DealerX AI sales assistant

Overview

The AI sales assistant texts and emails customers on your behalf. It answers vehicle questions from the dealership's inventory knowledge base, learns what the customer wants, notes it on the lead and hands the customer to the assigned rep when they want a person or a deal.

When a dealership gets an SMS number, DealerX creates an agent and workflow named DealerX assistant for your account. You can change the agent's instructions under AI → AI agents.

Steps

Turn it on for a lead

On the lead, set AI sales assistant to:

Off: the assistant never writes. Reps handle the customer.
Start conversation: the assistant sends the greeting from DealerX settings right away, or at the next opening time when the dealership is closed, then answers every reply.
Wait for customer: the assistant sends nothing first but answers when the customer writes.

When a rep sends a message from the lead, the assistant pauses (Paused by rep). Click Resume assistant to hand the customer back.

Turn it on for every e-lead

Go to DealerX → DealerX settings.
Under AI sales assistant, tick Start the assistant automatically for e-leads and pick the Default AI mode.
Click Save settings.

Escalations

When the customer asks for a person, wants to negotiate, or the assistant cannot help, it escalates:

the lead shows an AI escalated banner with the reason and appears under the AI escalated quick filter;
the conversation moves to a person and the assistant pauses (Paused by rep), so the customer's next messages wait for you and show under Needs reply;
the assigned rep is told by email or text, as set in their DealerX profile.

Click Clear escalation once you have dealt with it, and Resume assistant if you want the assistant to take the customer back.

Booking appointments

When the customer agrees on a day and time, the assistant books it on the lead (kind, time and a note for the rep). It only books inside the dealership's business hours and in the future, and refuses a second appointment at the same time. When the lead's rep has a calendar, it only books times the rep is free and offers free times instead. When the customer asks for a different time, the assistant books the new one and cancels the earlier appointment. The appointment shows "by assistant" and moves a New or Contacted lead to Appointment Set. See DealerX schedule and appointments.

Existing DealerX assistant agents get the booking tool automatically on their next new conversation.

What the assistant records

While chatting, the assistant adds the vehicle of interest, temperature, wishes and trade-in details to the lead, and notes whether the customer is buying, selling or looking for financing. Each change leaves a note starting with "Assistant".

Tips

The assistant never quotes prices or discounts that are not in the knowledge base and never states financing terms.
It only reads the last 30 messages or 7 days of the conversation, so old history does not confuse it.
Customers who opted out of texts cannot get Start conversation by text.