At dealerships around the country, customers have come to the lot looking to speak with “Fran.” She was so helpful in her online chats with consumers that they wanted to work with her in person.
Fran is not a person. Fran is an AI-powered sales agent trained to react like an RV salesperson.
She answers questions and provides information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When the dealership is closed, Fran is open and ready to talk with potential customers.
Lahzo Director of AI Design Marshall Seese said the company’s AI sales agent reduces the time from initial contact to sale. He said consumers who fill out a basic online contact form take an average of 22.2 days to close a deal. Consumers who interacted with an AI sales agent take 17.8 days.
“Maybe it does not sound like a lot, but that is almost a 25% decrease in your sales cycle,” Seese said. “Now you are selling faster, and it is because they have had that initial depth of engagement that is personalized and specialized with our agent before they talk to your salesperson.”
At the RVDA Convention/Expo, Seese said Lahzo launched its first dealership agent in August 2024. He said the company was the first in the country to introduce an AI autonomous sales agent interacting with customers on an RV industry website.
“We have had over 65,000 real sales conversations since then, which is a treasure trove of data to understand how people are interacting online,” Seese said. “That equates to over 350,000 minutes of conversation. We have seen what they are looking for, what they want, and we are using that to make our agent better every single day.”
Seese said the company’s longest interaction between a customer and its AI agent lasted 45 minutes and totaled 79 messages. The AI agent has instant recall of the entire conversation, even telling one potential customer, “I hope you have an absolute blast at Yellowstone Park next weekend. It sounds like an incredible trip.” Seese said Yellowstone was mentioned 14 messages earlier.
Seese said information obtained in the AI agents’ conversations can be integrated with several popular dealer management systems.
Customers can activate the agent in ways other than clicking the website’s chat button. Consumers requesting a trade evaluation or filling out a contact form can automatically start a conversation with the AI agent.
“The agent will start a conversation with something like, ‘I love that you are interested in this trailer. What is your favorite feature about it?’” Seese said. “The agent is starting to understand what type of camping the customer is planning to do. Then, it will go beyond just collecting information and try to get the customer to schedule an appointment.”
Seese said other companies are offering AI agents, but he said he believes Lahzo has the most human-like depth in conversations. One example of the agent’s human behavior is that responses are not instantaneous.
“It is a computer, it should be able to give me the response instantly,” Seese said. “Guess what that does to the customer? Trust goes down because they stop believing the agent. That delay is important for gaining trust.”
Lahzo’s agent can be customized to emphasize collecting information, setting appointments or providing special offers.
With so many AI vendors popping up, Seese said working with one that has done a thorough job of agent security is crucial.
“It is not that hard to get AI to do what you want it to do,” Seese said. “It is really difficult to get it to not do what you do not want it to do, like referring competitors or talking about things that are completely unrelated to selling an RV.”
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