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August 19, 2026 | Service Drive & Service-to-Sales
Why should you care about your automotive software? Because the right tools don’t just organize your work; they can help dealerships drive significant incremental profit, as demonstrated by Ray Chevrolet.
By pairing their Business Development Center (BDC) with automotiveMastermind, Ray Chevrolet achieved results that place them among top-performing dealerships in Northern Illinois. In fact, this dealership earned General Motors’ Chevrolet Dealer of the Year award in 2025🏆, something fewer than 2% of Chevrolet dealers can claim.
Over a three-year period beginning in July 2023, Ray Chevrolet saw:
Earning the Chevrolet Dealer of the Year award requires near-perfect sales operations. General Motors judges stores on sales retention, overall sales volume, service lane execution, parts, warranty claims, and customer satisfaction.
For Ray Chevrolet, excellence is rooted in family legacy.
“Ray Chevrolet was founded in 1963 by my grandfather, Ray Scarpelli. Today, my father, Ray Jr. (also a 2023 TIME Dealer of Year nominee), and I work to keep the Ray brand at the forefront of our community. We do that by honoring the Ray’s Price Promise™, providing transparent, fair pricing without the forced add-ons that became common during the inventory shortage.”
Before upgrading their technology, Ray Chevrolet faced a common hurdle: sourcing profitable pre-owned inventory without paying exorbitant auction fees. The team also needed a way to better connect sales, service, and the BDC while consistently engaging customers at the right moment with the right offer.
Ray Chevrolet did not just buy software; they transformed their daily behaviors. First, the team deployed automotiveMastermind’s Command Center as their central operational hub. Second, they used automotiveMastermind’s Recall Connect solution to help identify customers with open recalls, support recall completion efforts, and promote vehicle safety while enhancing the customer experience during service visits.
Ray Chevrolet also focused on growing its service customer base and creating more opportunities to acquire inventory directly from local consumers.
“automotiveMastermind’s Service-to-Sales Generator and Recall Connect bring new customers into our service department and help us expand our reach. From there, we have an opportunity to earn their trust, build long-term loyalty, and eventually help them purchase their next new or pre-owned Chevrolet. It’s also a great source of trade-ins, which helps us depend less on wholesale auctions.”
Third, using automotiveMastermind’s Acquire tool, they engaged a highly targeted audience of approximately 3,000 vehicle owners in their AOI that were not in their database. Finally, the Ray Chevrolet team utilized Fritz, Mastermind’s AI sales assistant, to deliver personalized offers that hit inboxes when customers were most likely to be in market.
By integrating these features directly with their existing dealership CRM, Ray Chevrolet created a more streamlined ecosystem that supported stronger BDC performance. They turned their CRM into a live sales dashboard.
The results show that these automotiveMastermind-powered enhancements drove both strong momentum and improved efficiency, to say the least.
From January 2025 to May 2026, Ray Chevrolet saw:
| Operational Metric | Performance Result | Value Delivered |
| Total Attributed Sales | 555 | Attributed to campaigns informed by predictive modeling and customer engagement insights |
| ROI | Average of 12.1x | High-efficiency ROI including trades (7.0x on unit sales) |
| Total Sourced Profit | ~$1 million | Combined profit from vehicle sales and trade-in units |
| Trade-In Profit | ~$720.44K | High-margin used inventory secured below auction cost |
| Sourcing Accuracy | 91% BPS 61+ | 504 of 555 attributed sales involved customers who received higher Behavior Prediction Scores (BPS 61+) based on historical modeling |
The success is particularly noteworthy given the competitive nature of the Chicago-area automotive market.
“automotiveMastermind helps us stay ahead in a highly competitive market by engaging loyal customers with personalized powered by predictive insights and one-to-one marketing.”
Over the three-year period beginning in July 2023, those efforts generated more than $2.12 million in total profit, including $1.31 million in trade-in profit, while producing an average 15.5x ROI and 1,058 attributed vehicle sales.
At Ray Chevrolet, partnership means more than a software subscription. When the dealership celebrated its Dealer of the Year win with a huge team event, they invited their automotiveMastermind Dealer Relationship Manager as a guest. The relationship reflects a shared commitment to customer experience, community engagement, and continuous improvement.
Those values extend well beyond the showroom.
“Protecting and strengthening the Ray brand remains a top priority. That’s why we’re deeply involved in our local community, supporting organizations including the USO of Illinois, Save-A-Pet, Grant Township Food Pantry, Wagging Hearts, and the Spring Grove Fourth of July Festival.”
For Ray Chevrolet, earning Dealer of the Year was not the result of a single campaign or tool. It was the outcome of combining strong family values, community trust, disciplined processes, and technology that helped the team engage customers more effectively at every stage of the car ownership journey.
Modern software for car dealers, such as automotiveMastermind, integrates service drive data with predictive buyer behavior. By using tools like Recall Connect, dealerships can identify customers with open recalls and support timely service outreach. This enables service teams to enhance the customer experience by promoting loyalty, retention, and most importantly, vehicle safety.
Traditional dealership marketing relies on broad, expensive campaigns that generate cold automotive leads. Predictive automotive engagement solutions use advanced algorithms to help prioritize customers with higher Behavior Prediction Scores (BPS), allowing dealerships to focus their car dealership marketing budgets on the top 10% of customers who, based on historical modeling, may be more likely to transact in the near term.
Auto dealership software, such as automotiveMastermind, provides a dedicated sourcing module (Acquire). This tool allows dealerships to target specific local vehicle owners, bypass expensive wholesale auctions, and secure high-margin pre-owned inventory directly from their own market.
