Strategic integration enables dynamic appointment scheduling within Generative AI conversations
Impel, the global leader in AI-powered customer lifecycle management for the automotive industry, announces an integration with Cox Automotive’s Xtime, the leading provider of Fixed Operations software. This new integration will provide benefits for mutual dealer customers of both Impel and Xtime.
With the average age of vehicles reaching a historic high of 12.5 years, dealers are increasingly focused on customer retention and Fixed Operations to drive business performance. Unfortunately, existing service staff are often already stretched keeping up with the day-to-day activities of managing maintenance and repair operations, interacting with customers at the service desk, and fielding inbound calls typical of a dealership service lane. At the same time, ongoing staffing challenges and increased labor costs have made it prohibitive to add the human resources necessary to effectively mine DMS records and proactively reach out to customers with service messages and appointment reminders.
By integrating Impel’s enterprise-grade Automotive AI with Xtime’s industry-leading scheduling platform, dealers can finally deliver the personalized, seamless experience customers expect – all without the need for human intervention.
Traditional scheduling processes can create long wait times and customer dissatisfaction as busy service agents try to answer calls and handle check-outs while coordinating calendars and lane capacity. Back-and-forth customer communications and hand-offs to multiple team members can create organizational drag and inefficiencies. Online scheduling software offers the ability for self-service, but the need for extensive customer information oftentimes necessitates service rep intervention and can cause customer frustration.
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Impel’s integration with Xtime solves these operational challenges. By continuously mining DMS records and reaching out to customers with timely and relevant communications, and then answering questions and booking appointments in a natural, conversational manner, this new capability enables dealers to maximize service revenue without the need for additional headcount. Powered by deep integrations with all major DMS platforms and Xtime scheduling services, Impel AI can access customer records and shop calendars in real-time to optimize and schedule appointments automatically. Impel’s humanlike conversational AI recognizes customer preferences and recommends the most relevant options by understanding nuanced cues and generalized comments (for example, “I get out of work at 4pm“). Importantly, once Impel AI initiates outreach, customers can engage the AI at any point in time – even months later – to book an appointment at the time and day of their choosing.
“The integration of Impel AI and Xtime truly delivers a concierge-like service for our customers. It’s like having a dedicated assistant that not only reminds them of service milestones and follows up in friendly fashion – but is also available at any time to immediately schedule appointments over email or text, day or night,” said Mario Murgado Jr., Marketing & Operations Director for Murgado Automotive Group. “This is transformational for the industry and having already seen incredible results with Impel’s conversational AI platform, we couldn’t wait to leverage the new end-to-end capability. We’re already seeing marked increases in our service appointment set rates, with a significant portion of appointments being set directly by the AI without human intervention. The increased automation is allowing our team to focus on generating additional appointments, and we’re looking forward to increased closed ROs and the resulting revenue gains based on direct attribution we can track.”
The benefits to dealers include:
- Business impact: Intelligent, automated outreach and conversational AI scheduling enables dealerships to book an average of more appointments, helping increase service revenue and generating greater customer retention.
- Enhanced experience and greater customer satisfaction: By answering service questions and scheduling appointments in a natural, conversational manner, dealers can deliver white glove service to customers, even after hours. This experience is markedly superior to an arduous online form that results in more phone calls to the dealership.
- Increased service staff productivity and efficiency: With AI answering questions and booking service appointments without the need for human intervention, service team members can focus their efforts on building relationships with in-person customers and handling more complex service requests. Importantly, the concierge experience can help reduce inbound call volume, further enabling service agents to provide white glove service to customers in the service bays.
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“AI-powered automation is the foundation that enables automotive dealers to drive transformational gains in customer retention and lifetime value. Delivering exceptional customer experiences at scale, while at the same time driving greater operational efficiency, is only possible with the application of intelligent technology,” said Devin Daly, CEO and Co-Founder of Impel. “Appointment setting and scheduling have long been the Achilles’ heel for resource-constrained service teams. By integrating Impel’s enterprise-grade Automotive AI with Xtime’s industry-leading scheduling platform, dealers can finally deliver the personalized, seamless experience customers expect – all without the need for human intervention. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Xtime to help dealers manage their service drive more effectively and efficiently. It’s a game-changing combination for OEMs, dealers, and consumers alike, and we couldn’t be more excited to continue leading the AI revolution in automotive retailing.”
