Dealership Customer Handoff Checklist

What has to travel with the customer at every handoff in the store, who owns the relationship afterward, and where the CRM keeps the record.

Every customer who buys a car is handed from one person to another three or four times before delivery. Each handoff is a chance to lose something: the trade details the BDC already collected, the payment the customer said they could live with, the price a salesperson mentioned on the phone, the appointment that shows up to find nobody expecting them. The customer feels each loss as having to start over, and customers who start over too many times go to the store across the street.

A dealership customer handoff checklist fixes that by naming, for each handoff, what moves with the customer, who owns them afterward and where the record lives. It works at a franchise rooftop with a full BDC, an independent or used car store where the salesperson also sets appointments, a buy here pay here lot where the desk and finance are one office, and an RV or boat dealership where a deal can take weeks. The handoffs are the same. Only the names on the badges change.

Download the printable dealership customer handoff checklist (PDF), with one page for each handoff below, and keep it at the desk where turnovers happen.

Settle ownership before you settle anything else, because most handoff fights are really ownership fights. Three rules cover most stores.

• The store owns the record. The customer's details, conversations, deals and credit application belong to the dealership, not to the person who typed them in. That is what lets the store keep the relationship when people change.
• One person owns the relationship at a time. The salesperson assigned to the customer is the person the customer hears from. A manager who steps in on a turnover helps close the deal, and the customer still belongs to the salesperson.
• Finance owns the paperwork, not the customer. After delivery the customer goes back to the salesperson for follow up, referrals and the next car.

Put the exceptions in writing as policy, not memory: how the BDC is credited for an appointment it set, how split deals are paid, what makes a house deal, and how long a salesperson keeps a customer who stops answering. Then make the CRM match the policy. In LeadLocate CRM the assignment on the lead is the record of who owns the customer, and on a rotating source a returning customer who already has a salesperson goes back to that salesperson instead of the next rep in line. The round robin lead assignment page covers how the rotation is set per person.

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At 9:40 on a Saturday, a BDC agent books an 11:00 appointment for a shopper who asked about a used three row SUV and wants to trade a sedan with a loan on it. The BDC to sales handoff decides whether that customer meets a salesperson who already knows all of that, or one who opens with "So, what brings you in today?"

What has to move with the customer:

• Name, best phone, how they prefer to be contacted, and the language they are most comfortable in.
• The vehicles they asked about, with stock numbers. A LeadLocate lead holds up to five vehicles of interest, so every unit they mentioned stays on the record.
• The trade: year, make, model, mileage, and whether there is a loan payoff.
• How they plan to pay (cash, finance or lease) and any monthly payment they mentioned.
• Their timeline, and who else is part of the decision.
• Exactly what the BDC promised: a price, a hold on a unit, a test drive with a specific car. Word for word.
• The appointment on the calendar, assigned to the salesperson, with a confirmation sent to the customer.

In LeadLocate CRM the agent's notes, every text and every recorded call sit on the communications timeline of the lead, so the salesperson reads the whole conversation before 11:00. When the customer walks in, In Store Now flags them as on the lot, and a quick message in Team Chat gets the salesperson to the door. Finish with a warm introduction in person whenever the BDC sits in the building. The dealership BDC best practices guide covers the appointment side in depth.

The turnover to the desk is where the most numbers move and the most numbers get lost. A manager who has to walk out and ask the customer the same questions again has already lost ground. Before the salesperson stands up, the deal should hold:

• The vehicle and stock number the customer chose, and the one they would take as a second choice.
• The trade, with photos, the VIN and the payoff amount the customer gave.
• The customer's own numbers: the payment they want, the term they asked about, and how much they plan to put toward the deal up front.
• What they said about their credit, and whether a co-buyer is signing.
• A scan of the driver license and insurance card.
• Anything already said about price, rebates or accessories.

In LeadLocate the salesperson starts the deal from the lead with Start New Deal, so the customer's details carry into the deal instead of being typed twice. The trade-in form takes photos and scans the trade VIN, the identity scanner reads the driver license and insurance card into the customer record, and documents go into the Deal Jacket, including photos sent from a phone by QR code. The manager then works the numbers in EZ Desking, with cash, finance and lease structures side by side, in the same deal the salesperson opened. The Road to Sale checklist on every deal shows what is done and what is left. The how to start a deal from a lead guide shows the clicks.

Finance should never meet a customer cold. By the time the customer walks into the finance office, the finance manager should already have:

• The agreed worksheet, with the structure the desk and the customer settled on.
• The completed credit application, including the co-applicant if there is one.
• The documents the lender will likely ask for, or a list of what is still missing.
• The trade payoff details and the lienholder.
• Anything the customer was told about rates, terms or approvals, so finance never contradicts the desk.

LeadLocate handles this handoff through SecureWebX, the secure credit application system that opens from the CRM dock with the same login. Worksheets can be pushed from CRM desking into SecureWebX, where they attach to the application. The online credit application covers personal, residence, employment and income details, with co-applicant support and an e-signature captured against versioned terms. Stipulations are tracked with upload to fulfill, and Send to Lender shares the file with a lender of your choosing through a code gated, expiring, watermarked link. The DMS keeps the deal posting and the accounting, and LeadLocate works alongside it. See the guide to pushing a deal to SecureWebX and the credit application inbox.

The handoff stores handle worst is the one nobody plans: a salesperson gives notice on Friday, or simply stops coming in. Their pipeline, their appointments and their unanswered texts go quiet, and the customers on the other end assume the store lost interest. Treat a departure as a handoff with a deadline of the same day.

• Switch the person off and name a successor. In LeadLocate, switching a user off asks who takes over. Hand over moves their open leads and tasks to the successor you pick. Temporary leave switches the person off and leaves their work where it is, for a leave of absence.
• Keep the history. Every note, text, call and deal they handled stays in the record under their name, so the successor reads exactly what was said.
• Close every door. One login carries a person into the CRM, Inventory Link, SecureWebX and the account portal. Review that access, then check ad accounts, vendor portals and anything else outside the platform.
• Fix the phones. Take them off the round robin rotation and off the Forward Calls To ring list, so calls and leads stop landing on someone who left.
• Reach out within a day. The successor texts each open customer from the CRM to introduce themselves, with the full conversation history in front of them.

The best departure is the one prepared on day one. When a salesperson joins, import the book of business from their phone into the CRM, so those customers become store customers on the record. The guide to adding users covers the setup side.

A checklist tells people what to pass along. The CRM is where the passing is recorded, so a manager can check it later without asking anyone. This is where LeadLocate keeps each piece:

Two more records help settle questions. Deals keep a history and a visit log, so the store can see when a customer came back and who worked them. And the customer profile with the co-buyer included keeps one shared buyer record, so sales, the BDC and finance read the same person rather than three versions of them.

A checklist that lives in a drawer changes nothing. Roll it out in three steps.

1. Walk it in a sales meeting. Go through each page with the people who make that handoff. Ask what usually gets lost. Add it.
2. Spot check five deals a week. Open five recent deals and check that each item on the checklist made it into the CRM: the trade photos, the notes on what was promised, the credit application before the customer sat in finance.
3. Measure the gaps that matter. Track how many appointments show with the salesperson ready, and how fast a departed salesperson's customers hear from their successor.

Stores without a BDC skip the first page and use the rest. A small store where one person sells, desks and does the paperwork still has handoffs: between today and next week, and between the person working the deal and whoever covers their day off. The record is what carries the customer across.

Training on the screens above is part of every LeadLocate plan, through the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training from the top bar. Each plan includes a login to start, and more users are an add-on, so every person in the handoff chain has a login of their own. Plans and add-ons are on the pricing page.

What should a BDC to sales handoff include?

The customer's contact details and preferred language, the vehicles they asked about with stock numbers, the trade and any payoff, how they plan to pay, their timeline, anything the BDC promised word for word, and the appointment on the calendar assigned to the salesperson, followed by a warm introduction in person.

Who gets credit when the BDC sets the appointment and a salesperson sells it?

That is a pay plan decision for each store, so put it in writing as policy. The CRM supports any policy because the lead keeps its assignment and every text, call and note shows who sent or wrote it, so the record shows who set the appointment and who worked the deal.

What happens to a salesperson's customers when they leave?

In LeadLocate, switching the user off asks who takes over. Hand over moves their open leads and tasks to the successor you pick, and Temporary leave switches them off with their work left in place. Their notes, texts and calls stay on the record under their name.

Should the salesperson stay involved once the customer is in finance?

Yes, as the person who owns the relationship. Finance owns the paperwork, and the salesperson stays close enough to answer questions, prepare the delivery and follow up after the sale. A clean handoff to finance makes that easy, because nobody has to repeat what was agreed.

How do we stop customers from repeating their story?

Put everything the customer said on the lead before the handoff, not after it. When notes, texts and recorded calls sit on one timeline, the next person reads the conversation in two minutes, then greets the customer by name and picks up where it left off.

Does the checklist work for a store without a BDC?

Yes. Skip the BDC page and use the rest. The salesperson to desk, desk to finance and departing employee handoffs happen at every store, including small independents where one person does several of the jobs.

See the demo of a lead becoming an appointment, a deal and a credit application in LeadLocate, then compare plans on the pricing page.

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