The independent audit and revenue layer for automotive retail
Proof of what your dealership actually said and did.
Argus 360 runs mystery shops across voice, text, email, and web form, scores every interaction on two axes, compliance exposure and operational performance, and delivers it as a recurring Report Card. The mystery shop is the input. The Report Card is the product.
Every channel your customers use, scored against the enforcement risk in the state where each store operates.
Two axes, one score
Compliance opens the door. Operations holds it open.
A dealer principal in 2026 opens an email about FTC exposure before anything else in the category. That is the reason to look. Operational performance is the reason to stay, because missed revenue shows up in every rooftop every month, whatever the regulatory weather.
Scored against current enforcement
Every interaction is graded against the FTC's flagged practices and the state rules that apply where the shop ran. The Report Card leads with an exposure figure a principal reads the way they read a settlement number, with the specific rule named on every finding.
The revenue leaks you can measure
Hold times, lead response, qualification quality, and follow-up cadence are quantifiable gaps in every store. Operations carries a lost-gross figure, widens the audit past the principal to the GM, the BDC, and fixed ops, and gives every department head a reason to read the report.
How the audit works
We run the mystery shops. You get a scored Report Card.
Four steps run on a monthly cadence. Nothing about the dealership has to be instrumented, and nobody on the floor knows the shop is a shop.
Shop
Controlled test interactions go out across voice, text, email, and web form, in states where one-party consent applies.
Capture
Each interaction is recorded and transcribed, then written to a sealed, write-once record at the moment of capture.
Score
The engine grades every interaction against the compliance rubric and the operational standards, department by department.
Report
Findings post to the dashboard and roll up into a monthly Report Card, each one linked to the evidence behind it.
The Report Card
One document a principal can read in twelve minutes.
The Report Card opens with the Trust Score and the two pillar figures, names the three findings that matter, and shows the trend since the first audit. The detail and the evidence sit behind it.
Evidence, not opinion
Every finding ties to the recording and the line that triggered it.
Argus 360 is a witness with documentation. Findings are stated in plain language, the rule is cited, and nothing is paraphrased. Open any item to hear the call and read the transcript line that broke the rule.
Free field brief
The 2026 Compliance Exposure Brief.
Seven pages on the enforcement wave hitting dealerships right now: the Lindsay settlement, the 97 warning letters, the $53,088 penalty math, and a one-page checklist to pressure-test your own stores before someone else does.
- The four named actions every principal should know
- What a violation actually costs, line by line
- A checklist your GM can run this week
The deals your floor missed, worked back to warm.
The audit already finds the lead that went to voicemail and the internet lead that sat for two days. Sales recovery acts on those findings: it runs the patient follow-up your staff skip when the floor gets busy, in your dealership's own voice, then hands a warm buyer to your salesperson.
One number across every group you oversee.
The rooftop view is one store at a time. The enterprise view sits above it: brand standards scored against your own rubric, a rollup across every group in the network, white-label reporting, and an API into all of it for OEMs and holding companies.
Built by people who have run the floor
An audit only helps if the store trusts it.
Argus 360 comes from AI Assist, a team that has spent years running dealerships rather than watching them from the outside. That is what shapes the product. The methodology is published, every report goes to the dealer principal first, and the standard is a thorough field audit, never a gotcha.
Published rubric
Dealers see exactly what is measured and how. No black box, and findings you can check against the standard.
Independent methodology
Reports go to the dealer principal first. The audit surfaces the evidence. The principal draws the conclusion.
Respectful by design
F&I leaders are professionals. The tone is a thorough field audit, never a gotcha. We document, attorneys advise.
See your store the way a regulator would.
Argus 360 is forming its design partner program now, with rooftops confirmed through the network behind AI Assist. Ask for a walkthrough of the dashboard, the evidence, and a sample Report Card.