Call Forwarding and Ring Lists for Dealership Lines

A customer dials the number on your ad. Which phones ring, in what order, and what happens when nobody picks up is the whole difference between a lead and a missed call. LeadLocate CRM decides it from one list.

A tracking number is only useful if a person answers it. Call forwarding is the rule that says which people. In LeadLocate CRM that rule is a list called Forward Calls To, made up of the phone numbers of the dealership's own users, and every inbound call on the store's tracking number rings that list. The call is logged, recorded, and tied to the lead the caller belongs to, whether it is answered on a desk phone, a cell phone in the service drive or the LeadLocate mobile app.

The ring list is built from the store's user records rather than typed in from scratch, which is the detail that keeps it accurate. When the store adds a salesperson in User Management, that person's mobile is a candidate for the list. When a salesperson leaves, they stop ringing. A store never discovers, six months after a rep quit, that the customer line still rings a phone in another state.

The automotive phone system page frames forwarding as one piece of a store's whole phone setup. This page is the product side: how the ring list works in LeadLocate CRM, where it lives, and the two settings around it that decide what a caller hears after hours and before someone picks up.

It is eleven on a Saturday and the lot is busy. A shopper who saw a used SUV on the store's listing calls the number under the photo. That number is a LeadLocate tracking number, so the call does not land at a switchboard. It rings the Forward Calls To list: the internet manager's desk, the two BDC reps and the used car manager's cell, all at once. The BDC rep who is not on a call picks up, presses 5 to accept, and the customer is talking to a person eight seconds after dialing. The rep sees the caller's name and the SUV they asked about on the inbound call alert in the app, because the caller ID matched a lead the store already had.

At four, the used car manager is out on a test drive with his cell in his pocket. A call comes in and rings the list again. His phone answers itself and rolls to his carrier voicemail, which on an ordinary phone system would end the call right there with a customer leaving a message nobody at the store can hear. Instead, because nobody pressed 5, LeadLocate treats that leg as unanswered, keeps ringing the rest of the list, and when the BDC rep picks up two rings later the customer never knew anything happened.

At seven the store closes. The next call runs into business hours routing, and the caller gets the store's after hours handling rather than four phones ringing in an empty showroom. The call is logged, a voicemail is taken, and it is waiting on the lead when the first rep signs in Sunday morning.

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Forwarding is managed on the IVR Settings page, reached from Account Settings under Billing and Admin. The Forward Calls To list is the first thing on it: the numbers that ring when a customer calls, drawn from the store's users. A store can add an office line beside the mobiles, or point a number at an extension, and the same list serves every tracking number the store owns.

Under the list sits Announce Calls, which is the press 5 confirmation. When it is on, whoever answers presses 5 to accept the call, so a voicemail box on a personal phone is never mistaken for a person. The page is explicit that a store should turn it off if the number above is a phone tree, since a switchboard does not press buttons. Edit Hours and Open 24 hours decide business hours routing, and the Company Voicemail greeting is what a caller hears when nobody on the list picks up.

The results show in two places. The Calls page in the main menu logs every forwarded call with who answered, how long it lasted and the recording. And the lead's own timeline carries the call in order with the texts and emails around it, because the communications log holds every channel. On the LeadLocate mobile app, Call Logs shows the same list, and the inbound call alert screen is how a rep sees who is calling before answering.

Most phone systems can forward a number to another number. Few can ring a list of cell phones at once, confirm a human answered, fall through to the next person when one phone rolls to voicemail, and log the whole thing against a customer record. Stores that want that behavior buy it as a hunt group or ring group feature from their phone vendor, per line, and then pay a call tracking vendor separately so marketing knows which number rang. The CRM never hears about the call unless a rep logs it by hand.

In LeadLocate the ring list, the confirmation, the business hours routing, the voicemail and the log are one feature of the CRM. There is no per line charge for forwarding and no second vendor to reconcile. A store comparing costs can add up its phone system's ring group fees and its call tracking bill and set them beside the pricing page, where CRM Only starts at $199 a month and carries forwarding like every other plan.

What forwarding does not replace is the store's main switchboard, if it has one. Reception, service and parts keep their system. The ring list is for the numbers that appear on ads, listings and landing pages, where the caller is a shopper and the person who should answer is a salesperson.

Forwarding touches two things a dealer principal cares about beyond convenience. The first is the record. Every forwarded call is logged with its caller ID, the number dialed, who answered and the recording, so a dispute about what a customer was told on the phone has a recording behind it. Recording laws vary by state, and a store that forwards calls to personal cells should set its announcement policy and train reps on it; the call recording and transcription page covers that in detail.

The second is the customer's experience of the store's number. A caller who reaches a personal voicemail that says hi, it's Dave, leave a message has just learned that the dealership's advertised line is somebody's cell. The press 5 confirmation exists to prevent exactly that: an unanswered leg is treated as unanswered, and the caller hears the store's greeting, not Dave's. Business hours routing does the same job after close, so a late caller hears the company voicemail and gets a callback in the morning rather than ringing an empty building.

Both of those are also a data question. When the rep who answers is stamped on the call, a manager can see who actually picks up the store's line and who lets it ring, which is the kind of thing a floor never tells you on its own.

A new dealership account answers its phone without setup. When the account is created, a tracking number is provisioned and the Forward Calls To list builds itself from the store's users, so the owner can call the number from another phone and hear their own cell ring before reading a single help page. The phone is open around the clock by default and the press 5 confirmation is off, so the first call simply rings through. Every one of those is a switch on IVR Settings when the store wants something different.

From there, adjusting is a matter of editing the list: add a desk line, remove a rep who moved to service, point one entry at an extension, turn Announce Calls on once the list is all mobiles, and set Edit Hours to the store's real schedule so after hours routing takes over at close. The list keeps rebuilding from the user roster as long as it is made of the store's own users; the moment a store adds a number that is not one of its users, the list becomes the store's own and stops changing on its own.

Anything beyond that, a ring order instead of all at once for example, is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership. The pre-recorded live demo shows an inbound call ringing a list and landing on a lead.

Forwarding is the middle of the phone stack, between the number a customer dials and the person who answers. Pair it with tracking phone numbers so each lead source has its own line and the call arrives on the lead with its source attached. Pair it with the virtual receptionist when the store wants a greeting, a menu or a message taken before a phone rings, and with the IVR call flow builder when the store wants to decide, option by option, where a caller goes.

On the other end, voicemail greetings are what a caller hears when the whole list is busy, and lead notifications are how a missed call becomes a text to the rep who should return it. The BDC phone service page covers a store that wants the calls answered by a BDC before they reach the floor.

The all features page shows where forwarding sits among everything else in the platform.

Every vendor has downtime, and a store should know what that looks like before it happens. Call forwarding is the part of the phone stack that is least affected, because the ring list is provisioned on the phone service and does not depend on the CRM's web pages being reachable. If the CRM is unavailable, a customer who dials the store's tracking number still rings the phones on the Forward Calls To list, and a salesperson still answers on their cell. What pauses is the logging and the recording playback until the CRM is back, and calls that happened during the interruption are stored on the phone side and reconciled when it returns. If you need a person during an interruption, the contact page reaches one.

Do all the phones on the ring list ring at the same time?

Yes, the Forward Calls To list rings its numbers at once, and the first person to answer and accept takes the call. A ring order instead of all at once is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership.

What is press 5, and do I need it?

Announce Calls asks whoever answers to press 5 to accept. It stops a personal phone's carrier voicemail from taking the call, since a voicemail box never presses 5 and the call keeps ringing the rest of the list. Turn it off if the number on the list is a phone tree or switchboard, since those do not press buttons either.

Can I forward to an extension?

Yes. An entry on the list can be a number with an extension, and the extension is dialed for that entry after the line answers. That is how a store points its tracking number at a desk behind a switchboard.

What happens after hours?

Business hours routing takes over. The store sets its hours with Edit Hours, or leaves Open 24 hours on, and a call outside those hours goes to the company voicemail or the store's after hours handling instead of ringing the list. The call is logged either way.

Does forwarding work with the LeadLocate mobile app?

Yes. A user's mobile number on the ring list rings their phone as a normal call, and the app shows an inbound call alert with the caller's name from the CRM. Call Logs in the app shows the same call history as the desktop Calls page.

What does it cost?

Forwarding, the ring list, business hours routing and the press 5 confirmation are part of every LeadLocate plan, including CRM Only from $199 a month. There is no per line forwarding charge.

A new LeadLocate account forwards calls to your own team from the first call, month to month, on every plan. See an inbound call ring a list and land on a lead in the pre-recorded demo.

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