Dealership Employee Offboarding Checklist

What to do the hour someone leaves, so their customers keep hearing from your store, their logins stop working and nothing walks out the door with them.

When a salesperson leaves, HR thinks about the last paycheck. The sales floor should think about the forty customers who were waiting on a text from that person. Their appointments still sit on the calendar. Their unanswered texts still point at a person who is gone. Within a week those customers decide the store lost interest, and some of them buy across the street.

A dealership employee offboarding checklist puts the customer side first and the paperwork second, and it treats every departure the same way, friendly or not. It works for a salesperson at a franchise rooftop, a BDC agent at an independent or used car store, a finance manager at a buy here pay here lot, and a product specialist at an RV or boat dealership who carried a long list of shoppers waiting for next season.

Download the printable dealership employee offboarding checklist (PDF), with a tick box beside every step, grouped into the first hour, the first day, the first week and the successor's first 24 hours.

1. Pick a successor before anything else. One person takes over the departing employee's open customers. For a large book, split it by lead source or by stage, but name every receiver.
2. Switch them off in the CRM, with a handover. Their open work moves to the successor in the same step, so no customer sits with a person who left.
3. Close every other login. Email, the DMS, lender portals, manufacturer portals, ad accounts, social pages, the website admin, vendor portals and any shared passwords they knew. Change the shared ones.
4. Take them off the phones. The round robin rotation, the call forwarding ring list, any tracking number that rings their cell, and every notification list.
5. Collect what belongs to the store. Keys and key fobs, dealer plates, a demo vehicle, a company phone or tablet, a fuel card, a badge or building code.

Do the first two in the CRM before the conversation ends, or within the hour if the person resigns by text. Everything else can follow the same day.

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LeadLocate builds the handover into switching a person off, so the customer side of offboarding takes one dialog instead of an afternoon of reassigning leads.

• Switch off. In User Management, Disable opens the Switch off dialog. It shows the person's open work, then asks what happens to it.
• Hand over their work to. Pick the successor, click Switch off, and their open leads and tasks move to that person.
• Temporary leave. For a leave of absence, choose Temporary leave: keep their work where it is. The person is switched off and their work waits for them.
• History keeps its author. Messages, notes and call history keep the departed person's name, so the successor reads exactly who said what.
• Later handovers. A person switched off earlier who still holds open work shows Hand over their work on their row, so a leave that became permanent is handled the same way.
• A clean list. Remove from list takes a switched off person off your dealership's list. They stay switched off and keep their history, and LeadLocate can restore them for you.
• One login to review. The same login opens the CRM, Inventory Link, SecureWebX and the account portal, and the same Switch off, with the same handover choice, is on User Access in My LeadLocate.

The guide to adding users and setting their access covers User Management from hire to departure, and managing account access covers User Access in My LeadLocate.

• Round robin. Take the person out of every rotation so new leads stop landing on them. Round robin lead assignment shows the per person settings.
• Forward Calls To. Remove them from the ring list, which is built from your users. The call forwarding guide walks through it.
• Tracking numbers. Point any number that rings a personal cell back at the store.
• Manager copies and alerts. If they were a manager, take them off manager copies and the Default Manager Copies, and give their alert emails and numbers to whoever replaces them.
• Greetings. Record the company greeting again if it names them, and retire their personal voicemail greeting.
• Scheduled messages. Check the Scheduled Messages queue for anything still set to go out under their name.

Customer texts are the reason to keep every conversation in the CRM from the first day. A salesperson who texts customers from a personal phone takes those conversations home. One who texts from the CRM or the LeadLocate app leaves every thread on the lead's communications timeline, where the successor picks it up.

Keep this list current for your store. Every tool you add is one more line someone forgets on the day a person leaves, so add it to the checklist the day you sign up for it.

Pay and paperwork rules vary by state, so confirm them with your payroll provider or employment counsel. These are the items most stores settle:

• Final pay. Many states set a deadline for the final paycheck, some as soon as the last day. Check yours.
• Commissions and bonuses. Decide in writing how deals in progress, deals in finance and later chargebacks are paid, and follow the pay plan the person signed.
• Benefits. Send the required notices about health coverage and retirement accounts.
• Return of property. Record every item returned on the checklist.
• Exit conversation. Ask what would have kept them, and which customers are waiting on something the record might miss.
• Agreements. Remind the person of any confidentiality or customer list agreement they signed.

Keep the tone the same whatever the reason for leaving. The customers they worked with should hear about the change from the store, warmly, and never hear a word about why.

The handover moves the work. The successor turns it back into a relationship.

1. Open each moved lead and read the communications timeline: every text, email, call recording and note.
2. Text each open customer from the CRM to introduce themselves, with a short reason and no pitch: "Hi Dana, I am taking over from Marcus at the store and I have your notes on the SUV you liked. Happy to help whenever you are ready."
3. Confirm each customer's next appointment by text or call.
4. Pick up deals in progress from the Road to Sale checklist on each deal, so the desk and finance see one owner.
5. Tell the manager about any customer who asks for someone else, and reassign that customer.

Customers rarely mind a new name. They mind silence. A text within a day that shows the new person already knows their story keeps most of them. The customer profile with the co-buyer included keeps one shared buyer record, so the successor reads the same person the departed salesperson did.

It is 4:10 on a Friday. A salesperson tells the sales manager he has taken a job at another store and today is his last day. She thanks him, and before the conversation ends she opens User Management on her laptop.

She clicks Disable beside his name. The Switch off dialog shows his open work. She leaves Hand over their work to selected, picks the salesperson who sits beside him and already knows several of his customers, and clicks Switch off. His open leads and tasks move in that one step, and his notes, messages and call history keep his name.

At 4:20 she takes him off the Forward Calls To ring list and the round robin rotation, and collects his keys, a dealer plate and the demo. At 4:30 the office manager disables his email and DMS login and changes the lot gate code. By 4:45 the successor is reading timelines and texting the five customers who had appointments next week. By Monday morning every one of his customers has heard from the store.

The smoothest departure is the one you prepared for when the person was hired.

• Import the new hire's book of business into the CRM in their first week, so those customers become store customers on the record. Contact import takes XLSX, CSV, JSON, ADF and vCard files.
• Give every person their own login and Quick Access PIN, never a shared one.
• Keep customer texting in the CRM and the LeadLocate app instead of on personal phones.
• Write down every outside system each role touches, so the offboarding list for that role is ready before you need it.

Switch off and the handover are part of LeadLocate CRM. Each plan includes a login to start and more users are an add-on, managed from your account. Plans are on the pricing page.

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

In LeadLocate, switching the user off asks what happens to their work. Hand over their work to moves their open leads and tasks to the successor you pick. Their messages, notes and call history keep their name, so the customer's story stays intact.

Should we delete a departed employee's user?

Switch them off instead. Their history stays attached to their name, which is what a successor and a manager need later. Remove from list takes them off your dealership's list while they stay switched off, and LeadLocate can restore them for you.

What is Temporary leave for?

A leave of absence, such as medical or family leave. The person is switched off and their work stays where it is, waiting for their return. If the leave becomes permanent, Hand over their work moves it later.

How quickly should access be removed?

The same day, ideally before the person leaves the building. Switch off the CRM login with a handover first, then email, the DMS, lender and manufacturer portals, ad accounts and shared passwords.

Who should take over the departed salesperson's customers?

One named successor, usually the salesperson with the most capacity or the most overlap with those customers. A manager can split a large book across two people, but every customer needs exactly one owner.

Should we tell customers the salesperson left?

Yes, briefly and warmly, from the successor, within a day. Introduce the new contact, show you know their story, and leave out why the person left.

Does the checklist cover BDC agents and managers too?

Yes. The same steps apply. For a manager, add manager copies, alert lists, approvals and any vendor accounts in their name.

Watch the demo of switching a user off in LeadLocate CRM with their open leads and tasks handed to a successor, then compare plans on the pricing page.

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