Resources

AI BDC Vendor Scorecard for Dealerships

· Relay BDC team

Questions to ask any AI BDC vendor

Every AI BDC demo looks good on a friendly lead. These questions are about what happens when it isn't: when the AI is unsure, when a customer needs a person, when consent rules apply, and where your appointments end up. Mark each answer for the vendor you're considering; Relay BDC's own answers are filled in alongside.

Accountability

When the AI isn't sure of an answer, does it hold the reply and bring in a person?

A confident-sounding wrong answer about a vehicle or a price costs more than a short wait.

Relay BDC Yes

Below the confidence threshold your dealership sets, Miles doesn't send its reply. The customer gets a short holding message, the conversation goes to your team, and staff can see the reply Miles held back.

How Miles works

Are replies that break your rules (payment promises, prohibited topics) blocked before they're sent?

Checking after the message is sent is too late.

Relay BDC Yes

Every reply is checked before it goes out. A reply that makes a pricing commitment or touches a topic you've prohibited is never sent; the customer gets the holding message and a person takes over.

How Miles works

Is every AI action recorded where your managers can review it?

You need to answer "why did it say that?" and "who changed what?" after the fact.

Relay BDC Yes

Miles' actions (qualifying a lead, booking, rescheduling, cancelling), staff sign-ins and settings changes are written to an audit log you can read in Settings, Activity. Each reply also shows Miles' confidence and reasoning in the inbox.

Where bookings land

Do appointments the AI books land in your CRM, not only in the vendor's app?

If your team works from the CRM, a booking that only exists in the vendor's app is a missed appointment.

Relay BDC Partly

Appointments are saved in Relay BDC and sent to your CRM, with adapters for CDK, Elead, VinSolutions and DealerSocket; reschedules and cancellations are sent too. This hasn't yet been verified end to end against live accounts for each of those CRMs, so ask us which have been checked for yours.

Can customers reschedule or cancel by replying, without calling the store?

Most no-shows are people whose plans changed and found it easier not to come.

Relay BDC Yes

Customers can move or cancel their appointment in the conversation, and reply C to confirm a reminder. Miles only changes that customer's own appointments, and every change is logged.

Handoffs and exceptions

When the AI hands off, does the conversation go to the right person?

A handoff to a shared queue that nobody owns is just a slower missed lead.

Relay BDC Yes

The lead's own salesperson gets it first. If there isn't one, a service appointment goes to your service team (if you've chosen one), and anything else to the next person in your sales rotation.

How handoffs work

Does the person taking over get a summary, so the customer doesn't repeat themselves?

Customers who have to start again often don't.

Relay BDC Yes

Each handoff carries what the customer wants, budget, timeline, trade-in, any appointment and their last message, shown in the inbox.

How handoffs work
Consent and messaging rules

Does it record marketing-text consent with the exact wording the customer agreed to?

The TCPA puts the burden of proving consent on you.

Relay BDC Yes

Each consent is stored with the exact wording, its version and evidence of where it was given. Marketing texts are only sent to customers with consent on record.

Does it honour STOP, HELP and quiet hours automatically?

One text at the wrong time or after a STOP is a complaint, or worse.

Relay BDC Yes

STOP blocks every further text to that number, START and HELP are handled, and outreach waits for your quiet hours to end.

Does marketing email include a working unsubscribe and your postal address?

CAN-SPAM requires both, and Gmail and Yahoo now require one-click unsubscribe for bulk senders.

Relay BDC Yes

Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link and one-click unsubscribe headers, includes your postal address, and is never sent to someone who unsubscribed.

Data isolation and security

Is your data kept separate from other dealers', and can the AI only act on the customer it's talking to?

An AI that can be talked into reading another customer's record is a data breach waiting to happen.

Relay BDC Yes

Every record belongs to one dealership. Whatever a customer types, Miles' tools only read or change the lead in that conversation.

Are integration keys encrypted, and is two-step sign-in required for staff?

The FTC Safeguards Rule requires multi-factor authentication for anyone who can see customer information.

Relay BDC Yes

CRM and other integration credentials are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM), and every staff account must use an authenticator app to sign in.

Model transparency

Does the vendor tell you which AI model writes the replies?

Model choice affects quality, data handling and cost; "proprietary AI" can mean anything.

Relay BDC Yes

Miles runs on Anthropic's Claude models.

How Miles works

Are changes to the AI's instructions tested before going live, and can you undo them?

A small wording change can change hundreds of conversations.

Relay BDC Yes

In Miles Studio, a change to Miles' instructions is replayed against saved test conversations side by side with the current version before it can be published. Every version is kept, and rolling back takes one click.

Pilot and control

Can you start with the AI drafting and your team sending?

A pilot where nothing goes out without a person is the safest way to judge the AI on your own leads.

Relay BDC Yes

In shadow mode Miles drafts every text, email and web chat reply and your team sends, edits or discards it; Miles can't book or change appointments on its own. Phone calls are still answered live.

Features

Can you switch the AI off by channel, outside business hours, or for one conversation?

You stay in charge of where and when it answers.

Relay BDC Yes

Miles can be turned off entirely, per channel, outside your hours, or for a single conversation, and your team can take over any conversation at any time.

Totals

Your vendor
0 of 16
0 of 16 questions answered
Relay BDC
15.5 of 16
Yes counts 1, Partly counts ½

Relay BDC's answers describe the product as it works today. Ask every vendor, us included, to show you each answer in the product.

Frequently asked questions

How should I use this scorecard?
Take it into each vendor demo. Ask every question, ask to see the answer working in the product rather than on a slide, and mark what you saw. The link and the printout keep your answers.
Why does Relay BDC mark itself Partly on CRM bookings?
Appointments are sent to CDK, Elead, VinSolutions and DealerSocket, but that hasn't been verified end to end against live accounts for each of them yet. We'd rather say so than round up.
Is anything I enter sent to Relay BDC?
No. Your answers stay in your browser and in the page address, so you can share or print them. We only count how many people start the scorecard and how many answer every question.