Marchex® Launches AI-powered Sales Engagement Solution for Automotive Dealers to Address Changing Buyer Behavior

Marchex (NASDAQ: MCHX), a leading conversational analytics and solutions company that connects the voice of the customer to your business, today announced the release of its newest artificial intelligence-powered solution, developed specifically for automotive dealers. Marchex Engage for Automotive is an innovative conversation intelligence application that enables automotive sales teams to deliver better buying experiences and improve sales outcomes.

Marchex Engage for Automotive builds on Marchex industry experience and research to deliver actionable insight into sales leads from inbound and outbound calls with simplified reporting. Marchex Engage for Automotive:

• Automatically scores and categorizes conversations between consumers and a dealer’s sales team, using conversation intelligence
• Identifies which vehicles were discussed and whether an appointment to test-drive was made
• Generates action lists that enable sellers to efficiently focus follow-up conversations on the highest-value leads
• Generates deal-saving action alerts so a team specialist can save a lost lead when a conversation ends unsuccessfully
• Enables users to share conversations with team members and sets status to coordinate actions or next steps
• Enables outbound click-to-call from leading automotive customer relationship management (CRM) systems
• Updates a dealer’s CRM system with enriched leads as sellers complete each inbound or outbound conversation
• Enables users to quickly review audio conversations, unlocking opportunities to improve the customer experience
• Uncovers in-the-moment training opportunities that result in better seller performance and meaningful, targeted training discussions

“We saw our appointment-set rates go up as soon as we started using the Marchex application. Having real-time examples of mishandled conversations made it easy to coach our sales team in the moment, while the conversation is fresh. Our salespeople did meaningfully better, immediately,” said Keith McClusky, CEO, McClusky Chevrolet. “It’s ironic that I spend a lot of money on training, but what I really needed to make that training effective was this simple and affordable product."

Several recent surveys and studies have made clear that consumer sentiment and the car-buying process has changed during the past year. In a major study on car buying released by Marchex, researchers found that potential car buyers in the United States are highly informed and are closing in quickly on a purchase by the time they make first contact with a dealer. Consumers are no longer interested in a three-hour sales process, nor visiting multiple dealerships to see cars. In light of these changing consumer preferences, the power to unlock the content of customer conversations to improve the customer experience is more important than ever.

"Phone calls and texts are the primary communication channels that consumers use to drive the sales pipeline for dealerships. If a dealership is not proactive in how they prioritize and respond to sales opportunities, they are sending business to their competitor," said Matt Muilenburg, Marchex Senior Vice President of Automotive. “Based on the data and feedback we’ve received from early adopters, it’s clear that bringing insights to phone leads is helping dealers prioritize their best leads, recover lost sales, drive greater accountability, and enhance overall sales team performance on the phone.”

Marchex sales engagement solutions complement Marchex Marketing Edge, which enables brand marketers and agencies to tie revenue-generating conversations back to the specific marketing campaigns that generated them. By continuing to expand the Marchex Edge platform, Marchex is better positioned to help businesses align their marketing and sales departments to deliver data-driven insights and immediately take actions that improve business outcomes across the organization.

About Marchex

Marchex understands the best customers are those who call your company - they convert faster, buy more, and churn less. Marchex provides solutions that help companies drive more calls, understand what happens on those calls, and convert more of those callers into customers. Our actionable intelligence strengthens the connection between companies and their customers, bridging the physical and digital world, to help brands maximize their marketing investments and operating efficiencies to acquire the best customers.

Please visit www.marchex.com, www.marchex.com/blog, or @marchex on Twitter (Twitter.com/Marchex), where Marchex discloses material information from time to time about the company and its business.

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