Dealership CRM: One System for the Floor, BDC, Desk and Managers

Every lead, every follow-up and every deal on your board, shared by the sales floor, the BDC, the desk and the manager's office.

A dealership CRM has one job: make sure no buyer falls through the cracks between the first contact and delivery. In practice that job belongs to several people at once. A receptionist answers the phone, a BDC agent books the appointment, a salesperson works the floor, a desk manager pencils the deal and a sales manager watches the whole board. If each of them works from a different tool, the customer gets dropped in the handoff.

That is why an automotive CRM for dealerships has to do five things well, for every seat:

• Capture: every lead from every source lands in one pipeline, with its source attached.
• Contact: anyone can call, text and email from inside the record, and every touch is logged.
• Cadence: follow-up steps and reminders fire on schedule, so the day 3 and day 10 touches happen.
• Close: desking turns the conversation into payment options without walking to the tower.
• Coach: managers see activity and outcomes by salesperson and by source.

LeadLocate CRM does those five things in one login. Franchise stores run it beside the DMS they already own. Independent and used car lots get the same toolset, with or without an inventory feed. Buy here pay here operations desk on a field set built for them, RV and boat dealers use a desking engine that covers RV and marine units, and groups with several rooftops add routing rules per rooftop. If a system does forty other things but buries those five under menus, your people quietly go back to sticky notes.

Here is a Tuesday evening at a busy store. At 7:15 a shopper fills in a form on your website about a certified sedan. The form posts to the store's intake link, the lead lands in the CRM, and the Automated Template for that source sends the first text automatically. Round robin gives the lead to the next rep in line, and a copy goes to the internet sales manager through Manager Lead Copies.

The shopper calls back at 8:40, after hours. The virtual receptionist answers, business hours routing sends the call where you decided, and the voicemail lands on the lead's timeline. At 9:05 the next morning a BDC agent sees it in the lead inbox, calls from the browser phone, and books a Thursday test drive from the rep's booking link. The call is recorded and transcribed, and because the customer said "trade in", Alert Keywords flag it for the manager.

Thursday, the customer walks in and the salesperson marks them In-Store Now. The desk manager opens EZ Desking on the same record, lays out three payment options and sends a SecureWebX apply link by text. The deal page goes to the customer for review and e-signature. Every call, text, email and document sits on one timeline, so nobody asks the customer to repeat themselves.

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Every seat in the store opens the same customer record, but each role spends its day in a different part of the CRM.

Because the record is shared, a handoff comes with no retyped names and no lost notes. The BDC agent's call, the salesperson's texts and the desk's pencil all sit on the same timeline.

Salespeople start on the Workspace: today's appointments, reminders and to-dos, with snooze and bulk clear. The lead inbox autosaves in real time, so a note typed during a call is on the record before the call ends. Each lead holds up to five vehicles of interest plus trade-in lines.

Texting is where behavior changes fastest, because buyers who screen unknown calls still read a short message from a named salesperson. The SMS inbox shows delivery status on every bubble. The vehicle button in every composer attaches a unit from your inventory with photos and price, and several vehicles go out as one text per vehicle, in order. Each rep's own inventory link drops into every inventory template.

On the lot, the LeadLocate app for iPhone and Android carries the same CRM: texting, a VoIP dialer, the calendar, inventory, Quick Schedule and desking. Your LeadLocate CRM overview walks through every screen.

A BDC lives on the phone and the text inbox, and both are built into the CRM. Tracking phone numbers are set per lead source. The browser softphone dials from any record, calls are recorded with a transcript beside the lead, and Forward Calls To rings a list of your own people. An IVR call flow builder and answering service controls cover the front door and the missed calls.

Follow Up Processes run multi step drips per lead type. Scheduled Messages lets an agent write a text, email or voicemail drop now and send it at a chosen time, and the Whole Team View shows the team wide queue to the BDC manager. Voicemail drops carry a short script by topic (new lead, appointment reminder, no show, trade, finance), and every topic has a Spanish twin. A number on the DNC Blacklist is marked "Will not send", and the DNC Blacklist page runs a live do not call lookup on any number.

The BDC software page covers how a dedicated appointment desk runs on the same tools.

Desking is the DealTracker engine, right on the CRM's main menu. EZ Desking builds cash, finance and lease structures with a multi pencil grid and goal seek bays, a 50 state tax matrix, trade credit caps and three lease tax methods. Start New Deal works straight from a lead, so nobody retypes the customer.

The worksheet pushes to SecureWebX when the customer applies for credit, and an application a customer abandoned comes back to the CRM for follow-up. The customer sees a deal page branded to your store, with PIN access, e-signature and deal chat with the salesperson. The Deal Jacket holds the documents, the Road to Sale checklist shows what is left, and print packets come out with payment ranges and a finance breakdown. The desking tool page covers the engine in depth.

A dealership CRM earns its keep in the Monday meeting. Managers need three answers fast: which leads got worked, how quickly, and what happened next. Because every call, text and email is logged against the record, the activity, company and management reports are a readout of what happened rather than a self reported guess. The reports dashboard page shows what each report covers.

Managers also set the rules. Routing works by round robin, distribution lists and rules per rooftop for groups. Custom lead statuses, tags and a lost reason popup keep the pipeline accurate about where each deal stands. User Management gives each person an Access Control card, and a manager checks what they can open. Quality Control Requests let a rep report a bad lead for a replacement review. When a salesperson leaves, switching them off hands their open leads and tasks to a successor, with every note and conversation kept.

From your store we need four things: your users and what each one should be able to open, how calls should ring, the website forms you want connected, and your inventory, from a feed or imported from your own website. Bring your contact list in XLSX, CSV, JSON, ADF or vCard, and Smart Contact Import maps the columns.

Our team handles the rest of the launch with you. The welcome guide and onboarding sequence arrive at sign up, live training is booked from Schedule Training in the top bar, and the video training library is open to every user from the first login. Jax, the bilingual assistant on the dock, answers how-to questions about the CRM's own screens in English or Spanish. The dealership CRM implementation plan lays out the rollout step by step.

The CRM is one product on a larger platform, and one login opens all of it: SecureWebX for credit applications, Inventory Link for your vehicles, DealTracker for desking and deal pages, and My LeadLocate for billing. Exclusive local leads land in the same pipeline as your website and phone leads, delivered to you and only you, prescreened with your questions at capture and backed by a replacement review.

LeadLocate works alongside your DMS. Accounting, payroll, parts and title work stay there, and the CRM handles the customer side. For the feature by feature view of texting, calling and automation, see the car dealer CRM features page, and for the whole product family, the automotive dealership software overview. Comparing a CRM system for car dealerships against others? The CRM buyer guide and scorecard gives you the questions to ask.

Every LeadLocate plan is month to month with no long term contract, and the bill has a few clear parts. The subscription sets which leads you receive, or CRM Only for your own lead sources. Each plan includes a login to start, and more users are an add-on, so the account grows as your team does. Bulk texting, bulk email, ringless voicemail deliveries and phone or email validation run on prepaid usage credits bought in My LeadLocate.

Plans are on the pricing page. For a vendor neutral look at what goes into any CRM quote, read the dealership CRM pricing guide.

What is a dealership CRM?

A dealership CRM is customer relationship software built for selling vehicles. It stores every lead and customer, logs calls, texts and emails, schedules follow-up, and gives managers reporting on activity and outcomes. Automotive CRMs add desking and trade-in tools that generic CRMs lack.

Who in the store uses the CRM?

Everyone who touches a customer. The receptionist and BDC work the phones and texts, salespeople work the lead inbox and the phone app, the desk pencils deals in DealTracker, and managers run reports, routing and user access from the same login.

Does the CRM include texting and calling?

Yes. Two way texting, a browser softphone with recording and transcripts, tracking numbers, call forwarding, a virtual receptionist and voicemail drops are built into the CRM, and every touch is logged on the lead automatically.

How does LeadLocate fit with my DMS?

It works alongside it. LeadLocate runs leads, follow-up, desking and the customer conversation, while your DMS keeps accounting, payroll, parts and title work. An inventory feed and DMS access are optional to start.

Can a dealer group run several rooftops?

Yes. Routing rules work per rooftop, distribution lists send leads to the right team, and Manager Lead Copies give each manager every lead a feed delivers. Reports show activity across the store or by person.

How many users can we add?

Each plan includes a login to start, and more users are an add-on from My LeadLocate. Managers add people themselves while the account has an open license, and each person gets the desktop CRM and the phone app.

What happens to leads when a salesperson leaves?

Switching the user off hands their open leads and tasks to a successor you choose, or marks them on temporary leave. Every note, call and text stays on the record with its original author.

Is there a long term contract?

No. Every plan is month to month. Automatic Renewal is a switch in My LeadLocate, and a cancellation needs 10 days notice before the next billing date.

Watch the demo, then compare plans on the pricing page. Month to month, no long term contract. Questions? Call or text 844-376-2274.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.