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MISSION, Kan., Jan. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With a surplus of information right at their fingertips, car buyers are doing more advance research than ever, and they expect dealers to do their homework as well. Yet, when customers walk into a store, they often know more about the dealership than the dealership knows about them. VinSolutions is working to close this gap by investing in a new artificial intelligence product called VinSolutions Connect Automotive Intelligence.

Connect Automotive Intelligence, which will be available to view at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) convention later this month in San Francisco, will help dealers better act on customer engagement and data. The tools will analyze customer communications and behaviors to provide dealers with insights on the best opportunities and how to engage them to deliver a more personalized experience.

VinSolutions is currently piloting the product, which includes three new artificial intelligence-enabled tools for Connect CRM: Engagement Strength, Sentiment Analysis and Buying Signals.

1. Engagement Strength: Measures a salesperson's interactions with an existing prospect or customer. By tracking a salesperson's customer interaction frequency, the tool highlights engagement trends and helps managers better visualize how a salesperson is performing in the CRM.
2. Sentiment Analysis: Uses artificial intelligence to determine customer sentiment and intent by analyzing text messages and emails. This analysis helps identify revenue opportunities and highlight the customer interactions that will build satisfaction.
3. Buying Signals: Captures and analyzes shoppers' online behaviors and distills them to predict shopping personas, shopping preferences and the sense of urgency. Rather than leads coming into the CRM without any context of the prior online shopping behavior, this new enhancement leverages known online traffic to increase speed of sale and build trust with the shopper.

"Modern businesses today excel by being more consumer-facing," said Kevin Frye, eCommerce Director, Jeff Wyler Automotive Family. "For us, personalizing each customer experience is a high priority. Connect Automotive Intelligence will allow us to deliver a more consumer-facing journey with timely, relevant and personalized communications".

For new technologies like artificial intelligence to be fully leveraged, another important step must be taken — technology integrations. As part of Cox Automotive, Connect Automotive Intelligence works with solutions from its sister companies, including Autotrader, Kelley Blue Book, vAuto, Dealer.com and Xtime, to streamline workflows, reduce duplicate data entry and ensure dealers get more value from their software investments. These key integrations, which help drive personalization across the entire consumer lifecycle, will also be filtered through these artificial intelligence-enabled enhancements to bring the most opportunity out of the marketplace for dealers.

"Dealers are at a turning point in the industry, where delivering on a personalized and efficient customer experience will be critical to ensuring long-term profitability and lifelong customers," said Lori Wittman, senior vice president of dealer software solutions at Cox Automotive. "VinSolutions is investing big in Connect Automotive Intelligence to bring together technology and powerful integrations to ensure dealers have the insights they need to create the tailored experience consumers expect today."

About VinSolutions
As the provider of Connect CRM, a leading dealership customer relationship management system, VinSolutions helps more than 5,000 dealers make every connection count. VinSolutions products integrate dealership systems, processes and tools to deliver a single view of the customer across the business – so dealers can focus on building relationships throughout the sales cycle. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Mission, Kansas, VinSolutions fosters dealership success by providing a fully customizable suite of solutions, including equity mining, market pricing and desking tools, combined with the continuous, personal support of a designated Performance Manager. VinSolutions is OEM certified by every major manufacturer and is Autosoft, CDK, Reynolds & Reynolds and Dealertrack DMS certified. VinSolutions is a Cox Automotive™ brand.

About Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling, owning and using cars easier for everyone. The global company's 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader®, Clutch Technologies, Dealer.com®, Dealertrack®, Kelley Blue Book®, Manheim®, NextGear Capital®, VinSolutions®, vAuto® and Xtime®, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with revenues exceeding $20 billion. www.coxautoinc.com

SOURCE VinSolutions