Automotive Dealer Day in Verona is over. I’m on the plane, on my way home again. And as things look now, no travel on the horizon for the time being. Just as well, for a little while. Even though I’m a privileged person to get to see so much of the world through the presentations I get to give about my passion: “making online automotive better”.

At the trade show itself, I of course went round all the stands that had even the slightest connection to that online automotive world. And there weren’t many of those… As I said in my earlier article at BKAN, it was mainly the Chinese (new) car brands fighting for the attention of primarily Italian dealers.

But anyway, there were still quite a few. And fair is fair: Walcu was by far the most fun. Of course, at #DCDW we have a history with them as a reseller, something Arnout van Rozen now does with full dedication. And contact with David Pilo is always a pleasure.

But what he showed literally kept me awake last night. Now, I do know that at the Experience Store Doesburg, where we use Walcu every day, we can deploy AI. I already do that with Autochat / Novaco, Calldrip and Walcu, but Walcu itself also has several possibilities in this area. For example: if someone calls us on a Sunday via Marktplaats, the virtual voice assistant picks up and takes the call on our behalf. Simply created via an API connection with ChatGPT, using our own prompt.

The AI within Walcu also gives suggestions on which leads should be followed up, including a sample reply. All to help the salesperson and act as a digital sales assistant, or perhaps even manager. You can fill that in yourself…

AI within Walcu

But the newest update was really cool. During a presentation, David demonstrated the new AI assistant. Now, we’re already familiar with this ourselves, for example with our successful Marktplaats Assistant Alice, but this one goes a few steps further.

The lead comes in on car X. The virtual assistant picks it up in the evening hours via WhatsApp and email. The customer responds on WhatsApp and asks about availability. The assistant replies that the car is in stock and then immediately asks for an appointment. So far nothing special… but then the customer of course comes up with the question: “What is my car worth? I’m coming from veeeery far away, so before I make an appointment, I’d like to know what it’s worth.”

The assistant handles this and replies that this is possible, but that more information is needed for it: license plate, mileage, photos, et cetera. This process, too, is now done by several assistants. But as soon as all the information is in, the nice part comes: the link with Autotelex, for example, gives the assistant an indication straight away. And since the prompt states that the assistant may NOT make an offer without approval, the AI — your digital salesperson, so to speak — then calls the manager.

So the AI makes an outbound call, passes on the information, shares the Autotelex value and asks permission for an offer. The manager then indicates the price he or she wants to offer, and the assistant adopts that amount as the new truth.

After that, WhatsApp automatically sends a message to the customer and confirms the offer in a nice, commercial business email explaining how this offer came about. Next, the assistant asks for the appointment again. If that appointment is made, on a Friday for example, the assistant enters it into the Walcu calendar itself, sends confirmations via WhatsApp, email and as a task to both the salesperson and the customer. It can even call the customer on the day itself to confirm the appointment.

It’s already here, or is it?

The nice thing is: everything described above is already possible now. But not within a single lead management system without all kinds of other suppliers. With Walcu CRM this is all an integral part of the system. Because as David rightly says: who does the AI actually belong to? Not the suppliers. Everyone makes use of the interfaces of the real AI companies. And that’s not a problem at all, as long as you build an ecosystem around it. Just as Novaco, for example, also does, which really goes a few steps further again to integrate the whole thing properly.

So yes… I actually didn’t want to talk about AI today. Because sometimes I do think that we act as if AI solves every problem. But Walcu CRM, with all its new possibilities, is starting to come very close to that.

And now, onto the plane!