How Twins Auto Sales Booked 164 Test Drives Without Adding a Single Salesperson

That is not a staffing problem. It is a timing problem. And for Twins Auto Sales, a five-store independent dealer group in Michigan, it was costing them deals every single week. Then they turned on Ava. Here is exactly what happened, with the numbers to back it up.

Independent and used car dealerships operate lean. There is no 20-person BDC sitting in a back office working leads around the clock. Salespeople are on the floor when they are there, and when they are not, nobody is covering the phones or the inbox. Allen Sareini, General Manager at Twins Auto Sales in Lansing, described it plainly: "A lead would come in Friday night or Sunday morning. It probably wouldn't get touched until Monday, 10:30, 11 o'clock, by the time the salesmen got in."

That gap, Friday night to Monday morning, is where deals go to die. The customer was ready to buy. They needed someone to respond. When no one did, they moved on to the next dealer who did. It is that simple, and that costly.

Across five Michigan stores, Twins Auto Sales was losing leads every weekend. The team was doing everything right during business hours. The problem was everything outside of business hours. That window, when your lot is dark and your team is home, is exactly what Ava, Get My Auto's AI BDC for car dealerships, was built to cover.

Ava is not a chatbot that answers FAQs and calls it a day. It is a fully functional AI-powered BDC that texts car buyers the second a lead comes in, day or night. It knows your live inventory. It pulls photos, sends Carfax links, answers financing and trade-in questions, books test drives, reschedules appointments, and follows up exactly when it said it would, even when your salesperson forgets.

When Twins Auto Sales activated Ava across all five stores, the overnight dead zone closed immediately. A lead that came in at 9:47 PM on a Friday was no longer sitting unanswered until Monday morning. Ava responded within seconds. The conversation started. The appointment got booked.

The numbers from January through June 2026 tell the story directly: 12,108 texts sent to customers. 3,820 missed leads contacted before they went cold. 2,747 cold leads were re-engaged and brought back into the pipeline. 164 test drives booked. 151 cars sold with Ava working the lead, meaning every one of those sold records carries an Ava text, email, or call tied to it.

For an independent dealer group running five stores without a dedicated BDC team, those are results that used to require hiring people. Now they come from software that never clocks out. You can read the full breakdown directly in the Twins Auto Sales case study.

The best way to understand what Ava actually does is to look at a single deal.

Allen was having one of those days. Multiple deals in motion, floor traffic everywhere, the kind of controlled chaos that is a good problem to have until something slips. What slipped was a buyer driving up from Indiana to look at a 2020 Honda Accord.

Allen missed the lead entirely. Under the old system, that deal drives back to Indiana unsigned.

But Ava had been working the customer all day. It kept the conversation going, answered questions about the car, and kept flagging Allen throughout the day that the buyer was on his way and needed confirmation the car was still available. Allen jumped in, sent the out-the-door number, and closed it.

"I'd completely missed that customer," Allen said. "Ava notified me throughout the day, and we were able to convert a lead into a deal. It happens almost daily."

That last line matters. This is not a one-time story. Across 3,820 missed leads this year, that scenario played out repeatedly. Leads that would have gone cold because a human was unavailable, overloaded, or simply forgot. Ava caught them. That is what AutoEngage, Ava's 24/7 lead response feature, does in practice: it closes the gap between lead in and first contact, no matter what time it is.

Here is something that does not get discussed enough in used car retail. Most leads do not convert on first contact. A buyer fills out a form, exchanges a few texts, and then goes quiet. Maybe they are still shopping. Maybe they got busy. Maybe they need another paycheck before they can pull the trigger.

Your salesperson follows up once or twice, gets no response, and moves on. That lead is effectively dead, still sitting in your CRM, never working again.

Ava does not move on. Using Ava's CoPilot follow-up feature, it works the lead on a cadence you control, spacing outreach so the customer stays warm without feeling harassed, for as long as it takes until they buy or tell Ava to stop. When a customer says "reach back out in two weeks," Ava sets the reminder and follows up on that exact day, regardless of whether the original salesperson is still at the store or even remembers the customer exists.

That follow-through converted 2,747 cold leads at Twins Auto Sales this year alone. Those are deals that, at most other dealerships, simply die in the CRM and never get touched again.

This is also why the Get My Auto CRM matters as the platform underneath Ava. Every conversation, every follow-up, every appointment is logged and tracked in one place. You can see exactly which leads Ava is working, which ones are warming up, and which ones are ready for your team to close. Nothing falls through the cracks because everything is visible.

Allen was direct about his initial hesitation. He figured handing lead conversations to an AI would make his salespeople lazy. If a robot handles the follow-up, why would the sales team stay sharp?

The opposite happened.

Ava handles the inbox. Ava handles the follow-up cadence. Ava handles after-hours questions and appointment scheduling. That means Allen's salespeople spend less time babysitting a CRM and more time on the floor doing what they are actually good at, which is closing buyers who are standing in front of a car.

"It's really opening up a lot of time for my salesmen to do what they do best," Allen said. The quality of Ava's conversations also surprised him. "Sometimes I read these messages and I truly think it's me."

That is not an accident. Ava is built to sound like your dealership, not like a generic chatbot. It adapts to your tone, speaks Spanish when needed, and knows when to step aside. The moment a buyer is ready to talk real numbers or asks something Ava cannot handle, it hands the conversation to your team cleanly, with full context. No dropped ball. No customer stuck in a loop with a bot that cannot answer their question.

"When a customer has a question Ava can't answer, it always redirects them to management," Allen noted. "It gives them just a few minutes and has somebody from the management team reach out."

That handoff is built into how Ava operates. The AI handles the volume. Your people handle the close.

Franchise dealerships can absorb lead losses more easily. They have volume, brand recognition, and often a dedicated BDC to cover the gaps. Independent and used car dealers operate without that cushion.

Every missed lead at an independent lot represents a bigger percentage of total opportunity lost. Every cold lead that dies in the CRM is a deal that had to come from somewhere and did not. The margin for waste is thin, and the cost of a bad weekend is real.

Ava closes that gap without requiring you to hire, train, manage, or schedule additional staff. It works the hours your team cannot, covers the inbox when your salespeople are on the floor, and keeps your pipeline moving seven days a week. Twins Auto Sales ran it across five stores without adding headcount. The 151 cars sold with Ava working the lead came from leads those stores already had. They just needed someone to answer them.

If you want to see how the full platform works together, from the CRM that tracks every lead to the AI tools that work them around the clock, the Twins Auto Sales case study is worth reading in full. The numbers are real, the quotes are from the GM, and the outcome speaks for itself.

Twins Auto Sales did not change their marketing budget. They did not hire more salespeople. They did not overhaul their sales process. They turned on Ava, let it cover the hours nobody was working, and watched it book 164 test drives and contribute to 151 car sales in the first six months of 2026.

The leads were already coming in. They just needed someone to answer them.

Allen put it as simply as anyone could: "Get My Auto CRM along with Ava, I highly recommend it. I've been doing business with them at least three years, and honestly, never once have I been disappointed."

If your lot has the same dead zone Twins Auto Sales had, the fix is not more staff. It is making sure every lead gets answered the second it lands, every time, no matter what day or hour it arrives. Book a demo and see Ava work on your own inventory.

Ava functions as an always-on digital BDC that handles the volume work your human team cannot sustain around the clock: answering every lead within seconds, sending inventory info, booking appointments, and running long-term follow-up sequences. It does not replace the human element of closing a deal. What it does is make sure no lead goes unanswered so your salespeople only spend time on conversations that are already warm. For independent dealers without a dedicated BDC team, that coverage is what changes the math on lead conversion.

Ava picks up leads from any source your dealership receives: your website, CarGurus, AutoTrader, Facebook Marketplace, and more. The moment a lead lands, Ava responds, regardless of the time. It identifies the vehicle the customer is asking about, pulls your live inventory, and starts a real conversation rather than a canned auto-reply.

Ava follows a cadence you control. It starts with more frequent outreach and gradually spaces it out over time, so a customer who went quiet gets follow-ups that feel persistent but not spammy. Customers can opt out at any time, and Ava is fully TCPA-aware, honoring every stop request automatically. The result is a pipeline that stays warm on its own without your team having to manually remember who to call.

Ava is built for all dealership types, but the impact tends to be sharpest at independent and used car lots. Franchise stores often have BDC teams to fill the after-hours gap. Independent dealers typically do not. Ava gives independent stores the same 24/7 coverage at a fraction of the cost of staffing that role manually. Twins Auto Sales is a five-store independent group, and the results documented in their case study reflect exactly that use case.

Ava runs on top of the Get My Auto CRM, which means every Ava conversation, every appointment booked, and every follow-up sent is logged automatically in your lead records. Your team can see the full conversation history before jumping in, which means warm handoffs instead of cold calls. The CRM also tracks which Ava is actively working so nothing sits idle and nothing slips through.

Ava is designed to recognize when a conversation needs a human. If a buyer asks something outside Ava's scope, or signals they are ready to talk serious numbers, Ava hands the conversation to your team with a clear notification. The customer is told a team member will follow up shortly. No dropped conversations, no frustrated buyers stuck in a loop with a bot that cannot close.

Setup is straightforward. Ava connects to your existing inventory feed and lead sources, and Get My Auto handles the onboarding. Twins Auto Sales has been running the platform for over three years across five stores, which speaks to how sustainable the setup is at scale. Book a demo to see how quickly it can be running on your own inventory.

Every night your lot is closed, leads are still coming in. Most of them will not wait until Monday. If nobody answers, they move on, and you never know what you lost. Get My Auto gives independent and used car dealers the tools to compete around the clock without adding headcount. Ava works every lead the second it lands, day or night, and the Get My Auto CRM keeps your entire pipeline visible and moving. Twins Auto Sales booked 164 test drives and sold 151 cars this year with Ava working their leads. Your leads are out there tonight. The only question is whether someone answers them. Book a demo and see Ava running on your own inventory.