How can Cars.com benefit from NLP?

Cars.com is one of the largest online car marketplaces, with an average of 27.7 million unique visitors per month in 2023, according to data from Statista. 

The website features cars for sale from a wide range of manufacturers from Acura to Volvo and everything in between. 

With such a wide selection of vehicles available, some users might struggle to find the right vehicle for them. That’s where NLP could come in.

What is NLP?

Natural language processing (NLP) is a machine learning technology that allows computers to interpret and understand human language. The technology already has widespread adoption in many industries, such as within search engines and for virtual assistants.

How could Cars.com use NLP?

Whilst some car buyers have very specific preferences, others will have broader requirements for their next vehicle, such as budget and size. For these buyers, the sheer quantity of cars available on the market could be daunting. Knowing your RAV4’s from your CR-V’s isn’t straightforward.

That’s where a car suggesting chatbot could come into play.

Advanced chatbots can be trained to understand requests and preferences, as well as constraints such as budgets and distance the buyer is willing to travel. Once trained, a car suggesting chatbot could answer queries such as:

“Suggest me a 7 seater SUV for less than $20,000”

Or 

“What car should I buy if I want a fun but economical coupe”

Does Cars.com already use AI?

Yes, cars.com has a ‘Matchmaking Experience’ that uses proprietary machine-learning algorithms to make personalized car recommendations based on a users’ lifestyle preferences. 

Users share their responses to up to 15 different lifestyle questions, and are then presented with up to 20 recommended matches. In a style similar to dating apps such as Tinder, users are then invited to like or dislike the recommendations offered.

This is a fantastic use of sentiment analysis, as it helps to personalize the car buying experience. 

By incorporating an NLP chatbot solution, cars.com could further personalize this experience as it will allow recommendations to be tailored to the requirements of the user, rather than the generic 15 lifestyle questions that will provide filtered, rather than personalized suggestions.

Has their adoption of AI been successful?

An early pilot of the Matchmaking Experience saw a 225% increase in email leads and two times the number of page views per visitor compared to the more traditional search experience, according to their own research.

The chief marketing office of cars.com Brooke Skinner Ricketts attributed this success to “rekindling the emotional connection that sometimes gets lost between the dream and the drive, and we’re injecting fun back into car shopping."

NLP is allowing for true personalization, by bridging the gap between human communication and computer understanding. 

If your organization is exploring ways to benefit from NLP, contact the NetGeist team. We’re experts in the utilization of NLP, having helped organizations across the world to incorporate this technology into their operations. Explore NetGeist today!