Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast Recap—a rundown of key lessons from top operators, founders, and execs shaping the future of auto retail.
Today’s guest is Mo Zahabi, AVP of Product Consulting at Cox Automotive.
Mo breaks down how first-party data within the Cox Automotive ecosystem can reveal buying signals before a lead even exists, why fragmented dealership tech stacks lead to wasted effort and employee turnover, and how dealers can modernize customer engagement by focusing on real behavior rather thanå outdated tactics.
Dealers are losing customers before a lead ever comes in.
By the time a customer submits a form, they've already been shopping for five or six weeks, and most dealerships have no process for finding them before that point.
"Your customer's been in market for five to six weeks. You're late. You're late to the game."
The dealers pulling ahead are tracking first-party signals like trade evaluations, deal configurations, and repeat website visits to identify buyers before they ever raise their hand.
Wasted outreach is draining dealership budgets and demoralizing sales teams.
Calling customers about cars they no longer own drains the budget and salespeople's energy with nothing to show for it.
"If you trade in a car with me and then I call and follow up and try to get you to trade in the car you already traded in—how well do you think I know you as a customer?"
Cleaning up who you're chasing—and why—is one of the fastest ways to improve both efficiency and customer trust.
Most dealers are flying blind on where their customers actually are in the buying cycle.
The margin compression conversation gets all the attention, but the deeper problem is that dealerships don't have a real-time view of customer intent.
"The problem is that most dealers don't really have a pulse on who their customer is or where they are in their life cycle."
Dealers using behavioral data to time their outreach are seeing measurably better results and happier salespeople.
A smart CRM is surfacing the next best action. A dumb one is just waiting to be used.
The difference comes down to whether the system tells you what to do or makes you figure it out yourself.
"A dumb CRM, I log into and I got to figure out what I'm supposed to do today. A smart CRM can use data to highlight probably the most important customer I could reach out to, and what I need to say, and what happened in the past."
In other words, the system should handle prioritization, not the rep.
Presented by:
1. Podium - The AI platform trusted by one in three dealerships. Podium helps dealers consolidate sales, service, messaging, and voice into one connected system that actually runs the work. If your AI isn’t driving real outcomes, it’s time to take a closer look @ podium.com/car-dealership-guy.
2. BizzyCar - BizzyCar helps dealerships identify vehicles with open recalls and automatically schedule service appointments using AI and the industry’s most accurate recall data. The result: more customers returning to your service lane and more recall revenue captured. See how it works at info.bizzycar.com/cdg
3. Cox Automotive - Discover what’s driving improved customer experiences—and dealership results. Download the Drivers of Shopper Satisfaction ebook from Cox Automotive today @ carguymedia.com/464vOfw
Customer behavior online is giving dealers a read on the whole negotiation.
When a customer adjusts their down payment multiple times while configuring a deal, that pattern reveals exactly what they're willing to do.
"It's like playing poker with the customer's hands face up. I can see all those cards."
That visibility gives the sales team the confidence to push harder, because the data backs them up.
Leaving customers alone during the deal is still one of the most expensive habits in auto retail.
The standard tower-and-back process has salespeople walking away at the critical moment, leaving customers free to call a competitor or lose momentum entirely.
"With today's customer, I never want to leave them alone because they can get on their phone and call another dealership or look on websites."
A deal workflow that moves in real time (between the desk and the customer, in-store or remote) closes that window.
The service lane is sitting on warm, high-intent sales opportunities most stores aren't touching.
Customers already coming in for service are known, reachable, and often close to their next purchase.
"The best source of used car inventory is your actual customer base. And the best deal you have in your CRM right now is one of your customers."
Connecting service activity to sales outreach requires the systems to actually share data, and most stores haven't made that connection yet.
Dealers are paying for software they're not fully using.
Base subscriptions with layers of add-ons and low adoption rates mean real money going out the door with no return.
"You pay that for the base thing, but you have four or five different add-ons, so you're actually paying this, and half of it's not getting used."
Inspecting what's live, who's using it, and what it's producing should be a recurring conversation, not a one-time setup task.
Fragmented tech stacks are slowing down every department in the store.
Logging into seven systems to complete one workflow costs time at every step and creates gaps where context gets lost.
"I don't want a salesperson or a manager to log into seven different systems. I want them to be able to log in once and navigate across the platforms based on their permissions."
The complexity of most dealership tech stacks has grown faster than their ability to manage it, and that shows up in the work every single day.
AI adoption in dealerships is moving toward becoming a baseline expectation.
The current wave of AI conversation will eventually quiet down, not because it failed, but because it gets embedded so deeply into tools and workflows that dealers stop thinking of it as a feature.
"AI is only obviously as good as the data that you infuse it with. So who has the largest pool of data? Who can see the most?"
The advantage goes to whoever is starting with the cleanest, most complete picture of the customer.
