Customer snapshot

• Ryan Carlstedt, EVP of Fixed Operations at Willis Automotive Group in Des Moines, Iowa, oversees service, parts, collision, detail, and BDC operations across nine brands and three campuses. More than 300 of the group's roughly 500 employees work on his side of the business.

• Before Numa, Willis relied on a $150-a-month texting tool with no call reporting and no manager visibility, and an earlier AI phone system was canceled after customers kept asking it to "just put me to a human."

• The team met Numa at NADA in New Orleans, decided it was "way better than anything we've ever had," and launched it across every store at once.

• In 2025, Willis finished above national CSI averages on seven or eight of its nine brands, up from four or five the year before, and the word "communication" disappeared from negative survey verbatims. Customer-pay labor sales grew 8% year over year in Q1 2026.

• With Numa, Monday mornings in the BDC went from 100 voicemails to "just another day," managers walk into escalations with the full call transcript in hand, and advisors turn technician notes into customer-ready talking points with "help me sell the job."

Ryan Carlstedt started in the car business 25 years ago as a service advisor. Today, as Executive Vice President of Fixed Operations at Willis Automotive Group in Des Moines, Iowa, everything on the fixed ops side rolls up to him: service, parts, collision, detail, and the BDC across nine service departments representing Cadillac, Lexus, Infiniti, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar, Mini, Chevrolet, and Nissan. Of the group's roughly 500 employees, more than 300 work in fixed operations.

Carlstedt keeps a strict schedule of weekly one-on-ones with every manager, and splits his week across Willis's three campuses so he stays present in every store. He describes his job simply: talk to people and make decisions. He is also a culture-first operator. His "Make Work Fun Again" theme helped power the group to its best CSI year in history in 2025, a run that landed him on Car Dealership Guy's Daily Dealer Live.

Before any of that was possible, though, Willis had to fix how it communicated with guests. The first two attempts fell short.

"No Reporting, No Visibility": Life With a $150 Texting Tool

Six or seven years ago, Willis knew its customers wanted to text. The group's inspection software could send a link a customer might click to approve work, but it couldn't hold a conversation. So Willis bought a standalone texting platform, chosen in part because it was cheap.

"We bought a texting tool and it was cheap. It was like $150 a month for all of our stores total. And it worked, but there wasn't any call reporting. There wasn't any visibility to it. My advisor could be having a text conversation with somebody and I have no idea what's going on in that conversation. I don't even think I could log in and look up a conversation. It was almost like they were just using their own personal cell phone to do the texting."

For a leader responsible for nine service departments, that lack of visibility was a serious problem. Advisors could text, but managers had no way to see response times, overdue conversations, or what was actually being said to guests.

"Just Put Me to a Human": An Early Bet on AI That Didn't Pay Off

Texting was only half the problem. Willis also wanted help with the phones, so the team piloted an AI phone system at its standalone Nissan store, one that would answer calls in place of voicemail.

"You could listen to the recordings and you could just tell that people were not ready for tech. The number of times that the transcript just showed 'just put me to a human' or whatever was on there, it did not work. So we canceled that."

Willis walked away unsure whether the technology or the market was to blame. Either way, the group dropped AI, went back to plain texting, and waited.

Meeting Numa at NADA and Launching Every Store at Once

Then the team found Numa at NADA in New Orleans.

"We said, this is way better than anything we've ever had. Let's give it a shot. We launched it across all the stores and it just took off from there. The program speaks for itself. It does everything it says it's going to do."

There was no single-store pilot this time. Numa replaced the texting platform across the entire group and took over the phones after hours. When a guest calls and no one can pick up, Numa's AI directs them to the online scheduler or turns the call into a text conversation instead of sending them to voicemail. And this time, Carlstedt can see all of it.

"The biggest impact Numa has had for us is the ease of communication with our guests, and the visibility. We've had texting platforms in the past, but never one before Numa where I could jump in and just see: I have three conversations that are overdue, one that's two hours old, and one that's an hour old."

The Best CSI Year in Willis History

Nine brands means nine OEM scorecards. Willis closed out 2025 with the best CSI scores in the group's history, and Carlstedt can trace the climb year over year.

"CSI in 2024 across nine brands, I think we exceeded national average on four or five, maybe. And then last year, I think we finished on seven or eight over. When you read through the customer comments, the verbatim comments on the survey, the word communication came up so much. Now, if we get a bad survey, it's 'my car's junk' or 'it costs more than I thought it was going to cost.' Legitimate concerns. We just don't see 'you guys are awful at communicating.' And I give credit to Numa for that."

Carlstedt pays as much attention to what disappeared from the surveys. The word "communication" no longer shows up in negative verbatims. Bad surveys now center on the repair itself, concerns his team can acknowledge and address directly.

Mondays Without the Dread

Willis closes Saturday afternoon and stays closed on Sunday, but customers' cars break down on weekends anyway. For years, the group's BDC absorbed that backlog every Monday morning.

"Our BDC agents used to lose sleep on Sunday nights, because they knew coming in on Monday it was going to be a mess. Cars are still breaking, and when your car breaks, you call the dealership. So they would come in on a Monday morning and have a hundred voicemails that they had to figure out how to work through that day on top of their normal daily workload. It was always the worst and most stressful day. But now with Numa, we're directing them to the scheduler or turning it into a text message conversation. I would love to look back and see how many of them called in sick on Mondays when they weren't sick. Now Monday is just another day."

The change shows up in the mood of the department, too. Carlstedt walks over to visit the BDC every Wednesday afternoon.

"Five years ago, when I'd visit our BDC, it was just a downer. You'd walk in and you could feel the tension. Now when I go in there, they're having a good time, they're lighthearted, they're in happy moods. The stress relief that Numa has given them has changed that whole culture without even our doing. We just put it in place, walked away, and it makes their lives that much easier. That stress just goes away on its own."

"Help Me Sell the Job" and an 8% Lift in Customer-Pay Labor

Numa's role continues once the car is in the shop. When technicians recommend work, Willis advisors use Numa's "help me sell the job" feature to translate technical notes into talking points a guest can understand.

"I can take a service advisor that might not be the most mechanically inclined person, punch in the technician notes that are very mechanically inclined, and AI can say, okay, use these talking points when you're calling that person. You're not picking up the phone and just trying to stumble your way through it. Some service advisors don't understand all the ins and outs of how the 6.2 liter V8 Chevy engine works. But when you type those technical notes in, Numa gives you talking points in layman's terms and talks about the why."

Advisors still pick up the phone for big jobs, since tone and empathy don't come through in a text message, but they make those calls prepared. Carlstedt admits he doesn't track how often his team clicks the button. The number he trends is customer pay.

"What I look at is customer pay sales and I trend it. If I just look at Q1 2026 versus Q1 2025, my total labor sales, just service departments, we're up 8% year over year on customer pay labor sales. Whether it's multi-point video inspections, whether it's the help me sell button, I don't know where it comes from other than AI and other things are just helping us get better at our jobs. And that shows up on the bottom line."

Across all nine service departments, Willis grew customer-pay labor sales 8% year over year, Q1 2026 versus Q1 2025.

From Phone Tool to Management System

Numa also senses tension in a caller's voice or a text thread and escalates the conversation to managers right away. Combined with searchable transcripts, that gives Carlstedt a way to investigate a problem before he responds to it. He tells a story from one recent morning:

"A customer left a voicemail saying 'I need a call back from management right away.' I don't like to be blindsided. So I jump in our system and look for a vehicle under that person's name or telephone number, and I can't find one. I typed their telephone number into Numa and I saw that they had called and talked to a service advisor. I could see the transcript of the phone call. I could see which store they called. I had a lot more to stand on before I was able to call them back. For lack of a better term, ammunition."

One search in Numa gave him the transcript, the store, and the advisor involved before he ever returned the call.

"Thank You to a Computer"

Carlstedt once concluded his market wasn't ready for AI on the phones. A recording played at a recent 20 Group meeting showed him how much has changed. Another dealer group in the room also runs Numa, and they brought one of their customer calls to share.

"You could tell the customer on the phone didn't want to talk to a computer at first. Their answers were short and you could sense they were annoyed. But when it started to repeat back that they want to bring it in for an oil change, tire rotation, and a weird exhaust noise that happens when they're on the throttle, you could tell that customer gained trust. By the end of the phone call, they said 'yes, ma'am' and 'thank you very much.' You had somebody that within 45 seconds went from 'this is annoying' to thanking it."

It was the same kind of Midwest market Carlstedt had written off five years earlier. And when dealers argue their customers are too old for texting and AI, he points to his own father.

"My dad is 78 years old. I text with him daily. I don't buy it that old people don't embrace or use the technology. It is the easiest way to communicate. Some people still want you to pick up the phone, and that's fine. But I'm busy, I'm in meetings. I can get a text message and respond when I get to it. Time is money and everybody appreciates the ease of communication."

"I Really Do Consider It a Partnership"

After rolling Numa out across nine service departments, Carlstedt says the working relationship matters as much as the product.

"We have a very open line of communication with Numa, and when things come up, I'm very quick to send them off. It's just been a great partnership. I really do consider it a partnership. You're not just another vendor. You guys are there to help. You pick up the phone when we call and it really works out well."

He is also direct about what AI means for the people on his team. "AI is going to make us better at our jobs. It's not going to replace our jobs," he says. "It made us so much better last year at taking care of our guests." Carlstedt sums up the results simply:

"All these tools make our lives easier, and they make us better at our jobs. Making our lives easier, that's what makes our culture great. Making us better at our jobs, that's what makes our profitability great."