The rise of automation in service departments

Jeff Adams, Director of Fixed Ops Product Planning at Reynolds & Reynolds, discusses how AI and automation are transforming fixed operations by eliminating inefficiencies, improving customer communication, and increasing service capacity. He explains how dealerships can leverage emerging tools to streamline workflows and meet rising consumer expectations.

Adams outlines how AI is being applied to common friction points across service departments, from communication to scheduling and parts delivery. Technologies like Service Snap, Appointment AI, and robotics are helping dealerships operate more efficiently without increasing headcount. He also shares how integrated AI platforms will enable faster, data-driven decision-making across the dealership. As customer expectations evolve, these tools are reshaping how fixed ops teams deliver service and scale performance.

•  Using AI to identify and eliminate workflow inefficiencies in fixed ops 
•  Enhancing customer communication through AI-powered video tools 
•  Automating service scheduling and call handling with Appointment AI 
•  Improving technician productivity with robotics and parts delivery systems 
•  Leveraging real-time data and natural language AI for faster decision-making 

Driving Solutions is the go-to podcast for dealership professionals who want to stay sharp, informed, and ahead of the curve. Hosted by Jim Fitzpatrick and powered by CBT News, each episode brings you real strategies, smart tools, and expert insights to help you run a more profitable operation.

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Transcript

Welcome And Fixed Ops Shift

Announcer 0:04

This is Driving Solutions exclusively on cbtnews.com.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:10

Hey everyone, it's Yes, it's Patrick. Welcome into another edition of Driving Solutions right here at CBTnews.com. With so many tech advancements across our industry, FixedOps is moving from reactive, manual processes to connected, intelligent, and automated operations. Joining us now to talk more about this is Jeff Adams, who's a uh director of Fixed Ops product planning at Reynolds and Reynolds. Thank you so much for joining us, Jeff, on the show today.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Thank you very much.

Jim Fitzpatrick 0:36

Sure. So as someone, Jeff, in Fixed Ops product development, what are the what are the some of the big problems that this new tech is trying to address?

Finding Friction Points With New Tools

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Well, you know, Jim, I've been in in this uh industry. I've been at Reynolds Reynolds for over 35 years. And the kind of the fun thing about uh being in this industry is it's pretty much in a lot of ways the same over the whole 35 years. Dealers are trying to sell cars, they're trying to service cars efficiently, they're trying to make sure their employees are happy. Um, really the thing that's changed over the last 35 years is the tools that they use to do that. And so that's the um that's where the real opportunity is. Dealerships that uh are good at picking up new tools and using the new tools, those are the ones that are excelling, and the ones that don't use those new tools, they they fall behind.

Jim Fitzpatrick 1:22

Uming these struggles, how do you factor these issues into developing and building new fixed op solutions for your customers?

AI Noise Cancellation In Service Videos

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Well, what we do is really look for where the friction points are. So um anytime there is a uh something that takes too long or is a is a problem, um we we say, what kind of things can we do um in order to address those friction points? And and sometimes it's things that are um uh the the new tools that we have to work with are tools that you know nobody ever would have thought were even possible uh a few years ago. Um a good example that's kind of behind the scenes, um, is a uh a tool that we've got with our uh Service Snap tool, which records videos. And what it does is it just does noise cancellation. That's actually using AI to do that noise cancellation. It's very much behind the scenes, a tool that nobody even would have thought possible just a few years ago. But now uh when we uh record videos, we can cancel out all the noise. I was just in a uh a demo the other day where literally somebody was cranking out Metallica um and we recorded a video over the top of it, and the noise cancellation, you couldn't even hear it. It was it was amazing how these tools are are are able to be used now.

Appointment AI Answers Service Calls

Jim Fitzpatrick 2:32

Wow, that's fantastic. So there I as you know, there's a lot of talk out there about AI right now. We uh if we went to NAD this year, every single vendor out there was talking about this. But what does that actually look like in fixed ops today?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Well, a couple things we're using that are very uh directly AI um is uh uh during the uh appointment process, um we have a tool called Appointment AI. Um what it does is it uses AI to answer the phone, and um the dealership then uh doesn't have to have a real person uh having that phone call. Now these types of capabilities have been around a long time, um, but uh really what the AI does is it makes it a very natural, engaged conversation that the customer can have while the AI is pulling all the information from the DMS so that it's it's relevant and knows the appointment schedules and things like that, knows who the customer is, knows what vehicles they have, knows their past history. Um it's also engaged in a very natural uh uh conversation. So um that's a a very uh specific direct tool about where we're using um uh AI as part of the uh appointment process.

Why Scheduling Sets The Tone

Jim Fitzpatrick 3:39

So let's let's start at the beginning of the service journey. You mentioned scheduling appointments. Why is appointment scheduling such a critical moment?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Dealerships are working in the world of not just comparing to other dealerships, they're working in the world of being compared to every other business that a uh uh consumer interacts with. So uh they're looking at the Amazons, they're looking at the apples, and and that that's the uh the expectation that consumers have now. Um so uh uh we've obviously for a long time been able to schedule appointments through the web, but a lot of people still prefer to use uh to use the phone. Um in order to deal with that capacity, dealerships have to staff up uh in order to be able to deal with the peak call times. And so that takes um, it might be that every every day during lunch I I get uh uh uh more appointment calls than I normally would, so I've got to staff up during that period of time. Uh appointment AI makes it so that I don't have to worry about the the staffing needs because I can the appointment AI can take as many phone calls as I need to whenever I need to take those phone calls. So it's a very um uh robust uh tool that uh smooths out what my uh staffing needs are at any given time. Okay. And uh makes the customer very satisfied with the smoothness of the interaction.

Relo Robot Delivers Parts To Bays

Jim Fitzpatrick 4:55

Yeah, for sure. So AI has definitely taken the industry by storm for sure, but uh Reynolds uh has also been dabbling in the the robotics game. I know Reynolds featured uh Relo at NADA. How does Relo help uh is helping dealerships today?

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, Relo is a parts delivery robot. Um it addresses the problem of how do I get the parts to the technician. Um, historically, that either is the technician stopping uh the work that they're doing, walking over to the parts department uh to get the wait in line for the parts and then uh have to walk back, or you've got a parts runner um that is uh taking the parts out to the uh to the technicians. Um but uh it's a very labor-intensive process. And what Relo does is it allows the parts guys to put on the uh on the robot, reload, um, those parts and say, simply say, uh take these out to the technicians at this certain bay. Uh we use a rack so that the robot can leave the uh the rack then at the uh uh with the technician and comes back for its next uh for its next trip.

Jim Fitzpatrick 5:58

Wow, that that is really incredible. And as you know, um I from my time running dealerships, uh, you know, it all of a sudden it becomes the water cooler where you know the when the technician goes over to the parts counter, you know what I'm talking about, that all of a sudden turns into this long conversation about what they did this weekend or how their fishing went or what have you. And they don't they you know it takes them forever to get back to the base in many cases, they're involved in a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, that's yeah, that's exactly right. It really uh the water cooler is the perfect analogy for uh for the parts counter.

Real Dealer Impact And Customer Comfort

Jim Fitzpatrick 6:27

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So this is uh really game changing. What's been the impact for your dealers on this? And and what could new dealers expect if they if they start integrating AI scheduling and parts delivery robots?

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah, well, the parts delivery robot is um it just keeps the techs in their bays. That's and that and then the techs, because they're in their bays more, they're able to turn turn more wrenches, uh, which means they're able to uh make more money. Right. Um and as they're doing all that faster, uh, that means the dealership's able to bring in more appointments. So uh without adding any technicians, without adding any additional bays, um their capacities are are increasing. So um they've got to make sure that they increase the number of appointments that's coming in to change where that bottleneck is. But um, yeah, the uh uh the results have been um you know, people really like it. Um on the AI front, um the uh customers now when they call in, they don't hang up because uh if I might have to put somebody on hold because I don't have an appointment taker at that point in time. Um all those calls are uh not only um answered quickly, but they're also recorded quickly so and uh transcribed quickly. So uh so they can see uh anybody can see exactly what the conversation looked like um when the customer called in, not only with the AI, but also even if it gets transferred to a human.

Jim Fitzpatrick 7:43

Yeah, it's fantastic. I often uh say in these conversations that I'm having about AI is that I'm now hooked onto uh, you know, uh what I call American Express and it's AI, or I call Delta Airlines, and you know, the AI you know takes me all the way through and answers all my questions and gets me set up either on the new flight or what have you. And uh it's pretty impressive. And I think more consumers now are adapting to AI and using it and saying this this is way quicker than getting put on hold and waiting for you know a uh a representative, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. Um people uh they're just getting more comfortable with it. Um and again, it's it's because the AI is improving. It used to be it was a terrible experience where it can only deal with a couple of things. Um now the AI is so much more robust, it can even have little conversations with people, it can ask clarifying questions. Um, and um uh a lot of times people don't even know they're talking to AI. It's so it's so smooth.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:39

So you're saying, uh Jeff, that when we call, uh, instead of saying representative, representative 14 times, we're gonna get a live person and start saying, AI, put me back on AI.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

That's right. The AI person is so much simpler to deal with. So uh that's right. But yeah, it's uh it's a changing world.

Jim Fitzpatrick 8:56

And surprisingly, they always have great attitudes, you know?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah.

Ray AI And The Data Layer

Jim Fitzpatrick 9:01

Versus a human that might not have a great day going on and they take it out on you. But you guys are are really driving innovation. So what's ahead for AI at fixed ops this year?

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Well, we're doing several several kind of good things. Um, the the biggest and um most game-changing, I think, is Ray AI, um, which is uh a tool that will be available across Reynolds platforms that is simply a natural language uh model where you ask it questions and it will be able to respond with the context that you're in with what those answers are. That could be uh information about a repair order that you're happening to be looking at. So I need to know what's going on with the repair order or what I need to do next. I can ask those questions. It could be questions about what kind of cars do I need to purchase based off of uh what the uh uh what's selling, what's not selling. So it takes all of the robustness of AI and puts it into the DMS. Uh the the key to that is the data layer. Um anyone that's messed around with AI knows that it's all about the data. If if it has the right data, it can it's really kind of magical. So we built spent a lot of time uh building this this data layer um that uh is consistent across all the Reynolds uh infrastructure.

Wrap Up And Final Thoughts

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:11

Yeah. Wow, that's that's fantastic. Jeff Adams, director of Fixed Ops product planning at Reynolds and Reynolds, working hard and uh you know on the dealer's behalf to come up with this stuff. And uh you guys are doing just an incredible job, and you got so many clients out there that you're working with. And by the way, did you say you were with Reynolds for 35 years?

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah, it's been over 35 years. I started right when I graduated high school and uh just kept on going.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:34

That is fantastic. And I think uh Mr. Walsh is is a is is in running with you for a long period of time as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, he's got he's got me beat uh a slightly different career path. But um, yeah, he's been uh with Reynolds a long time too.

Jim Fitzpatrick 10:48

That is great, that's great. Wow, Reynolds holds on to their people. That's that's a good sign. So Jeff, thanks so much for joining us. Uh really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Thank you. I'm sure enjoyed the conversation. Great, thanks.

Announcer 10:59

Thanks for watching Driving Solution.