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- The human advantage in car sales—and why Ted Rubin won’t let it die
The human advantage in car sales—and why Ted Rubin won’t let it die
Featuring Ted Rubin, CEO of ActivEngage
Welcome to another edition of the Car Dealership Guy Podcast Recap newsletter.
Today’s guest is Ted Rubin, Founder and CEO of ActivEngage, discusses why dealers don’t need more leads, the danger from AI that dealers don’t see coming, why a human touch is still the missing piece, and much more.
1. Service departments are proving easier to automate than sales.
When Rubin helped build one of the first BDCs back in the mid-90s, he quickly learned that service was way easier to systematize than sales. The pattern still holds true today.
"The language of service is much more standardized than it is in sales. Sales, you have this very one-to-one interaction—and it kind of flows the direction that the customer wants it to flow."
Service conversations follow predictable patterns: What's broken, when can you fix it, how much will it cost. Sales conversations are completely different. Every customer brings their own agenda, timeline, and communication style to the table.
2. Early digitization efforts are revealing timeless customer behavior patterns.
Back when Rubin was digitizing those old-school desk logs—the paper pads sales guys used to track customer notes—he discovered something important about effective follow-up strategies.
"We learned a tremendous amount about the kind of follow-up that was gonna be effective with customers and the kind of communication that was gonna be an asset for those customers."
The big revelation: customers weren't just shopping for cars. They were evaluating dealerships and salespeople to determine who they wanted to work with.
3. Phone systems are becoming major customer experience bottlenecks.
Rubin sees a persistent problem across dealerships: customers getting stuck in phone hell when they try to reach stores during busy periods.
"Certain times of day, especially if you try to call into a store...it's almost impossible to get through and you get to the operator and she puts it up in the air for sales or she puts you on hold."
Some stores run 24-line systems that regularly max out capacity. When customers hit busy signals, they simply move on to the next dealer in their search results.
4. Customer research habits are changing what conversations should accomplish.
By the time someone contacts a dealership, they've already researched most product details online. This shifts the focus of initial conversations away from basic information sharing.
"There's really nobody who's going to a dealership to ask, does this vehicle have this, that, or the other thing? They're just gonna go to Google and go, does this car have this? And Google's gonna give them the answer."
Customers calling dealerships aren't looking for feature lists or specifications. They're trying to evaluate whether they want to do business with that particular store and salesperson.
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5. Relationship-building is driving purchase decisions more than features.
Successful sales conversations focus on building trust and connection rather than just conveying product information.
"It's the relationship with the customer that motivates the customer to want to buy. Customers are looking for a type of conversation that's going to make them feel safe, make them trust in what it is that you're saying."
The salespeople who consistently outperform their peers aren't necessarily the most knowledgeable about vehicle specs. They're the ones customers genuinely enjoy talking to and feel comfortable working with.
6. Lead quality metrics are more important than lead volume.
Progressive dealers are shifting their focus from generating maximum leads to producing leads that actually convert into sales.
"I'm not interested in producing leads, because anybody can produce leads. We produce lots of leads, that's not the issue. It's trying to produce leads that the dealership has to work less at closing."
This mirrors lessons learned during the early internet era, when many dealers discovered that cheap, high-volume lead sources often produced poor conversion rates and wasted sales team time.
7. AI excels at analysis but struggles with authentic connection.
Rubin advocates for using AI in areas where it demonstrates clear strengths while avoiding customer-facing applications where human connection matters most.
"AI is spectacularly good at research and at analytics...But I don't think that it has any really significant value when it's facing the customer for communication."
Smart dealerships deploy AI for tasks like analyzing deal documentation, managing inventory data, and identifying business patterns while keeping humans in charge of customer relationship building.
8. Nine-minute conversations are outperforming quick handoffs.
Dealerships investing more time in thorough initial conversations are delivering better-qualified prospects to their sales teams.
"Our average conversation is like nine minutes long. So we really want to matriculate the customer through the process and put them at a lower point in the funnel so that the people in the store...they're able to begin their part of the journey with the customer where the customer is already motivated."
This approach means sales teams receive customers who are further along in their buying journey and more committed to making a purchase.
9. Texting is becoming the preferred communication channel.
Text-based communication aligns with how customers naturally browse and research vehicles online.
"There's really a value here, where there's a medium that customers can use that will keep the customer doing what they're doing, so it won't take them away from the keyboard."
Customers who start texting with dealerships often continue using that channel for future service appointments and vehicle inquiries, creating ongoing touchpoints beyond the initial sale.
10. ROI should determine technology adoption, not industry trends.
Successful dealers base technology decisions on measurable business impact rather than following industry hype cycles.
"I think everything should come down to ROI, right? So it's going to come down to what is the cost of what it is that you're trying to accomplish with the product...with the return that it's going to get."
This measured approach helps dealers avoid repeating mistakes from previous technology adoption waves, when many implemented tools that looked innovative but didn't actually improve profitability.
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