Much of what we read about Kenect on G2 is praise: reviewers like its ease of use, its easy setup and texting with photos and video; complaints we read include glitches, lockouts and support response across time zones. Kenect says it is a dealership platform for AI phone agents, business texting, reputation management and customer engagement. Lokam is a post-visit follow-up program: your store calls customers the day after the RO closes, using Lokam's AI assistant. Some stores may run both.
What is Kenect used for?
If your picture of Kenect is "the texting and reviews tool," it is out of date. This is what the platform covers today, in its own words where it matters.
- Texting and conversational AI. Kenect says customers can be reached "through text, email, phone calls, and campaigns—all powered by conversational AI," and puts that at "24/7/365". Business texting is one of the four things Kenect leads with.
- An inbound AI voice agent. Kenect says its "AI Voice Agent answers calls 24/7, schedules service appointments, answers common questions". Kenect also says Voice AI can "set appointments and push them to the calendar".
- Handoff to a person. In Kenect's own demo recordings, the AI agent transfers a caller to a service adviser when it can't answer a diagnostic question.
- Review requests by text. Kenect says that based on "Events" or other triggers in the DMS, it sends a review request text message, and it can also send requests to an uploaded list.
- Text-to-pay. Kenect says you can "collect sales and service payments instantly via text".
- Recall outreach. Kenect says its engagement AI can "reach affected customers quickly with targeted recall text campaigns".
- DMS and connections. Kenect's integrations page lists CDK Drive, CDK eLead, Dealertrack, Tekion, PBS, DealerSocket and VinSolutions, among others.
Takeaway
Mark each item keep, add or skip against the tools your store pays for today, and bring the marked list to the demo.
Is Kenect a voice AI company now?
For inbound calls, yes. Trade press reported in September 2025 that Kenect launched Voice AI as a virtual receptionist "available 24/7 to handle inbound calls". Kenect's own FAQ says its "Voice AI and receptionist tools handle inbound calls, answer routine dealership questions".
Kenect's Voice AI page and FAQ describe inbound calls. Its home page says customers can be reached through phone calls and campaigns powered by conversational AI, without saying whether the AI places outbound calls. If outbound phone outreach matters to your store, put that question on your vendor list.
Takeaway
Get the outbound answer in writing before your next vendor meeting, so you know who places your store's calls.
What users say about Kenect
We read the Kenect reviews G2 showed on 29 Oct 2026. Much of what we read is praise. These are the themes, in reviewers' own words.
What reviewers like
- Ease of use. A technician who handles repair orders in Kenect wrote that "As a technician, I find the interface intuitive and straightforward". A service coordinator wrote, "I really appreciate how easy the UI/UX is to use" (G2 marks that review incentivized, from a seller invite).
- Setup. Another reviewer wrote that "The initial setup was surprisingly easy", and called Kenect's support top-notch in the same review.
- Texting with photos and video. A service manager wrote that "One of my favorite features is the ability to send photos and videos through text". G2 marks that review incentivized, from a seller invite, and it describes machine repairs, so the reviewer may not work in car retail.
- Access control. A marketing coordinator, in a review from November 2022 titled "Dealership Must!", wrote, "I'm a big fan of the user access levels".
What reviewers flag
- Glitches. The same service coordinator who praised the interface wrote that "the system can be glitchy and doesn’t always update properly".
- lockouts. The technician wrote, "Sometimes I get locked out of an RO (Repair Order) unexpectedly," and added that unlocking it is relatively easy but takes extra steps.
- Support across time zones. The reviewer who praised setup and support also wrote that "support usually cannot get to us right away out on the eastern timezone".
Read those reviews with some context. G2 labels several of the recent Kenect reviews as incentivized and collected through a seller invite, and some reviewers work outside car retail, in industries G2 lists as retail, insurance and farming. That doesn't make the reviews wrong. It gives you things to test in your own demo: texting photos from the drive, whether the system updates reliably, and who answers support when your store opens.
Takeaway
Ask to see each test item on your own during the demo.
Kenect vs Podium vs Lokam
If Podium is also on your shortlist, its own pages and Kenect's overlap heavily, and Lokam sits beside both of them rather than between them.
How to read it: each row is a job, and each cell is what that vendor says it does, from its own pages.
| Kenect | Podium | Lokam | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inbound phone calls | AI Voice Agent "answers calls 24/7, schedules service appointments"; inbound stated | Voice AI and Service AI "answer every inbound service call 24/7" | Not an inbound answering bot |
| Texting and payments | Texting across channels; text-to-pay for sales and service | Service outreach "runs a real text conversation" | One short text to customers your store can't reach when it calls using Lokam's AI assistant, asking how the visit went |
| Service outreach | Recall text campaigns | Texts customers who are overdue, lapsed or never booked, from data | Your store's follow-up calls, made with Lokam's AI assistant: service customers the day after the closes and unsold showroom visitors |
| DMS links | CDK Drive, Dealertrack, Tekion, PBS and others listed | Lists CDK Global, Reynolds & Reynolds, Tekion, Dealertrack, PBS | Unsold-visit records from VinSolutions; closed ROs from your DMS, usually through a data integration provider; tell us your DMS and we'll confirm |
| Pricing | Not published; demo request | Not published; plans are quoted | Ask in the demo |
What it tells you: Kenect and Podium fill the same rows, and Lokam's column is about the customer after the visit.
Read the top of the table and the two look like close cousins. Both answer inbound service calls with AI and book the appointment. Both send review requests by text. Both list CDK, Dealertrack, Tekion and PBS among their integrations.
On their own pages, the differences are narrow. Kenect puts text-to-pay on its own product page. Podium describes its service outreach as DMS-triggered texting to overdue and lapsed customers. If you are choosing between them, the deciding questions are usually your DMS, your 's habits and what you see in the demo.
Lokam's column covers what happens after the customer has paid and driven away. It does not answer your phones, run your texting threads or collect payments.
Takeaway
Bring your DMS name and last week's missed calls to both demos.
Who owns what in your store
The part that decides whether any of it works is who owns each conversation on a Tuesday afternoon.
How to read it: a default split for a store running a texting platform and post-visit follow-up.
| Conversation | Usually owned by | What "owned" means |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound calls (including the ones AI answers) | or service scheduling lead | Reviews handoffs daily, fixes bad bookings, tunes the call scripts |
| Texting threads with service customers | Advisor on the | Replies within the advisor's shift; nothing sits overnight |
| Payment requests by text | Advisor, with cashier backup | Sends the request at close-out, chases the unpaid ones |
| Review requests | Marketing or the 's office | Sets the rules once, sends to every customer or none |
| Post-visit follow-up and escalations | Service manager | Reads every unhappy customer flag, calls back or assigns it, closes the loop |
What it tells you: each conversation has a named role, and the unhappy customer sits with the service manager.
Don't let post-visit follow-up land with the advisor who wrote the RO. The customer who is unhappy with that advisor needs someone else to talk to.
Settle the practical calling rules before go-live: call within your store's calling hours, check your store's do-not-call list before dialing, and text only customers who agreed to texts. Which customers your store may call, and how, is a question for your store's own counsel.
Takeaway
Write a name in each row at your next meeting, and a complaint on Tuesday afternoon has a known owner.
When to choose Kenect
Kenect is a sound choice for a lot of stores, and if you already run it well, there may be no reason to change.
Choose Kenect when:
- You want texting, payments and review requests in one thread. Kenect says it sends review request texts from events and collects sales and service payments by text. For an advisor, having the conversation, the payment link and the review request in the same thread is a real convenience.
- Your gap is the phone after hours. If customers call at 7 p.m. to book an oil change and get voicemail, Kenect says its AI Voice Agent answers calls 24/7 and schedules service appointments. That solves an inbound problem directly.
- You are a store looking at managed reputation. Kenect says GM dealers can receive co-op reimbursement for managed reputation services through GM's iMR program. Check the current terms with your GM rep, since this is specific to GM.
- You want one vendor for sales and service texting. Kenect says it covers phone agents, texting, reputation and engagement for dealerships, so the sales floor and the service drive can work from the same system.
If those are your problems, Kenect speaks to them directly, and nothing on this page should talk you out of it.
Takeaway
If after-hours calls are your gap, ask Kenect to show an evening service booking from call to DMS calendar in the demo.
When to add Lokam, or run both
Ask your service manager how the store finds out a visit went badly, once the customer has paid and left.
If the honest answer is "we usually don't, unless the customer complains," your phones and texting threads may be fine. The gap sits in the days after the visit, when the customer is irritated about the loaner that wasn't ready or the noise that's still there, and nobody at the store knows yet.
That's when post-visit follow-up next to the tools you already have is worth a look. Your store's follow-up calls, made with Lokam's AI assistant, start the day after the closes, next to whatever answers your phones and runs your texts. On each call, Lokam's AI assistant asks how the visit went and flags unhappy customers from what they say. After the call, the people on your store's escalation list get the customer, a short summary and the main issue, so a person can step in. Whether it is worth it for your store is a question to settle in a demo with your own numbers.
Takeaway
Ask your service manager this week, and you'll know whether your follow-up gap sits after the visit.
Where Lokam fits
Next-day feedback that shows you exactly what to fix for customer satisfaction. Lokam is post-visit follow-up for US dealerships. When a customer on the call wants to talk to someone, the AI assistant passes the request to your team, who call back. Service follow-up and unsold-visit follow-up can be used separately or together.
See the facts about Lokam.
FAQ
Does Kenect have AI voice?
Yes. Kenect says its AI Voice Agent answers calls 24/7, schedules service appointments and answers common questions, and trade press reported the Voice AI launch in September 2025.
Does Kenect make outbound calls?
Kenect's FAQ describes its Voice AI and receptionist tools as handling inbound calls. Its home page says customers can be reached through phone calls and campaigns powered by conversational AI, without saying whether the AI places outbound calls. Ask about outbound in the demo, and get the answer in writing if it matters to your store.
Kenect vs Podium: what's the difference?
On their own pages, they overlap: both answer inbound service calls with AI, both send review requests by text, and neither publishes pricing. Kenect puts text-to-pay up front; Podium describes -triggered texting to overdue and lapsed service customers. See the table above, then let the demo decide.
Which DMS and tools do Kenect and Lokam work with?
Kenect's integrations page lists DMS and CRM tools including CDK Drive, Dealertrack, Tekion, PBS and DealerSocket. Lokam reads unsold-visit records from VinSolutions, and reads closed repair orders from your DMS, usually through a data integration provider; tell us your DMS and we'll confirm.
How much does Kenect cost?
Kenect doesn't publish pricing; its pages point you to a demo. Ask for a written quote per rooftop.
What are the alternatives to Kenect?
Podium covers much of the same ground on its own pages: inbound voice AI for service calls and DMS-triggered service texting. For follow-up after the visit, see how Lokam compares in the pages below.
You may also want: Lokam vs Podium · Lokam vs Matador · what to do about bad Google reviews in the service department
Before you go
What you can do with this
- Test the reviewers' complaints in your own demo.
- Know before you sign who places your outbound calls.
- Give each complaint an owner, so it doesn't sit between desks.
Where Lokam helps
- Cut churn at the source: fix the problems before customers leave.
- Free your team from the follow-up list: they call back the customers who need it.
- Peace of mind: see each call and which issues are still open.
Sources
- https://kenect.com/solution/automotive (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/faq (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/product/voice-ai (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/voicecall-showroom (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://www.autoremarketing.com/?p=79764 (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/product/customer-engagement-ai (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/ (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/product/mass-reviews (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/integrations (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://kenect.com/webinars/your-reputation-managed-a-new-solution-for-gm-dealers (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- https://www.kenect.com/product/text-to-pay (retrieved 27 Oct 2026)
- G2, Kenect reviews, https://www.g2.com/products/kenect/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons (retrieved 29 Oct 2026)
- G2, Kenect review, https://www.g2.com/products/kenect/reviews/kenect-review-7408939 (retrieved 29 Oct 2026)
- https://automotive.podium.com/solutions/service (retrieved 22 Oct 2026)
- https://automotive.podium.com/plans (retrieved 22 Oct 2026)
- https://www.podium.com/pricing/ (retrieved 22 Oct 2026)
- https://automotive.podium.com/resources/faq (retrieved 22 Oct 2026)