Spot AI helped Don Franklin secure their locations, recover stolen vehicles, and service cars more quickly in an Auto Group that spans 30 locations in Kentucky. They’ve seen a 60% increase in camera utilization across all departments because “the system allows the current surveillance system to become a useful analytical tool, on top of the benefit of its ease-of-use features,” according to IT Director Josh Bowlin.
Challenge 1: Six $130K cars stolen
One location had six Hellcat Challengers stolen from a showroom floor at night by an organized group of thieves. Each vehicle was worth $130K. There are many different kinds of loss at retailers and automotive retailers, however this is one of the most brazen examples.
Solution 1: Instantly share videos with authorities
Dealership leadership was instantly able to pull up videos of the incident remotely, provide historical and live footage to police, and recover assets in a critical time window after the theft. Instant, full video context enabled dealership execs and law enforcement to address this incident as effectively as possible.
“Within four minutes of the alarm going off, I was able to have the video footage of the incident on the responding officers' cell phones. We had five recoveries within the hour. It is that easy, really.”
Josh Bowlin, IT Director for the Don Franklin Family of Dealerships
Challenge 2: Finding historical footage
Don Franklin had to manually watch hours of footage to find incidents, like a broken windshield over the weekend. This previously took a huge amount of time for the HR department and others.
Solution 2: AI search
With Spot AI, Don Franklin is able to streamline the search for videos. An intuitive YouTube-like dashboard, scrubbable thumbnails, and AI filtering allow users to find and share clips in minutes, not hours. This saves Don Franklin's HR department saves between 10 and 15 hours per week on average.
Don Franklin also gets notifications whenever a camera is offline, allowing the IT department to take a proactive approach to system maintenance and make sure everything is recording when it counts. Proactive camera health monitoring, an easy to use camera health interface, and the world-class Spot AI support team have saved the IT department five hours a week on system management alone.
“Sometimes, we roll into a dealership on a Monday morning and find a busted windshield on a car. Before Spot, we had to watch that entire weekend’s worth of footage, but with Spot, we can find it in seconds.”
Josh Bowlin, IT Director for the Don Franklin Family of Dealerships
Challenge 3: Service center inefficiencies
The Fixed Operations Director wanted to understand why one dealership could do 30 oil changes a day and another could only do 20.
Solution 3: Spot AI intelligence dashboards
Spot AI allowed the Fixed Operations Director to monitor processes in real time and gain insights using video walls and AI-powered dashboards. He can now understand why certain dealerships are outperforming others, use footage as a training tool, and ultimately improve mechanic effectiveness across locations.
“My fixed operations director can monitor the processes in real time and let the Spot system give valuable analytics to help him make improvements. At the end of the week, that might add up to another $5,000 or $10,000 worth of income per site.”
Josh Bowlin, IT Manager for the Don Franklin Family of Dealerships
Conclusion
Don Franklin Automotive Group has leveraged Spot AI to streamline video search and increase operational efficiency. Spot AI has saved well over $1M in assets and substantial time for the HR, IT, and Operations. To learn more about how Spot AI improved safety, security, and operations across industries, watch the webinar.
