As we all know, “The Godfather” saga teaches us many lessons, from “leave the gun, take the cannoli” to never drive to a toll booth in a violent rage while seeking revenge. To that end, we can relate the personas from Francis Ford Coppola’s Magnum Opus to the world of artificial intelligence (AI).
Fredo-based AI is traditional (narrow or weak), while Michael-infused AI is strong and creative. But Fredo AI is “smart, not like everybody says,” and it has its applications. But for the purposes of this week’s State of the Industry report on AI, we’re going to focus on generative applications dealers have found to be particularly valuable. And we’ll let you have the honor of connecting predictive AI, conversational AI, et al, to other Godfather characters.
Generative AI, in the words of Microsoft, relies on a sophisticated form of machine learning that is capable of taking on complex tasks and large datasets to create content based on natural language prompts. It is creative and capable of doing so many different and wonderful things that are slowly seeping into the mainstream conscience. It can create text, images, code and music. Across the business landscape, it can bolster health care, engineering, software development and product design.
Our dealers have shared some effective ways they have leveraged generative AI to drive efficiency and innovation, allowing them to do more with less. Here are a few examples:
First Stop: Marketing
Given its capabilities to produce content and imaging, AI soon became a darling of marketing departments. One such dealer was Fraser Advanced Information Systems of West Reading, Pennsylvania, where Director of Marketing Heather Trone capitalized on the technology for crafting messages and campaigns.
According to Justin Drabouski, vice president of technology and security, Trone collaborates with different external marketing companies that use specific agents developed around OpenAI and ChatGPT to drive some of the content. “There are role playing and training capabilities that are all built on the OpenAI/ChatGPT platform that use some of our content and publicly accessible data,” he noted. “Some manually input sales objective data to create a role playing script capability between the sales rep and the agent. And we’re using that primarily when we bring new reps on as part of the training program.”
At Blue Technologies, generative AI is used to support internal tasks such as creating documentation, summarizing incident reports and drafting educational content for clients. According to Lauren Hanna, division president, it allows the Cleveland-based firm to be more responsive and thorough in their communication.
“This is especially true when explaining technical concepts or sharing best practices,” she said. “The time savings have allowed our engineers and consultants to focus more on relationship-building and advisory conversations that drive long-term value.”
Dealers like Kelley Create of Kent, Washington, have made use of Microsoft’s Copilot via its Salesforce version. Scott Anderson, senior vice president of IT, notes it’s been critical in helping the dealer develop and formalize RFPs. That alleviates a process that can be long and tedious.
Sales follow-ups are another time saver. “We’ll have a webinar or an in-person event, where we’ll end up with a list of names and emails,” Anderson said. “The ability to drop that into Copilot and have it generate 20 different emails dedicated to that company, while understanding what that company does, has been pretty powerful.”
Not About Profits
Chicago’s Green Office Partner has dedicated its efforts toward helping its education clients maximize the AI-based Translation and Print app from Xerox. It’s solidified meaningful customer relationships with teachers, who have a stake in the success of their students.
“They’re responsible for the ultimate results—students achieving better statewide test scores as well as making it fun to learn,” said Chris Gallagher, co-owner. “It has technically increased sales, but the amount is nominal and definitely not why we brought it to our clients’ attention. Our goal was to make educating their students more efficient and innovative.”
Industry heavyweight Marco has chosen a different path. The St. Cloud, Minnesota-based dealer has focused its efforts on adding efficiency to the client experience. Clay Ostlund, president of the IT division, adopting AI to drive more efficiency was just the first step. The dealer is now reinvesting in better tools, improved project management capabilities and better back-end systems.
Now comes the pivot; Marco is using Salesforce’s Einstein I platform, which allows companies to safely connect any data to build AI-powered apps with low-code and yield new CRM experiences. “Two of the key areas for us is tone of messages and consistency of messages to help generate more pipeline,” Ostlund noted. “Personally, I love role playing. I think there’s merit in using an effective platform to do sales contests where reps have to upload a video and then have it role played or done live.”
Homework Complete
Donnellon McCarthy Enterprises’ sales department taps into the generative magic to research companies, identify key contacts and create tailored talk tracks and email content that addresses their clients’ specific needs, notes Rich Brandenburg, senior vice president of sales for the Cincinnati dealer. It’s all geared toward enabling the sales team to connect with clients in a more effective and personalized manner.
“This saves time and allows our team to focus more on building real relationships, not just doing background work,” he said. “As a result, we’re having better conversations, responding faster, and creating a smoother experience for our prospects and customers.”
It’s a fairly universal application. Chris Miller, vice president of technology and solutions for Pacific Office Automation, notes many of the company’s reps rely on Copilot within Zoom to help generate a genuine connection in the conversations. That’s provided a huge time savings boost for the Beaverton, Oregon-based dealer, as account reps are not spending excessive time in researching the companies.
“It basically briefs me and helps me build five-minute rapport sessions,” Miller added. “They can literally do research on the fly, take some Cliff’s Notes, then walk into the prospect’s offices knowing what their initiatives are for the year.”
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