Under an expanded partnership between intelligent virtual assistant company Conversica and AutoAlert, an automotive software company, AutoAlert now offers full capabilities and skills for the Conversica Automotive Sales AI Assistant and the Conversica Automotive Service AI Assistant to help boost sales and service revenue.

The partnership also helps deliver an integrated platform that the companies say can provide an improved customer experience.

The companies said they were making the announcement as the automotive industry and others experience pressure during current uncertain times and must be ready to come back quickly as dealerships safely reopen.

Using Conversica’s Intelligent Virtual Assistants, or IVAs, dealerships can drive appointments for repair orders at their essential service centers and ensure follow-up with prospective car buyers who are sheltered in place.

Conversica engages contacts through natural two-way, digital conversations, ensuring that dealerships respond quickly and consistently to inbound leads and drive outgoing service reminders to customers. That all takes place through a “personalized, polite and persistent” customer experience, Conversica said.

AutoAlert’s CXM, or customer experience management, optimizes customer journey data from various sources to communicate personalized key-to-key offers to qualified buyers from the dealer’s database. AutoAlert and Conversica say they can bring a smooth digital experience to customers.

Conversica’s augmented workforce includes more than 1,500 automotive dealerships employing its intelligent virtual assistants (IVA). Working with sales and service team members, Conversica’s IVAs aim to bring a strong customer experience, engage every lead, and generate more appointments.

“We continue to be hyper-focused on helping dealerships adjust to the ‘new normal’ by employing our digital sales and service team members who effectively double or triple the productivity of existing teams overnight,” Conversica chief executive officer Jim Kaskade said in a news release.

Kaskade continued, “Our automotive clients are becoming digital-first enterprises now — it’s a necessity. Partnering with the industry-leading team at AutoAlert provides us the ability to address a growing demand, given COVID. They have a world-class sales and support staff who know how to accelerate the digital transformation of automotive dealerships.”

The expanded offering brings nearly 30 years of combined experience across Conversica and AutoAlert in artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. It provides auto dealerships with the necessary help to navigate the new normal and accelerate their recovery.

Todd Crossley, dealer principal of Gary Crossley Ford, in Liberty, Mo., uses AutoAlert and Conversica’s Automotive AI Assistants.

“It’s great to see these two tools work together to help us sell and service more vehicles, and more importantly, further elevate the customer experience at our dealership,” Crossley said.

Crossley continued, “We were able to consolidate the number of retail tools we use when Conversica added this capability and AutoAlert seamlessly integrated with it.”

“We are committed to continuing to innovate and help our dealers recover as quickly as possible while providing customers with the best sales and service experience,” said AutoAlert chief executive officer Mike Dullea.

Dullea continued, “AutoAlert CXM provides our dealers’ customers with over 5 million personalized offers each month, and expanding the Conversica Automotive AI Assistant offering to include sales and service enables the dealership personnel to respond with the exact information and communication the customer wants. Our dealers are really energized by our deeper integration with Conversica’s Automotive AI Assistants as we further enable a seamless digital retailing experience for every customer.”