51 | How Personalized Experiences Turn Automotive Leads Into Opportunities

Delivering a personalized car buying experience is a “holy grail” for any automotive dealership. After all, by meeting the customer where they are and anticipating their needs, employees are truly empowered to turn incoming leads into high-value opportunities. But how do you unlock those experiences when customers might only visit your dealership once a year at most? In this episode of Transformation @ Work, we’re looking at how better data structuring and predictive AI capabilities can overhaul customer-dealer interactions and transform the car buying experience. Key Insights 02:36: Imagining an ideal, personalized dealership experience, and how technology can help facilitate that 03:52: Current barriers keeping dealers from delivering personalized experiences to customers 06:00: How dealerships can leverage technology to capture, structure, and action customer data— regardless of where it comes from 09:04: How Salesforce Automotive Cloud can enable employees to convert leads into opportunities and build real relationships with customers 12:31: Adding AI to the mix: leveraging predictive AI to anticipate customer interactions and enable employee success 15:57: The crucial role of high-quality data in maximizing employee readiness and personalizing customer experiences Guest Bios Jennifer Thompson Director, Automotive Practice & Presales, Gerent Jeni is a tenured consultant with 20+ years of experience analyzing the technology needs of Automotive and Manufacturing companies. During that time, she spent 16 years working directly with dealer management system tech companies and 7 years as a consultant, heavily engaged within the Dealer & OEM space. Prior to her role at Gerent, she served as a Presales Engagement Manager in Salesforce’s Manufacturing practice. Nathan Wilton Delivery Director, J.D. Power Nathan brings over 10 years of automotive experience, as well as a background in financial services, to his role as delivery director with J.D. Power. In his current role, he works directly alongside dealers and OEMs to help them unlock the power of technology and data to transform their sales and operations.