The Mission
With over 300 locations, AutoNation is America’s largest and most admired auto retailer. In an average year, they sell over 500,000 new and pre-owned vehicles and service nearly five million customers. Their mission is to deliver the most customer-focused sales and service environment in automotive retail that is built around respecting the customer’s wishes, earning their trust, and surpassing their expectations. Their commitment to service excellence is validated by 78 stores recognized as J.D. Power Dealers of Excellence and the most 4 and 5 star reviews, all-time of any automotive dealer group, public or private according to Reputation.
The Challenge
Since buying or servicing a vehicle is a complex purchase, phone calls are often a key piece of the customer journey. This human-to-human interaction helps to reassure customers, and it gives them the opportunity to ask questions they couldn’t find answers to online. Because of this, AutoNation knew they needed a way to tie phone calls to the broader digital journey. They also needed a scalable way to capture conversation insights for sales agent coaching.
The Resolution
Increasing Sales Agent Close Rates with Insights from Phone Calls
AutoNation also uses Invoca to train its sales team to close more deals and better serve customers. Invoca automatically records and transcribes each inbound call, and AutoNation uses these insights to identify sales agents’ weaknesses and coach them to improve their performance. They also feed these recordings into their CRM to keep complete and accurate records of every customer interaction. AutoNation has also started using Invoca to automate customer call quality assurance (QA). With Invoca automated call QA, AutoNation can select the criteria that make up a successful phone conversation for both sales and customer care agents and use AI to automatically scan every call for those criteria, at scale. These criteria include if the agent is greeting a caller correctly, if they’re asking them to set an appointment, if they’re mentioning a recent promotion, and more. This eliminates the manual work of scoring calls and removes human error from the process. It also gives agents real-time feedback on their performance so they can adjust on the fly, without having to wait for their next meeting with their manager.
Providing a great customer experience is at the core of our mission, and that’s why our sales managers constantly provide feedback to our agents. Invoca’s call recordings and transcriptions are invaluable coaching tools. Insights from Invoca have helped guide a great deal of our training. They’ve also helped us close the customer feedback loop so we can understand how our customers think, what matters to them, and their sentiments.
Anand Rao, SVP of Digital Business, AutoNation
Improving the End-to-End Call Experience
In addition to improving agent performance, Invoca enables AutoNation to enhance the end-to-end experience for callers. AutoNation uses Invoca to create IVRs callers can use to quickly self-route to the relevant department and get the help they need. When calling to set up an appointment, the IVR gives the caller the option to receive a text with a link to do so online instead of holding the line for a representative. This reduces hold times, frees up agents, and increases customer satisfaction.
Invoca’s data also helped AutoNation identify staffing inefficiencies at their locations, which were causing quality phone leads to go unanswered. Now, they can better staff their locations to reduce abandonment rates and ensure that every caller promptly gets the help they need.
The car buyer journey is different for everyone — some people want safety features and others want performance. Invoca has helped us tap into phone conversations so we can understand each buyer’s unique needs. As a result, we can deliver a truly peerless car-buying experience.
Marc Cannon, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer, AutoNation
The Results
- Increase sales agent close rates with deep insights into phone conversations and automated QA
- Create seamless customer experiences that drove the highest profits in company history during the COVID-19 pandemic
Invoca has been a reliable partner at every phase of the journey. We’ve had great experiences with everyone from the sales to the customer success to the executive team. I’m excited to continue our partnership and take AutoNation’s customer experience to the next level.
Matteo Togni, Product Manager of Localization and Digital Product, AutoNation
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