Cartelligent uses AI to connect buyers with sales experts
A car broker service deployed RingCentral AI to analyze incoming caller intent and route buyers to the appropriate team member, which reduces missed sales opportunities.
Despite the proliferation of AI, many enterprises struggle to move projects beyond experimentation and into workflows that influence revenue, customer satisfaction and operational performance. For Cartelligent, that challenge emerged at a critical point in the customer journey: the moment a prospective buyer picked up the phone.
Cartelligent, a California-based concierge auto broker that helps customers buy and lease vehicles without negotiating directly with dealerships, was facing a growing volume of inbound calls. With fewer than 40 employees, the company needed to manage that volume without dedicating additional staff to answer and route calls.
Those calls ranged from qualified buyers and vendors to spam calls and even inquiries outside its service area. The result was a problem familiar to many organizations. High-value customer interactions were competing for attention alongside low-value calls, creating friction for employees and increasing the risk that legitimate opportunities would go unanswered.
"If you're a salesperson and one out of 10 times you answer the phone it's a human being who wants to buy a car, and the other nine times out of 10 it's not, you're going to be severely unmotivated to answer the phone," said Jessica Carstens, vice president of operations at Cartelligent.
To address this issue, Cartelligent deployed RingCentral's AI-powered receptionist and conversation intelligence tools, using AI to understand caller intent, route inquiries to the appropriate employee and provide managers with greater visibility into customer interactions.
When AI moves into customer-facing workflows
Cartelligent's deployment reflects a broader shift happening across enterprise AI initiatives. Rather than focusing exclusively on productivity gains or cost reduction, organizations are increasingly applying AI to improve the flow of customer interactions and ensure employees spend more time on high-value work.
Organizations apply AI to improve the flow of customer interactions and ensure employees spend more time on high-value work.
The company initially relied on a traditional interactive voice response system that required callers to navigate menu options. According to Carstens, that approach offered little flexibility and often failed to distinguish between serious buyers and less relevant inquiries. Instead of relying on menu selections, the AI system introduced a more contextual approach that analyzed caller intent and routed inquiries accordingly.
"We were able to create that logic to qualify those leads better," Carstens said. "Most of the time, it's a high-quality lead who's looking to buy or lease a new car."
The company spent about 30 days testing and refining the system before making it available to customers. During that period, employees intentionally tried to break the workflow, identify unanswered questions and adjust routing logic based on real-world scenarios. According to Carstens, the process required ongoing refinement but did not demand deep technical expertise.
"If you're logical and can take the time to think things through, you can do this," she said. She also said the positive business outcomes were immediate.
Quantifying AI's ROI
Cartelligent reported that nearly 80% of valid leads previously routed to an external answering service during business hours are now reaching the appropriate team member directly. The company also eliminated costly answering-service overage fees while improving employee productivity. Yet, Carstens said the most significant outcome was not operational efficiency.
"The biggest win is we got [customers] on the phone at a time they wanted to be on the phone with us," she said. "We're able to help them find a solution to their problem." The company has expanded its use of AI beyond initial call routing.
Managers use conversation intelligence capabilities to review customer interactions, identify coaching opportunities and evaluate sales performance without manually sorting through large volumes of recordings. The visibility helps managers focus on meaningful interactions while giving employees more targeted feedback. For Carstens, however, the project's broader significance is how AI supports rather than replaces human engagement.
Enhancing the human connection
We're using this AI tool to enhance that human-to-human connection rather than replace it.
Jessica CarstensCartelligent vice president of operations
Cartelligent's business model depends heavily on personal relationships and consultative customer service. While the company could have viewed automation primarily as a cost-cutting exercise, Carstens sees a different role for the technology.
"Our company is specifically all about a human-to-human connection," she said. "We're using this AI tool to enhance that human-to-human connection rather than replace it."
As enterprises continue searching for practical AI deployments that produce measurable results, Cartelligent's experience highlights an emerging reality: Some of the most effective applications of AI may not remove people from customer interactions, but instead ensure customers reach the right people faster.
Moshe Beauford is a writer with more than a decade of experience covering enterprise technology, including AI, unified communications and customer experience.
