QR Codes - In or Out?

[JDHigginbotham]

This is the hard part. Getting access to appointments is one thing. Getting access to appointment capacity is another thing.
Being able to write an appointment back to the DMS is a whole other thing on top of that.
Although it's now possible with some DMS systems, it's still quite a big barrier to entry, often due to massive costs.

Before I venture into a technical framework I'm far from capable of recommending, I'll just reference that Vonage already does this for appt schedulers outside of Auto (think hair salons, yoga classes).

It's a question of who wants to own the conversation and how many systems need to talk to each other.

If the software that owns the schedule is willing to build the comms element, they can reference back to their own system. More simple than the past.

If the scheduler is separate from the conversation, the bot would need to reference an external system/database. Possible with the right connectors.

No, this is not an "integration" play. You can build the conversation/data flow yourself with natural language understanding and webhooks.


Highlighted are the pieces that would come into play for this use case.

 

[JDHigginbotham]

^ last time I saw this done, one developer built a simple schedule/reschedule bot for salons in an hour long meeting.

 

[craigh]

^ last time I saw this done, one developer built a simple schedule/reschedule bot for salons in an hour long meeting.

I think we're saying the same thing - the chatbot is now easy to make and connecting various systems is certainly easier than ever.
The problem is that, in automotive specifically, the CRM and the DMS tend to be tricky to work with.
This is rapidly changing as dealers are moving to Tekion and Fortellis is launching more APIs and people are starting to open up.
For years before this, it would cost us thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to integrate with a dealerships DMS to book appointments.

 

[JDHigginbotham]

I think we're saying the same thing - the chatbot is now easy to make and connecting various systems is certainly easier than ever.
The problem is that, in automotive specifically, the CRM and the DMS tend to be tricky to work with.
This is rapidly changing as dealers are moving to Tekion and Fortellis is launching more APIs and people are starting to open up.
For years before this, it would cost us thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to integrate with a dealerships DMS to book appointments.

Very helpful feedback. These are the type of roadblocks I'm trying to understand and solve for in Auto.

I see the integration trend. I also see failed attempts to justify integration. I don't know if all these platforms really need open API in order to move a conversation from one step to the next. If they do, do you just bail on the legacy platforms until they catch up and focus on providing this to the Tekions/Fortellis's until then?

If only I could get people smarter than me both at Vonage and Fortellis/Cox/S&P/Tekion/Solera to duke it out a bit .There have to be gaps we can fill.

 

[craigh]

do you just bail on the legacy platforms until they catch up and focus on providing this to the Tekions/Fortellis's until then?

Historically, we've paid the tax to play the game.
Right now we're very focused on Tekion and Fortellis and PBS - all of whom have affordable API access to their systems.

Shop capacity typically ends up being much more complicated than expected - there are bays, skillsets, job durations, etc.
Overbooking and Underbooking are also major problems, so those that have figured out this service scheduling business (X-Time, etc) do quite well with it.

 

[JDHigginbotham]

Interesting.

Thanks for the insight.

I may make this a pet project to learn more about between now and NADA.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Historically, we've paid the tax to play the game.
Right now we're very focused on Tekion and Fortellis and PBS - all of whom have affordable API access to their systems.

Shop capacity typically ends up being much more complicated than expected - there are bays, skillsets, job durations, etc.
Overbooking and Underbooking are also major problems, so those that have figured out this service scheduling business (X-Time, etc) do quite well with it.

Yeah there's a reason there haven't really been any new entrants in service scheduler space for quite some time.

Not only do you need the DMS integration, you also need labor guide data to know that Service X on a Land Rover will take 8 hours vs 1 hour on a Chevrolet. And then also need OEM maintenance interval data to know which services to suggest per model and when.