Voice AI for dealership sales and service

What to check before you decide

Handoff is the key feature. The system should transfer to a person when asked, and whenever the topic is price, a trade, financing, a complaint or anything sensitive.

The transcript and customer details should travel with the transfer. Ask what happens when nobody answers the transferred call.

For outbound calls, the legal risk rises. The FCC has said that the federal telemarketing rules cover AI-generated voices, so calls need the right consent and an opt-out that works.

Several states add their own disclosure rules. Ask how consent is stored, how a customer who says stop is removed from every list, and how the agent announces itself.

Check accuracy on automotive words: model names, part names, street names. Ask for a measured error rate, not a general claim.

Look at control. A manager should be able to review calls, correct a wrong answer in the script and see a weekly report: calls answered, appointments booked, transfers and drops.

Start with one narrow use, read every transcript for the first month and widen only after the results are clean.

Write the escalation rules in plain language before configuring anything, so that everyone agrees which calls the AI may finish and which it must pass to a person, and then place a monthly call review on the manager's calendar, because voice systems drift as menus, hours and prices change, and the first sign is usually a customer complaint about a promise the script made last season.

Keep a short list of callers the system should always pass to a person, such as anyone who mentions an accident, a safety concern, a complaint or a deceased owner, and test that list with recordings before every change to the script.