Busy, busy…
Lithia Motors’ U.K. stores have spent six to nine months booking service appointments through an AI agent built into their Pinewood.AI dealer management system. On Lithia’s Oct. 21 earnings call, CEO Bryan DeBoer said the agent asks about add-ons like wiper blades, fluids and tires on every booking, and that the stores are seeing roughly 10% to 11% additional service pre-sales as a result.
The agent’s advantage is that it asks every single time
None of what the agent asks requires sophistication. Every service advisor knows to mention wipers. DeBoer explained why they often don’t: “We get busy in our business, and our people get busy.” By his own guess, add-on pre-sales were close to zero before the AI went in.
The value here is consistency. The agent never gets rushed, never skips a question to reach the next call, and never assumes the customer will say no.
The takeaway: The first AI worth deploying in a dealership may be the one that handles the steps people skip under pressure, well before anything that handles judgment.
How much weight should dealers put on 10% to 11%?
Some, with clear limits:
The source: one CEO speaking on an earnings call, to an audience of investors
The baseline: “close to zero” is DeBoer’s estimate, not a measured figure
The scope: the number covers add-on pre-sales on AI-booked appointments, not total service revenue
The gap: nothing has been shared yet on how customers feel about being asked every time
Lithia is acting on the signal anyway. It plans to finish rolling out Pinewood across its U.S. stores by 2028 and is looking for ways to bring the AI piece over sooner. Cost is part of the reason. Lithia’s SG&A rose to 68.8% of gross profit in Q3, up from 67.9% a year ago, and its goal is to get under 60% by 2028.
Where else do steps get skipped when the store gets busy?
Service booking is one moment where a consistent agent helps. A store can look for the same pattern anywhere a busy person decides what to leave out.
Moment | What slips when people get busy | What a consistent agent could cover |
|---|---|---|
Service booking | Add-on questions | Asking every customer, every time |
Unsold-customer follow-up | The second and third touch | Outreach that continues after one missed call |
Open recalls | Contacting owners who haven’t come in | Reminders tied to each VIN on file |
F&I | Walking every customer through the full menu | Prompts confirming the full menu was presented |
Consistency has a cost to watch
An agent that pitches on every call can wear a customer out. Sometimes an advisor skips the add-on because they forgot. Sometimes they skip it because they read the customer and knew it would land badly. An agent can’t make that call yet, so any store testing one should track satisfaction scores alongside the pre-sale numbers.
If an agent asked every one of your customers the same questions tomorrow, which questions would you want it asking, and which would you trust only a person to ask?
