Buyer’s guide
How to compare AI voice assistants for car dealerships.
Eight questions to ask every vendor, in writing, with Cleo’s own answers. Compare them side by side.
The eight questions
Ask every vendor the same questions.
1 · Does it book live into our scheduler, or in batches?
Ask to see a booking land in your scheduler during the demo. Batched bookings can double-book a slot or miss a cancellation. Cleo books live into the scheduler your store already uses, today including Xtime, myKaarma, Dealer-FX, CDK, Reynolds and Reynolds, Tekion and OCAS, while the caller is on the line.
2 · What happens when it can’t help?
Find out how the call reaches a person and what your team receives if nobody picks up. Cleo transfers to available staff, takes a callback request or sends the right department a written follow-up.
3 · Which call types are live in stores today?
Roadmap features don’t answer phones. In the 30 days to October 21, 2026, Cleo answered 32,323 calls and booked 5,916 appointments across 41 dealership rooftops. Ask every vendor for the same: calls and bookings from the last 30 days.
4 · Can we hear real calls from a store like ours?
Rehearsed demo calls hide the edge cases: accents, road noise, a caller who changes their mind. Ask for unedited recordings. Cleo publishes dealership results with their source and date, such as El Cerrito Honda and Stevens Creek Subaru.
5 · Who picks up first, us or the AI?
You should be able to choose. At El Cerrito Honda, staff get the call first and Cleo steps in when a department can’t answer within three rings. Cleo can also cover after-hours calls only.
6 · How does it handle texts and consent?
Automated texts need the customer’s permission. Cleo asks the caller for permission before it sends any automated text about a call.
7 · What do our managers see?
Every call should come with a clear outcome. Cleo’s dashboard shows calls answered, appointments booked, transfers and hours of conversation. Every figure on this page comes from it.
8 · How is it priced, and how long until it’s live?
Model your busiest month, not an average one. Cleo’s AI call agent is $2000. Most stores are live in under 7 days, and we build it, connect it and run it for you.
Compare independently, too. Pasch Group publishes a directory of AI voice assistants for dealers, scored on one checklist. Open the Pasch Group directory.
Cleo’s answer to question 3 · all Cleo dealerships
30 days of real calls and appointments.
32,323
Calls answered across 41 dealership rooftops
5,916
Appointments booked in the same 30 days
8,395
Transfers to staff in the same 30 days
Of those 5,916 appointments, 5,881 were booked by phone and 35 by text, and 496 were booked while the service department was closed, so more than 9 in 10 were booked while the store was open. Booked appointments and transfers are separate outcomes, not a breakdown of the calls answered.
Source: Cleo dashboard figures, September 21 to October 21, 2026, for the 41 dealership rooftops with more than 20 inbound calls in that period.
Contact
Put these eight questions to Cleo.
Book a 30-minute demo. Bring your call volume and your scheduler, and we will answer all eight for your store.
