Dealsmart

An AI-first SaaS platform helping dealerships respond instantly, book more appointments, and recover lost revenue, without expanding BDC teams.

Key Outcomes

• <30 seconds average first response time
• 20–35% increase in booked appointments
• 10–20% improvement in show-up rates
• 1–2 hours saved per sales rep per day
• $10k–$50k estimated additional monthly gross profit per dealership

Overview

• Industry: Automotive Retail
• Platform: Multi-tenant SaaS (Web + Mobile)
• Built By: Stackup Solutions
• Core Capabilities: AI Lead Engagement · CRM & Inventory Integrations · Campaign Automation · Appointment Scheduling

Background

Automotive dealerships compete in an environment where speed and consistency of lead response directly impact revenue. While most dealerships invest heavily in lead generation, many still rely on manual BDC teams to follow up, resulting in slow responses, inconsistent outreach, and missed opportunities outside business hours.

Deals Smart AI was created to solve this gap.

The goal was not to replace sales teams, but to augment dealership operations with an AI layer capable of:

• Engaging every lead instantly
• Qualifying intent through natural conversations
• Booking appointments automatically
• Escalating to humans only when needed

Stackup Solutions partnered as the end-to-end development and AI engineering team to bring this vision to life.

The Challenge

Business Challenges

• Missed leads due to delayed or inconsistent follow-up
• Revenue leakage from uncontacted or poorly nurtured prospects
• High operational costs associated with scaling BDC teams
• Sales reps spending time chasing leads instead of closing deals

Operational Challenges

• Leads arriving across multiple systems (CDK Elead, Automotive Mastermind)
• Inconsistent rep availability and follow-through
• No reliable escalation when reps failed to respond
• Limited visibility into which campaigns actually drove appointments

Technical Challenges

• Real-time CRM and inventory synchronization
• Preventing AI from hallucinating prices, availability, or promises
• Managing multi-rep calendars and appointment assignment
• Maintaining strict control over AI behavior in regulated sales conversations

The Solution

Stackup designed and built Deals Smart AI as a multi-tenant, AI-orchestrated SaaS platform purpose-built for dealership workflows.

Core Architecture

• Frontend: React (Admin Web), React Native (Sales Rep Mobile App)
• Backend: Laravel
• Database: MySQL (logically isolated per dealership)
• Cloud: AWS
• AI Stack: OpenAI with prompt engineering + RAG
• Messaging: Twilio (SMS), Email
• Async Processing: Laravel Queues
• Integrations: CDK Elead, Automotive Mastermind (Webhook-based)

Key Platform Capabilities

1. Real-Time Lead & Inventory Intelligence

• CDK Elead integration pulls new sales leads instantly via webhooks
• Automotive Mastermind integration enriches leads with behavioral and intent scoring
• Inventory sync ensures AI references only live, in-stock vehicles
• Unified lead model with deduplication and source tagging

2. Campaign-Driven AI Engagement

Dealership admins can launch targeted campaigns using predefined templates:

• Lease Expiry
• Dormant Leads
• Model-Specific Promotions
• High-Intent Follow-ups

Each campaign includes:

• Audience filters (lease terms, inactivity, model interest)
• Channel selection (SMS / Email)
• Scheduling rules
• Custom AI prompts to control tone, offers, and messaging boundaries

The AI adapts conversations dynamically while remaining policy-bound.

3. Enterprise-Grade AI Guardrails

To ensure trust and compliance, Stackup implemented strict AI controls:

Pricing Safety

• AI cannot generate prices
• All pricing fetched directly from CRM/inventory APIs
• If unavailable, AI defers to a human

Availability Accuracy

• Real-time availability checks at message time
• Graceful fallback to human escalation on sync failures

Sales Authority Boundaries

• AI can inform and schedule
• AI cannot negotiate, discount, or promise financing
• Forbidden intents trigger safe, predefined responses

This ensures zero hallucinated pricing, zero false availability, and zero unauthorized commitments.

4. Smart Escalation & Human-in-the-Loop Control

A defining feature of Deals Smart AI is its escalation-first design:

• AI handles conversations continuously
• When a lead requests human input or hits a defined rule:
  • The assigned sales rep is notified
  • If the rep does not respond within a dealership-defined SLA, the conversation escalates to a manager
  • Managers can jump into conversations with full context

This guarantees the customer never goes unanswered, even when reps are unavailable.

5. Appointment Scheduling at Scale

• Multi-calendar support per dealership
• Rep availability respected automatically
• AI detects appointment intent conversationally
• Bookings sync with rep calendars and trigger confirmations via SMS/email
• Managers can reassign, reschedule, or intervene as needed

6. Dashboards & Visibility

Dealership leadership gains real-time insight into:

• Campaign performance
• Lead funnel progression
• Engagement vs. appointment conversion
• Rep and AI activity

This enables data-driven decisions, not gut feel.

Implementation Process

Discovery & Workflow Mapping

Deep analysis of dealership operations, BDC workflows, and escalation gaps.

Architecture & AI Design

Defined AI boundaries, CRM sync strategies, and multi-tenant SaaS foundations.

Integration & Automation

Implemented webhook-based CRM and inventory sync with background processing.

AI Training & Guardrails

Leveraged 1,000+ real dealership conversations to inform prompt design and RAG logic.

Pilot Validation & Iteration

Refined escalation logic, messaging tone, and appointment flows based on real usage.

Results & Impact (Directional)

Lead Engagement

• 85–95% lead contact rate (vs. ~40–60% manually)
• <30 seconds first response time
• 20–40% fewer lost leads

Appointments

• 15–30% of contacted leads book appointments
• 10–20% improvement in show-up rates
• 20–35% increase in total booked appointments

Sales Team Efficiency

• 1–2 hours saved per rep per day
• Reps focus on closing, not chasing leads

Revenue Impact

• 2–5 additional appointments per day
• Estimated $10k–$50k additional monthly gross profit per dealership