How an Outbound Recall Campaign Booked 60+ Appointments – and Sold a New Truck

Earnhardt CDJR Gilbert had an aging recall list: Older vehicles. Lapsed service customers. Outdated contact info. In Service Manager Josh Utley's words, the list was "pretty beat up."

Rather than have their BDC spend time dialing each number, Earnhardt turned to their AI super employee, Mia, to run an outbound service recall campaign.

What Mia did

Mia launched an outbound text campaign to notify owners of 2013-2018 Ram diesel trucks of the recall. She handled the outreach, answered every reply, and booked 60 appointments on behalf of the service department.

One of those texts reached John Doe. Earnhardt hadn't seen John since October 2021, but he called back. Mia held the conversation, confirmed the recall, and booked him an appointment.

Two days later, John showed up for his complimentary recall service. While waiting for the service to complete, he walked the showroom floor.

He left in a brand new truck.

"A free sale, unsuspecting fresh up. All because Mia educated what our store had considered dead service leads."

— Josh Utley, Service Manager, Earnhardt CDJR

The bigger picture

John wasn't a one-off. In the first wave of this outbound recall campaign:

  • 391 records went into outbound text recall campaigns
  • 86 conversations opened with guests
  • 60 appointments landed – meaning ~70% of every conversation converting to a booked visit

In Josh's words: "It's like an additional day of business with this."

Why it worked

Aged lists don't fail because the customers aren't there. They fail because the work takes time – hundreds of texts, replies coming in at odd hours, follow-ups over days, appointments to coordinate. Most service teams don't have that time to spare.

Mia does. Working the list 24/7/365, handling replies whenever they come in, and staying with each conversation long enough to book. No one gets left unworked because the team ran out of hours in the day.

The takeaway

Outbound AI earns its keep where dealerships have historically accepted loss: aged recalls, lapsed service customers, "dead" files no one has time to chase.

Mia works them 24/7/365, across sales, service, and reception and turns reactivations into appointments. Sometimes into new vehicle sales.