How to Use ChatGPT

One of the truths of the auto industry is that people buy stories, and they pay extra for good stories. Selling vehicles is all about crafting engaging stories, but all too often, the story is what dealers neglect the most. One of the biggest pain points in a dealership is writing the descriptions for the vehicles they sell, and the greater the dealership’s volume, the bigger a pain point this becomes.

Usually, this failure is due to a lack of time more than a lack of desire. Luckily, there is a new tool that promises to transform this task for dealerships and streamline the process of writing vehicle descriptions: ChatGPT.

How to Use ChatGPT as a Dealer

With just a few key pieces of information, ChatGPT can be used to write compelling, optimised vehicle descriptions that will connect with customers and help you make more sales. Below is a prompt that you can try for yourself:

“I need you to write vehicle listing comments based on key specs and features that I will provide. These vehicle listing comments should be 100-200 words long and have a light and sales-like tone. Please find the information below.”

If you don’t have an account with ChatGPT, that’s okay! Retain Media has made life even easier with the recent release of their free tool, AutoScribe. AutoScribe is a custom-built chatbot that harnesses the power of ChatGPT, allowing you to generate free vehicle listing comments without ever needing to set up an account. Click here to try AutoScribe for yourself.

The image below shows the description ChatGPT created based on just five pieces of information: the vehicle name, odometer, body type, transmission, and engine type. However, the more information you can provide (including full specs and features), the more detailed and compelling the descriptions will be.

Of course, you’re not just limited to cars – ChatGPT can be used to write vehicle comments and descriptions for anything from boats and caravans to trailers and jet skis. The image below shows the same prompt used to create a description for a caravan listed on a dealer’s website.

When you’re selling big-ticket products like cars and caravans, you’re selling a lifestyle and a dream, and descriptions are one of the key ways you communicate this dream to potential buyers. Now you understand how to use ChatGPT as a dealer, read on for the answers to some of the most popular questions about ChatGPT and an in-depth guide to some of its latest features.

How Does ChatGPT Work?

ChatGPT is a text-based generative AI, with the ‘GPT’ standing for Generative, Pre-trained Transformer. Generative AIs like ChatGPT are built using a large language model (LLM) which involves training the AI on billions of pieces of text data, such as books, websites, Wikipedia pages, social media posts and more.

It is these billions of data points that enable ChatGPT to generate human-like text and responses through natural language processing. When you interact with ChatGPT, it draws on this training data to understand the content and context of your request and produce an accurate response.

Is ChatGPT Free?

ChatGPT was initially free for everyone when it first launched in December 2022. However, there are now three membership tiers: Free, Plus, and Enterprise. The Free tier is completely free but uses an older version of the GPT model, GPT-3.5, which is less advanced and more limited in its features.

The Plus tier costs $ 20 USD a month and uses GPT-4, the latest and most advanced model. Plus also comes with a number of additional features, such as the ability to use image-based and voice-based chat, AI image-generation, and the ability to build custom GPTs to carry out specific functions.

The Enterprise tier is available to large organisations that require enhanced security and privacy features, unlimited GPT-4 access, and advanced analysis capabilities. The Enterprise membership can only be obtained by contacting a member of the OpenAI sales team.

While the free version is perfectly sufficient for anyone wanting to play around with ChatGPT, it is recommended that you upgrade to ChatGPT Plus if you will be using it regularly for business.

What Can I Use ChatGPT For?

Part of what makes ChatGPT so incredible is that there is no definitive answer to this question – there are thousands of ways to use ChatGPT, with more being discovered every day. With that being said, most businesses use ChatGPT to write things like website content, social media posts, product descriptions or meta-data.

However, you are really only limited by your imagination. You could get ChatGPT to write you an advertising jingle or a unique piece of code for your website or even have it create AI images, as we did in the example below. The best thing you can do is spend some time playing around with ChatGPT and learning how it responds to your requests – you’ll be surprised at what it can come up with.

What Are the Main Features of ChatGPT?

As a text-based AI, ChatGPT’s main feature is its ability to generate human-like text and perform text-based functions like language translation. However, since its launch, OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent company) has released a number of updates and new features that make it even more powerful, including:

Internet Browsing

Powered by Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, ChatGPT can now browse the internet to support its responses and answer specific prompts like “Tell me what today’s top news story is”. The addition of internet browsing has filled large gaps in ChatGPT’s knowledge base and reduced the likelihood of it giving you incorrect or inaccurate information.

AI-Generated Imagery

DALL-E is ChatGPT’s image-based counterpart that takes your prompts and turns them into vivid pictures and works of art. DALL-E image generation was added to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise in October 2023 and allows you to create imagery directly in ChatGPT. The image below was created directly in ChatGPT using the following prompt:

“Please create an image of a writer sitting at a desk, feeding this prompt into a giant, computer embodiment of DALL-E, which is fulfilling this prompt on the screen. “

 

 

Custom GPTs

Custom GPTs (also known as just GPTs) are one of the latest updates to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise that allows you to create custom GPTs to perform specific functions. Prior to the introduction of GPTs, most businesses maintained a document or spreadsheet of their most popular prompts in order to get predictable, consistent outputs.

But with GPTs, these prompts can be turned into standalone functions that eliminate the need for extensive prompt libraries and streamline the process of getting your output. The image below shows the GPT builder and preview for Retain Media’s AutoScribe GPT we mentioned earlier, which describes itself like so:

“This GPT is designed to automatically generate vehicle comments for car dealership listings based on provided information. It should produce engaging and informative descriptions that highlight the key features and selling points of each vehicle. The GPT should ensure accuracy, use persuasive language, and cater to the interests of potential car buyers.”

With this custom GPT (which named itself AutoScribe) you can drop in vehicle specs and have AutoScribe write vehicle comments for that listing. For the example below, only the top-line information from the listing was used: make and model, year, odometer reading, body type, transmission, and engine type.

Even with only the bare minimum of information, AutoScribe was able to write detailed and engaging vehicle comments. For a car or caravan dealer, a custom GPT like AutoScribe could save dozens of hours a week and be the difference between a buyer picking up the phone or looking elsewhere – and it only took 5 minutes to make.

How ChatGPT Can Benefit Your Business

The benefits of ChatGPT will vary widely from industry to industry and business to business. However, in our experience, the greatest benefits it offers are increased efficiency and the automation of repetitive tasks.

For some, that might take the form of writing optimised meta-descriptions and meta-titles, while for other businesses, it might be writing social media posts, debugging code, or writing product descriptions. Although its creativity has generated the most headlines, where ChatGPT really excels is when it has clear instructions and guidelines to follow.

Below is the prompt we gave ChatGPT to write a meta-description for this article that ensures it will be optimised for Google in terms of structure and character count.

Prompt: I need you to write a meta description for the article below. The meta-description must have two sentences, be no less than 135 characters (including spaces) and no more than 142 characters (including spaces), mention the brand name (Retain Media) and finish with a unique call to action. The call to action must not include generic phrases such as “read now”, “discover now”, etc.

What Are the Limitations of ChatGPT?

Despite its groundbreaking capabilities, ChatGPT does have limitations that you need to keep in mind while using it. As an AI model trained on pre-existing data, it can sometimes generate outdated or incorrect information, particularly in rapidly evolving fields.

While its language capabilities are impressive, they are rooted in text-based understanding, lacking the nuances of human emotion or complex context. Therefore, while it’s an incredibly powerful tool, it’s not a complete substitute for human judgment and creativity and is best used as an aide rather than a replacement,

How Do I Learn to Use ChatGPT?

While there are endless guides and YouTube walkthroughs out there, the best way to learn to use ChatGPT is just to jump in and use it. Doing this will not only give you the option to experience its possibilities for yourself but also learn its peculiarities and quirks.

Although ChatGPT is an undeniably powerful tool, it can still be temperamental, with the quality of its responses fluctuating from one day to the next. The faster you can get a feel for these fluctuations, the better you’ll be able to navigate them and ensure a consistent result every time.

About the Author:

Retain Media specialises in SEO, PPC and social media for dealers and OEMs. They understand how to reach and influence buyers where and when they are researching a caravan purchase.

If you want to expand your digital footprint, get in touch with one of their team for a free, no-obligation consultation. Read their Insights today for more industry information and tips to improve your digital marketing.