For dealers
AI BDC for dealerships
Ekho’s AI Sales Agent works as your business development center. It answers on your website and over text in under five seconds, at any hour, and can carry a conversation through to a completed purchase.
It runs on your own brand, your own rooftops and your own inventory. The buyer never leaves your dealership to talk to it.
What happens when a lead comes in
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It answers first, in seconds
The agent replies on the dealership website and over text in under five seconds, at any hour, and carries the conversation through to a completed purchase.
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It knows the inventory
Nearby listings rank first, and model shorthand a buyer actually types still finds the right unit.
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It remembers the buyer
Once someone shares their details, the agent holds them for the rest of the session. Texting in, booking a visit, or pre-qualifying again does not ask twice.
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It hands over cleanly
Every conversation is searchable and syncs to the CRM, so the team picks up where the agent left off rather than starting again.
What it covers
- Channels
- Web chat and text, from one inbox. A conversation started in either channel is the same conversation.
- Hours
- Every hour, including the overnight and weekend windows where internet leads usually go cold.
- CRM
- Two-way sync with your DMS, and readable field mapping into your CRM, with live sync status on every lead.
- Routing
- Leads route automatically, and dealers choose which departments reach which CRM.
- Pre-qualification
- Standardized across the storefront, the checkout and the chat widget, and it carries into checkout so the buyer is not asked twice.
- Appointments
- The agent books into slots the dealership actually staffs.
By dealership type
The questions differ by segment, so each has its own page.
Go deeper
The long-form version of the buying checklist, including how an AI Sales Agent differs from a chatbot and from an AI BDC tool.
The Complete Guide to AI Sales Agents for Vehicle Dealerships (2026)
Questions dealers ask
A business development center staffed by software rather than people. It picks up internet leads, answers questions about inventory, follows up when a buyer goes quiet, and books appointments, without the headcount a traditional BDC needs. The useful distinction between tools in this category is how far the conversation can go before a human has to take it.
Under five seconds, on the website and over text, at any hour. Speed is the whole game with internet leads, because the dealership that answers first usually gets the appointment.
They get answered when they arrive rather than the next morning. The agent runs at every hour, so an inquiry at two in the morning gets the same response as one at two in the afternoon, and the conversation is waiting for the team when they come in.
Yes. There is two-way sync with your DMS and readable field mapping into your CRM, with live sync status on every lead. Dealers also choose which departments reach which CRM, so a multi-department store does not end up with everything in one queue.
Yes. Leads that arrive from the dealership’s own CRM can be worked by automated outreach, and leads the team is already working are left alone so nobody gets two conversations at once.
Web chat and text. Both feed one inbox, and a buyer who starts on the website and later texts in is recognized as the same person rather than treated as a new lead.
Four things worth testing before you sign. How fast it actually replies, measured on your own site rather than in a demo. Whether it writes back into your CRM or only reads from it. How far a conversation can go before a human is required. And what happens to the conversation history when the handover happens, because a lead your team has to re-interview is a lead you have annoyed.