Kenect empowers automotive dealerships to deliver exceptional customer experiences through seamless communication and engagement. Its AI-powered platform helps dealerships capture more revenue and build stronger reputations by streamlining text messaging, automating review generation, simplifying payments, and optimizing service lane operations.
Software
51-200
NA
As Kenect scaled through acquisitions and evolved from a reputation management company into a comprehensive AI-powered customer experience platform for automotive dealerships, they faced a critical challenge: Feedback was disappearing into “the black hole nature of feedback tools.” With new product leadership pushing for data-driven decisions, the team lacked visibility into user behavior and struggled to guide customers through increasingly complex features.
Kenect implemented Pendo, taking a gradual quarterly approach to deepen adoption and work Pendo into daily motions. The team got creative with Pendo guides, building an automated paywall solution that integrates with Salesforce to manage payment-delinquent customers without manual intervention.
Pendo fundamentally transformed how Kenect builds products. Beyond cultural transformation, Kenect automated critical business processes, accelerated feature adoption, and created a systematic approach that closes the customer feedback loop in real-time rather than letting insights disappear.
Digital transformation cuts across all industries. Kenect started as a reputation management platform for specialty dealerships: boats, powersports, and other non-automotive businesses. Their early innovation was text-enabling dealerships’ main phone numbers. “The pitch was, it’s the same number that’s been on your building for generations. Now we’re going to text-enable it and bring you into the modern world,” explains Jessie McCarron, head of product design.
Through strategic acquisitions over the past 18 months, Kenect expanded into the automotive space and evolved into a customer experience platform with AI-driven solutions, including AI client service reps. “The service lane is really where dealerships make their money,” McCarron notes. “They miss a lot of phone calls, and so by having AI enabled there, they catch a lot more of that revenue.”
The arrival of new leadership brought focus to a fundamental question: “How can we be more data-driven, and what tools do we need?” The team was making decisions based on intuition rather than data. They also struggled with what McCarron calls “the black hole nature of feedback tools”: Customer feedback was being collected but not acted upon. Meanwhile, the finance team needed solutions for managing customers with payment issues without manual intervention.
When evaluating tools, Pendo emerged as the clear choice. “I had used Pendo years ago and said we should look at it,” McCarron recalls. “Scott also had experience with Pendo, as well as some of the new product managers. That’s how it started.”
Rather than implementing everything at once, Kenect took a measured approach. “We’re still gradually adopting. Each quarter, I have a different goal for how we continue to deepen our adoption with Pendo,” McCarron explains.
For McCarron, Pendo became woven into daily work. “I start my day in Pendo. One of the first things I do is look at our analytics, and I look at the feedback that's come in.” This daily practice helps the team stay continuously connected to how users are actually experiencing the product.
"I start my day in Pendo. One of the first things I do is look at our analytics, and I look at the feedback that's come in."
— Jessie McCarron, Head of Product Design, Kenect
Using Pendo Listen, Kenect created a system where customer NPS feedback no longer disappears. “The voice of the customer program, and how we're driving that, is huge," McCarron emphasizes. “It’s one of the things that time and time again our CPO brings up as a success that has happened around the change to this tooling.”
Kenect also discovered innovative uses for Pendo guides. When the finance team needed to automate payment gating, McCarron built a creative solution. “We have customers that will be delinquent on payments, and historically we've had CX folks in charge of turning that experience off for them,” he explains.
The team built a Salesforce integration where a payment flag triggers a Pendo guide, essentially an automated paywall. “We basically just built a segment out of Salesforce, so when that flag exists in Salesforce, the end user gets the guide notifying them that they can't interact with the product until they make their payment.”
This freed up customer experience staff to focus on actual customer conversations rather than manually toggling access on and off. The finance team specifically requested the feature, showing how Pendo's value extended beyond the product org.
When McCarron talks about Pendo's impact, he consistently returns to how his Chief Product Officer describes the transformation: “The way that he talks about it is: ‘It's changed the DNA of our team.’”
"Pendo helped us alter the DNA of how Kenect views, tracks, and adjusts based on the actual customer behaviors and feedback. With more organized and consolidated inputs, we can make better decisions for our roadmap.”
Michael Swan, VP Product Management, Kenect
The shift from assumption-based to data-driven product development has fundamentally altered how the entire product organization operates. By making feedback review part of the daily routine, McCarron and his team ensure that customer voice is present in every conversation, every decision, every prioritization discussion. This real-time integration means the team can spot trends early and respond to emerging issues quickly.
The quarterly adoption goals have created a trajectory of continuous improvement. With each passing quarter, the team finds new ways to leverage Pendo, new insights to uncover, and new processes to optimize.
As McCarron reflects on the journey, Pendo has become more than just another piece of software. “I start my day in Pendo” isn't just about checking metrics; it's about being the kind of product leader who stays grounded in user reality rather than assumptions.
