. So you'll notice any time you see this icon, that's the virtual assistant getting involved.
23:33
Every single one of those is going to have some kind of a suppression. You may want to decide whether or not eight hours is too long, too short. If you need to make any adjustments, and as these tasks go on, for every one of those virtual assistant engagements, you'll see there's also a generic task that fires, notifying the sales rep that the virtual assistant is getting involved. So they're going to get a note that says, "The virtual assistant is now being engaged on this lead since you've not attempted contact." Okay. All right. So you can change the verbiage on this if you want it to say something different. If you want to make any adjustments, you will notice that the timing on these look a little bit weird. These generic tasks are all set to fire in minutes. The reason for that is once we get past that 12-hour window, we're firing tasks all about 12 hours early. So we need to create that generic task 12 hours after the virtual assistant, so that the virtual assistant and the task will fire at the same time. So if you have questions about why you're seeing weird timing like that, that's why.
24:30
If we were to set them both at the exact same time, the task would fire before the virtual assistant gets involved.
24:36
Okay. Yeah, I'm seeing gauge, and I'm taking notes about this shit. But yeah, an NCI lead process. It's Brian Harris NCI process. I'm looking at Brian Harris BMW right now, but I'll need to go into that one and like that's obviously where we'll set up VCA to interact with those, right?
24:53
Yeah. Yep. Yep. We can do that. We can tailor it specifically. We can kind of just copy that NCI one and plug in the virtual where we want to plug it in.
25:00
And we'll be able to. I get you put in kind of like what its first message is, right? And then that steers the conversation. Is that what you were just?
25:08
Yeah. Um. So some of those those instructions that we give give a little bit of detail there, but what what the virtual assistant does when it starts to engage. Is it does read the lead. It looks at the previous communication or any any previous history with this customer. So it's using the same predictive insights information to help tailor and shape that conversation. Got it. All right. So if it's an NCI lead, it's going to identify that it is. Yep. Sweet. Right. Um. Let's see. the The other piece that I wanted to mention as we're walking through here.
25:42
By default, we did put something in for your internet sales lead process, and we did also put something in place for your showroom visit follow - up process. Again, it's not enabled, but you do have a showroom visit follow - up here where it's going to start engaging with your showroom visits too. So don't forget to go back and review that as well. Again, it's not turned on yet, but when you're ready to, let's not forget to enable that one.
26:03
Okay. Cool.
26:04
All right. We did not put anything in your showroom visit follow up, but if you want it to get involved there, that's absolutely an option. Especially since we know we're going to have phone numbers for these customers. Yep. Right. If you want to drop something in here, the easiest way to do so is when you hit that add custom rule. There's going to be an option in here to copy process events. What I would recommend is start with that showroom visit process that's got the virtual assistant, and it's not in there yet because it's not enabled. But once you've enabled the showroom visit one.
26:34
You'll be able to copy that virtual assistant process in here, and then just make adjustments rather than trying to rebuild from scratch.
26:40
Okay,
26:42
Makes sense. So, I've run through a lot there in a pretty short amount of time. Any questions that you've got for me at this moment?
26:50
No. I mean, I'm sure I have thousands of questions, but it is what it is.
26:54
I know there are going to be more that come up. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But so those are the basics with it. Like I said, I would recommend. Give a little bit of thought to how you want to put those customization in place, and these are changes that you can make at any time. I would recommend you probably don't need to go review that pause list every single day, but a couple of times a week, it might not be a bad idea to glance in there to see if you've got some sales reps that are are just always disengaging the virtual assistant, or if you've got some customers that are neglected that we need it to step back in again.
27:26
So, I got it. Yeah, make that makes sense. And look, a lot of this. I'm a funny role. Like I'm external, internal. I'm a third party, but I work real closely with with my stores. And these stores, I've been around these three stores for shit more than twenty years, in different capacities. A lot of these things are good for me to know because I'm kind of like first line of defense. When somebody has a question, they always call me or text me. Hey, Lance, what the hell? But I'm going to need them to know all this, right? And so it's a lot. I say all of it.
27:58
The admin and the setting up — they're not going to do that stuff. But the things you were just talking about, like hey, here's the pause list. Make sure you, you know, watch that. So that training that I've got set up for for next week — I'm assuming some of that will be manager - directed, but then also most of it will be everyone that uses it daily, like salespeople and manager, or how do y'all?
28:20
Yeah, our our sales team or our our training team does a really good job of tailoring their training to the people that are in the room. So if if we need to spend some time talking about the manager focused stuff, we can. If after the training you feel there are a few other areas that we need to dive in a little bit more, you know, connect with Gage and he can run through it, or he can tag me in if if there are some questions that you guys have that that need a little bit more deeper dive.
28:46
I want to make sure that when this thing's rolled out, that those managers know how to use it and right, you know, and actually use it.
28:55
And that's that's why I wanted to get ahead of the game and start talking about it now, so you had some time to get in there and mess with it and look at it, go through the training next week, and then we still have you know another five, six, seven days before we need to go live, so you and I can really dial in and get what we need done in that time frame.
29:10
Yeah, and some of this might be, you know, I'm looking at maybe we need to obviously kind of add a phone lead follow up, and we'll do it the way you got you were suggesting, but then a lot of this is let this thing run, other than setting up the obvious things, right, and then. Tweaking the obvious settings, a lot of it's going to be let it run and then okay, let's you know steer this direction for that or this direction for that. You know, the big thing will be setting up those those non-customer-initiated things for all three stores, so we're engaging certain kinds of customers in different ways. And you know, I don't know. I'm hoping we don't have too much setup on the front because you know I want to try and add 'em roll and then we fix add 'em.
29:54
Adam, with what you were saying earlier, he doesn't necessarily have to put a process in for NCI leads for VCA. Could he put those comments in the customization settings.
30:03
You could now. Keep in mind because they are NCI leads right now, it's not getting involved. So if you do want it to get involved with those NCI specific leads, yeah, you know we'll have to think about what you want to build in here. I will say you'll be one of the first that's really spent a lot of time with NCI leads, so I can't tell you exactly what those results are going to be looking, what what they're going to look like. Most dealers have left those out of the process, but I would be as you start putting that in place, I'd I'd love to hear some feedback about it because that's going to be good for our team too.
30:38
Yeah, you know, one of those things too is it all depends on how the manufacturer sends them. So, like Audi, they they fall in just as a web lead, right? But they have they do have distinct source codes. So we'll be able to train it on how to how to talk to them, but you know, using whatever the hell, what is it, settings, and then the the you know the different little.
30:55
Customization.
30:56
Yeah, we'll be able to do some of that. But then with BMW, they send them to us as an actual NCI lead, and so in order to have Podium interact with those, it was actually we had to jump through a few hoops. Like they had to set up some unique shit in their backend, even for them to work. This they obviously are in VIN, and VIN has a specific NCI lead. gadget in here, so I think it'll actually be really cool. Because if you, and my thinking is this: if you can have it have the conversation as if it's a lease portfolio manager, or it's a you know it's your portfolio manager, have it talk like that. Well, then you've got, I mean, shit, you know, you start offering because BMW sends these things nine months out. They're called a 270 day lead. So, at nine months, your first conversation is, hey man, I hope you're enjoying your X5, and then it's.
31:45
Hey, we'd love for you to come in for a pre - inspection, and it's all those kind of pieces that need to be talked about. It's not necessarily hard sell. It's you know, let me offer you some support. You're coming to the end. You need to make a decision. We want to do a pre - inspection. So yeah, yeah. So you're saying some of that will be in this process, but then also some of it will be in the generative AI settings, and then we'll drop a text block.
32:10
Correct.
32:11
Yep. Cool. Okay.
32:14
Yeah. So NCI for BMW, we'll need to go in here and do an actual lead process for it because they're coming in as NCI leads. At the Audi store, we can use some of the customization features because they're coming in as an internet lead, and we already have just a general VCA internet process. Yep. For BMW, we're going to have to build this process out a little bit.
32:35
Yeah. If I go to Audi Baton Rouge and then I go settings, lead assignment, sales, um. I've even got a rule in there that has all of those codes in it. Where the fuck is it? I got too many tabs doing in here. I thought I did. Do I not? Maybe I don't. It it ebbs and flows that store, right? Like based on how they want me to treat these things and who they want me to send them to. Yeah. So they might be in a different. They might be treated being treated differently right now in that store. I forgot how I did it, but.
33:11
I know the codes. Like if we go in and dig around, I know what all those little tracking codes are. So, okay.
33:18
Well, I apologize. I've got to get to run into another meeting here. But if if you guys need any additional help, Gage, you know how to get in touch with me. Just find an open spot on my calendar, and we'll reconnect. Adam, I appreciate your time. Absolutely, Lance. It was great to meet you.
33:33
For sure, Adam.
33:33
You have a good one. You too. Thanks.
33:35
All right. Well. So we won't do anything with lead assignment rules, right? We can't use that to help us.
33:49
With the we don't really, we don't really need to. I know he went through a ton, but he's super knowledgeable about it, which is why I wanted to bring him on. And I knew you, being the type of user and level you are, you guys would speak similar lingo. Like he doesn't have to simplify things. Like you get it all. So. Um, kind of what I was saying. I think in the Audi store, we'll use the customization feature to kind of tailor it. Hey, you know, NCI leads, lease ending leads, like talk to these customers this way, type of thing, right? Like approach this as a lease end conversation, pre-inspection conversation, so on and so forth. Yeah, look. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
34:34
No, and in BMW, we're going to have to build that NCI process. Got it. What we can do is probably take the internet lead process, and we'll just cut out a lot of the salesperson stuff. If you just kind of want VCA following up, and we'll just tailor it a little bit because it at least give us a really good starting platform.
34:54
What it'll do is, I think that the the ideal world that NCI process should engage both. It should utilize, yeah, you know. VCA and then have the customer the the actual client advisor chime in and say hey you know I see you've been talking to this person and what's going on and let's set you up and you know I just want to have it be the the fail safe yeah because I get it a lot of times they don't do all of the things they're supposed to do as far as staying in touch and that kind of thing.
35:25
Yep so as you have time work through some of those settings in the three stores kind of get things tailored how you want it tailored. Once you go through training next week, and the guys do, yeah, text me, call me, and if we need to get something set up before the 21st on your go dark date, we'll do that. I'll make time for you and find a spot, and we can, even if I need to set aside 45 minutes where we can just really dive in and make sure we just double check a couple boxes, check a couple things. Hey, does this look good? Hey, does this look good? Then let's you know turn it on in that last eight nine days of the month.
36:01
And then let's revisit again first part of October, and let's you know look at it. Let's look at the dashboard together. Let's see what it's doing, and let's kind of tweak it from there.
36:09
Hey, if I want to turn off that the after hours thing that it's doing, yep, is it as simple as just let me go look? I had it pulled up. So this after hours spot right here,
36:23
New internet sales lead after hours, in the settings and.
36:29
Yeah, I'm in brighton here right now. So yeah, and the only standard process, but then there's after hours with. So if I click after hours with Vanessa.
36:40
Yeah. So you'll see on my screen too. I'm showing you. I'm in the Audi store, but yep. So yep, settings, ILM CRM settings, new internet sales lead after hours. This is the virtual assistant reaching out after hours right here. Yep. If you wanted to disable it right now before the 21st, you would click the pencil. Yep. And then that shot pops right there at the top, enabled with this.
37:03
Yep. And so if I enable, if I disable that right now, whatever we had in place for after hours would keep happening. I mean, I don't know that I have a lot different. I don't actually. We don't have a lot of different after hours things set up right now inside of VIN,
37:17
Do we? No. So that would be if you shut that off right now. The only thing that would go on after hours would be if you have anything going on with Podium.
37:25
Yeah, Podium stays engaged all the time. But you know, my big thing is, I don't want it doubling. I don't want to like get two different after hours messages coming from two different sources. So I'm no,
37:36
I agree. I know.
37:37
Yeah, I just uncheck this for now. So if I uncheck it for now and hit save, I just did it for BMW.
37:44
I'm in Audi. I'll just do it for you.
37:46
Yep, do that one for that one, and I'm going to go disable the Porsche one also because is the manager over there called me today? Oh, you know, we spent all last week. Complaining to podium about something not working, which was funny because he never let me know he had problems. Right. But he's like, and now I see Vanessa's messaging people too. I was like, well, just after hours and da da da da. So, okay, cool. So we did. Wait, did you do Porsche already.
38:11
I did Audi. I didn't do Porsche.
38:15
I've noticed this thing does a weird thing where it doesn't really update. Okay, so Porsche.
38:22
Checking Porsche now.
38:24
Is disabled. Okay. Right here is BMW. Let's see, sales and service. Is disabled. All right, they're all there's all three disabled then.
38:42
Yep, I'm double checking Audi just because I pop back in here. Yep, it's disabled. All right. Cool. So I like that follow up plan. Do your guys' training first part of next week. Call me if anything comes up right after that that I can help with, or text me, and then we'll try to get on together after that. I guess after that, just text me or call me, and we'll set up on your schedule something before the 21st, just so you and I can do a double check on everything.
39:09
Cool,
39:11
Sounds good. And then, like I said, we'll let it run probably the last part of the month there once we kind of get the base in place. And then we'll just revisit each other first part of October just to kind of stay in front of this thing and make sure it's working the way we want it to. Like you said, right? It's going to be an ongoing process, and we're not going to have to meet every week about it. But for the first four or five weeks here, we're going to have to meet a couple times just to make sure it's working the way we want it to.
39:34
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, because I mean, look, anything like this is all about the training of the of the robot doing the stuff. So.
39:41
Yep. And they and they'll help with that too. Like again, Adam went over some of that that you can kind of set up the differentiators for Brian Harris, right? You know, the different stuff that you guys, how you tailor your conversations in person. Just put that stuff in there, and that you know the VCA will tailor the conversation the same way. If you run into anything or you got anything, just let me know,
40:02
Brother. We'll do. Thank you, man. Yeah,
40:05
Absolutely. Yep. Thanks, Lance.