Centralized BDC for Dealer Groups

One room of agents working every rooftop's leads and calls: how feeds, distribution lists, tracking numbers, the shared calendar and the reports are set up so the appointment lands at the right store with the right salesperson.

A group centralizes its BDC for one reason: the same agents, trained the same way, answering every rooftop's leads and calls at the same speed, instead of five stores with five levels of follow up. The numbers the BDC director is judged on do not change when the BDC moves into one room. Speed to first response, contact rate, appointments set, appointments shown, and the share of shown appointments that turned into a deal at the store. What changes is that all of those numbers now have to be measured per rooftop from one system, and every appointment has to land at a store the agent is not sitting in.

That is a software problem before it is a staffing problem. The agent needs the lead's rooftop on the record, the store's inventory in the composer, a number that shows the store's caller ID, the store's calendar with the store's hours, and a way to tell the store the customer is coming. This page walks through how LeadLocate CRM is set up for that, in the order a group turns it on. The BDC lead routing software page covers the routing logic in general; here we follow one group.

Every lead source at every store becomes a feed in Lead Feeds Manager: a label, an intake method (a lead email address, a lead form, a webhook or a CSV upload), an assignment rule, notification settings and an optional first message. The label is what makes a group BDC work, because a lead from the west store's website and a lead from the north store's third party source arrive in the same Leads view carrying their source and their rooftop, and the agent never has to guess which store the customer meant. Custom source feeds handle the sources nobody else supports, and new leads push into the CRM instantly.

Assignment runs on global lead distribution with rules and distribution lists, with routing rules per rooftop. The group builds one distribution list of BDC agents, and each rooftop's feeds point at it, so a lead from any store rotates round robin across the agents on shift. A feed can instead go to one named agent, or sit unassigned for anyone to claim, which is how some groups run their overnight queue. Merge duplicates joins the customer who inquired at two rooftops into one record, and the Customer Profile holds the buyer and co-buyer with personal information encrypted.

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The agent opens the Workspace, which gathers appointments, reminders and to-dos with snooze and bulk clear, and then the Leads menu. Automated Templates already sent the first response, because each feed carries its own template set and the master set covers the rest, and Follow Up Processes are running the multi step drip for that lead type. The agent's job is the personal contact. Send a Text opens the texting inbox, with delivery status on every bubble, RCS where the customer's phone supports it and SMS fallback where it does not, and the AI writing assistant drafting a reply when the agent wants a starting point. The vehicle button in the composer attaches a unit from that rooftop's inventory through Inventory Link, with photos and price, so the agent in the central room texts the same car the customer asked about at the store.

Make a Call dials from the record through the browser softphone, or triggers a call to the agent's desk phone. Every call is recorded with a transcript in a lightbox next to the lead, and every call, text, MMS, email and voicemail lands in one communications log. Keyword triggers act on what the customer texts back, and a lead marked lost gets the lost reason popup, so the end of month report says why the north store's leads went cold rather than that they did.

Tracking phone numbers are provisioned per source, so each rooftop's website, each third party source and each campaign rings a number the CRM attributes to that store and that source. Inbound calls show a caller ID name lookup, and outbound caller ID is confirmed so the customer sees a number they recognize. The BDC phone service is the inbound stack: an IVR call flow builder with options, uploaded audio and revisions, business hours routing that sends a store's after hours calls where the group decides, call forwarding to a Forward Calls To ring list built from the group's own users, and the virtual receptionist switched on or off per store, with press 5 call screening when a store wants it.

Voicemail greetings are recorded in the browser at the company level and per user, and the Voicemail Drop library sends a drop to a whole list, which is how a central BDC runs a same day reminder across every rooftop's appointments. Missed call handling and answering service controls cover the calls that came in while every agent was on the line.

The shared team calendar is where the handoff happens. Calendar Settings is one popup with a booking link and booking hours per calendar, and team availability shows who at the store is on the floor, so the agent books a customer into the west store's Saturday at a time the west store actually has someone. Round robin runs on the shared calendar as well as on leads, so the appointment rotates across the store's salespeople rather than landing on whoever the agent remembered. A store that lives in Google Calendar connects it and disconnects it from the same popup. Appointment reminders go out on schedule, and the salesperson at the store gets the notification on the emails and numbers they chose, with sound alerts and on screen toasts.

The store side closes the loop. When the customer arrives, the salesperson sets In-Store Now on the lead, and the BDC sees the show without a phone call. A Team Chat channel per rooftop carries the running conversation between the central room and the floor, with direct messages, reactions, file upload, presence and read receipts, which replaces the group text thread most BDCs run on personal phones.

The customer sees the store they contacted. The text comes from a number attributed to that rooftop, the email goes out under the store's own authenticated domain, the vehicle in the message is the unit on that store's lot, and the booking link books that store's calendar in that store's hours. When they arrive, the salesperson they were booked with is expecting them, and the deal they eventually sign is on a customer deal page branded to that dealership. Nothing in the customer's experience says that the person who set the appointment was sitting in a different building, and that is the point. The what to expect from car sales leads page is the plain explainer for the customers who ask about a truck they cannot afford yet or who want to negotiate from the first text; a central BDC works those leads too.

The Reports dashboard on the dock carries three modules: activity reporting on what each agent did, company reporting on the group as a whole, and management reporting for the decisions the director makes from both. Because every lead carries its feed and its rooftop, the director sees leads received, contacted, appointed and shown by store and by source, and the GM at each store sees the same numbers for that store. Call recordings and transcripts settle the argument about what the agent said. Custom lead statuses, tags and row colors let the group define one pipeline vocabulary that every rooftop uses. Quality Control Requests let an agent report a bad lead for approval or rejection and replacement review, which is how lead problems are handled after delivery.

User Management sets who is a User, a Manager or a Master Administrator, with per user notification toggles, a Quick Access PIN per user and default file folders, so an agent sees the BDC's work and a store manager sees the store's. The video training library, Live Training and Schedule Training in the top bar are how a group trains a new agent the same way every time.

Contact rules apply once, for every rooftop. The DNC Blacklist page blocks a number in both directions, imports a blacklist any store already keeps, and runs a live do not call lookup on a number, so an agent in the central room is stopped before texting a customer the east store already agreed to leave alone. The Phone Validator and Email Validator show validity dots on each lead before a list goes into Bulk Texting or Bulk Email. Email domain authentication keeps each store's outbound email identifiable as that store's own. Call recording with transcription and the single communications log are the record when a customer disputes a conversation, and the trash bin restores what somebody deleted by mistake. Personal information on the Customer Profile is stored encrypted, and where a credit application enters the picture, SecureWebX adds two factor authentication, an audit log and an archive never delete policy on the file.

Start with the users: the agents, the store managers and the salespeople in User Management with their roles. Then the feeds, one per source per rooftop, pointed at the BDC's distribution list. Then tracking numbers per source, the IVR and business hours per store, and a Calendar Settings booking link and hours for each store's calendar. Automated Templates and Follow Up Processes get reviewed against how the group actually follows up, and contact import brings each store's list along. A group that wants leads routed into a CRM it already runs at one store can have that at no price change; the platform subscription is what receives and delivers them.

Every plan is month to month with no long term contract, and current plans are on the pricing page. The LeadLocate CRM page lays out every module the BDC will touch. Watch the recorded demo, or use the contact page to have a person set the group up with you. Anything your group's process needs that this page does not describe is available on request, our team puts it in production for your dealership.

Can one BDC team work leads for several rooftops in one login?

Yes. Each rooftop's sources are feeds in Lead Feeds Manager, and distribution lists with routing rules per rooftop send them to the BDC agents round robin. Every lead arrives in one Leads view carrying its source and its store.

How does an agent book an appointment at a store they are not sitting in?

From the shared team calendar. Calendar Settings gives each store's calendar its own booking link and booking hours, team availability shows who is on the floor, and round robin rotates the appointment across that store's salespeople. The salesperson is notified on the channels they chose.

Does the customer see the store's number or the BDC's?

The store's. Tracking phone numbers are provisioned per source and attributed to the rooftop, outbound caller ID is confirmed, and email goes out under the store's own authenticated domain.

How does the store know the customer showed up?

The salesperson sets In-Store Now on the lead when the customer arrives, and the BDC sees the show on the record. A Team Chat channel per rooftop carries the running conversation between the central room and the floor.

Can each store's GM see only their own numbers?

Roles in User Management set what each person sees, and every lead carries its feed and rooftop, so activity, company and management reporting can be read by store and by source. The BDC director sees the group side by side.

How does a group keep each store's records safe and separate?

The platform is built so every rooftop keeps selling. Each store's leads, calls, texts and appointments sit on that store's own records under its own company, seen by the group and by the people you give access to, and the archive behind them is permanent. Each store's main phone line, its DMS and its website stay that store's own, and each product your group uses is its own application under one login.

Watch the recorded demo or book a walkthrough with your group's stores and sources. Month to month, no long term contract, and each store's DMS stays exactly where it is.

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