The Great Debate: BDC Humans vs. AI in the Service Drive | SDR #372 Clip
AI phone companies are flooding the market promising to automate service scheduling, but they can't access live shop data or build real relationships. Human BDCs fill the schedule, remind customers, and train future advisors. The speakers say dealers chasing cost savings with unproven AI are missing what actually keeps customers coming back.
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Okay, you guys want to talk about BDC?
Let's do it.
Let me get serious.
Oh yeah, that's right.
It's business.
Sit straight.
Business time.
BDC. First of all, BDC stands for Business Development Center. Yeah, kind of a funny name.
It is.
It's the business of developing.
I feel like it's an acronym for a new bank.
Developing a center. The business of developing a center. So funny. So, Hoagie, why don't you just kind of explain the climate right now of BDCs and AI?
Okay.
What is it we're seeing in the field?
Yeah. So one of the reasons that this came up as a topic is, uh, like we're just getting asked, like, have you heard of this AI phone company or this AI phone company? They're like, they're popping up just, just hand over fist. And, um, Yeah. And so it's just kind of a question. Is AI the best solution? Do I have a person in the service department that's scheduling appointments? Do I— I'm a small auto group with 5 stores. Do I have one central BDC? And yeah, we're fielding a lot of those questions right now as to What's the most effective? Well, let me back up from that. Actually, we're fielding just a couple questions here and there about what's most effective. Most people are jumping straight to AI and just like, hey, have you heard of this company or that company? It's just almost assumed that that's what we're supposed to do right now.
And it's getting saturated. It looks like it's kind of getting saturated.
There's a new one popping up.
And I don't even know if it's real or not. Like, that's the thing, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, um, that's kind of the climate right now is I think people are just assuming that's what they're supposed to do and, uh, and jumping to that and wanting to, you know, the next best thing. Yeah, just kind of see who has the shiniest, uh, software at the moment and jump on that, you know, jump on that bandwagon. Yeah.
And, and we, we have to kind of like think about this from 5,000-foot view. A lot of the consolidators or public companies have a really hard time managing the local dealership, right? So to them, going to some sort of an AI seems like more control.
Yeah.
In a way, right? Because they, They're just, they're very, very easy to stand.
Standardization and all that.
Efficiency.
But as an industry, we will tend to step over a dollar to pick up a nickel, right? We fall in love with software. We fall in love with technology. And I kind of just go back to like the first principles. Like, what is it we're trying to do? Are we trying to make more money or save more money? Are we trying to increase our retention? Or are we trying to save money? You know, are we playing a long game or a short game? Because if, if we're playing a long game and we're trying to grow a customer base, we're, we're then going to look at it from the perspective of the customer. And too many times I think we look at it from the perspective of us and not the customer. And so if we're looking at this from the perspective of the customer, People want to talk to a human more than anything right now. What is the, what is the purpose of a business development center? What is the outcome that we desire? The ideal outcome? What is it we want that thing to do? If we start a BDC, what is it we're trying to do? Fill the shop, load the shop.
Right. Yep.
So if the AI has access to the shop, still isn't ideal, but it makes sense. But the AI has no access to the shop whatsoever.
Like what's coming in and what's coming in.
There's no— there, there's yet to be anything designed that in real time knows that Adam had 3 holdovers. that you ran out of work. Like, in real time, it doesn't know what's going on.
It doesn't know the true production of the shop ins and outs.
It doesn't know that Larry in the shop is stuck on a—
Show— didn't show up.
Didn't show up, or is stuck on a warranty repair. Yeah, the technical support has no fix for whatever it is. So, you know, the, the purpose is to increase the efficiency in the shop. And make it more convenient for the customer. Would we agree with that?
Yes.
We want to make it convenient for the customer and load the shop. And so it doesn't do that. As we sit here today, we're, we're just doing the throw it at the side of the barn and see if it sticks. Like the idea of, um, you know, well, we'll bring in 70 customers a day because, you know, we know that we have this many non-appointments is very much a guessing game and, and very Mm-hmm. We, you know, the other thing with the BDCs, we, we like to force the customer back to the same advisor and create a relationship over time. Uh, maybe it could do that, but I don't, I don't think it, I don't think any of them are doing that currently in that way. Um, and then the, the other part of having a BDC is going on the attack. It's an offensive tool. So we can do outbound calls. We can confirm appointments. We can call lost customers, customers that haven't been in. We can call, like, you know, one subject that comes up over and over again is we give free maintenance to customers, but only half of them use it, like ToyotaCare or whatever the maintenance is per brand. A big tool in getting more than 50% of them to show up for the free thing and get used to our Our service department is calling them and telling them a month out, hey, remember you're due for your first oil change or you're due for your next service. And just having a human track them down and remind them that they, they have that coming, right?
Schedule.
You're tracking them down. You're trying to, uh, you know, get them in, in that way, uh, calling for declined work. And, you know, ideally the advisor's calling on declined work, but you can have a BDC do it. Also, and and have a pretty high success rate. So, you know, there's just the loss just going on offense of lost customers that haven't been in reminders, no shows. Another thing, you know, we we like to have the BDC call the customers that made an appointment and didn't show up.
Build those customer collectors for sure.
Yeah, the the human thing is still.
Still there.
Still worth the, the squeeze, I think.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's just so much, um, there's so much, uh, so many things that need to be reasoned that can be taught and trained pretty accurately and actively and, and things like that. And, and, um, if you have that person in your department, you start to learn that, that, uh, That position is way more effective and easier to quarterback when there's someone— when you have that BDC person in the department, they can hear what's going on in the department. They can hear the advisors. When there's a question they can't handle, the advisors are right there. You're right there. Somebody's right there. You know, and the advisors know, and the people running the shop know the different things that are happening in the shop. can make real-time adjustments with the BDC. Like, it actually becomes an actual business development center. Like, it's a—
Synergies.
Yeah, it's an important thing. And, you know, one thing we've talked about too over the years is, uh, it's arguably one of the greatest training grounds, uh, for your next advisor. It's a great bench for the advisor, for them to learn all the nuances and ins and outs and learn the DMS and things like that. Without having ever written an RO just yet. And so, yeah, I think there's just a bunch of reasons why it's not there yet. And also when you have that person in there, what you want out of that position and how you build it and how effective it is, you're monitoring it in real time. When it's a machine that's taken over it or it's a remote Uh, you know, remote call center somewhere. Um, I don't know, you're just way less agile. And when you're less agile, you just try to make it as good as you can, and then you just file it away over here, and you're just constantly compromising and, uh, and trying to be okay with the way it is because that's kind of the best you can do with it or whatever.
And, um, the customer's the loser.
And the customer, yeah, 100%.
It's really— you say the customer's Customer must feel devalued in the in the sense, right? That whole experience is just like that. I mean, think about how we felt on the other end.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or a ring.
Yeah.
One one kind of final thought I would give on this too is some of our best advisors started off in the BDC.
Oh, for sure.
It's a bench. Yeah. It's a training tool. It you know I love to have the BDC staff have to. find, figure out quotes and call customers back. They start to learn the vehicles. They start to learn the maintenance intervals. They just, you know, there's common questions. You're, you're very close to being a service advisor if you've been in the BDC fielding customers and, you know, following up, calling them back. It's, it's a great training ground for your future advisors.
You're building a solid culture for the future.
Mm-hmm.
So we're not there yet is, is our conclusion that AI isn't there yet.
Yeah.
Someday. I mean, yeah, I don't—
sure.
I don't know what I don't know, but I, I don't think it's, I don't think it's in the next 2 years. Yeah.
Don't go all in.
No.
Yeah.
Don't, don't step over the dollar to pick up a nickel. Let's think long-term. Let's grow our clientele. Let, let's be different than, than everybody else.
Yeah.
