Equity Mining Workflow: From List to Showroom

A list of customers who could trade today is only worth what the store does with it. This is the sequence, screen by screen, from Contact Import to a signed deal page.

The trigger is a list. Once a month, or once a week at a store that takes this seriously, somebody produces the names of customers whose current payoff sits below what their vehicle would bring as a trade, and hands it to the floor. Where that list comes from is the first question, and a store has several good answers. Most stores build it from their own sold records in the DMS, from the lender's portfolio report, or from the service drive, where the mileage and the age of the car are sitting on the repair order. Portfolio mining against lender payoff and book value feeds is available on request, our team puts it in production for your dealership; what this page covers is everything that happens after the list exists, which is where equity programs usually fall apart.

The equity mining CRM page explains the idea and where the data lives, and the equity mining campaigns page covers the offer, the openings and the timing. This page is the product side: the exact tools in LeadLocate CRM, in the order a store uses them, from the moment the list is a spreadsheet to the moment a customer signs a deal page on the new unit.

Step one is Contact Import. The spreadsheet goes in as it is, and each row becomes a contact or lands on the existing record when the customer already bought from you. Duplicates merge into one record rather than becoming two, which matters on an equity list because the same customer shows up from the sold report and the service drive. The Customer Profile is one shared buyer record, co buyer included, with the personal information stored encrypted, so the household that bought together is treated as one household in the campaign.

Step two is tagging, and it is what makes the list workable rather than a pile. Custom lead statuses, tags and row colors are the store's own, so a manager tags each record with the campaign name, the current vehicle, and the bucket it belongs to, for example lease ending, high mileage, or positive equity on a finance deal. Row colors make each bucket visible in the inbox, and a status like equity list, not yet contacted tells the floor exactly what the record is waiting for. Every later step on this page runs off those tags, which is why ten minutes here saves hours later.

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Step three is hygiene, and it is the step the vendor who sold you the list skipped. The Phone Validator and the Email Validator are separate tools inside the CRM, and their results show as validity dots on each record, so a number that has been disconnected since the customer bought the car is visible before you pay to text it. A three year old sold list has more of those than you would like, and the dots tell you how many before the campaign starts.

The DNC Blacklist runs alongside. It blocks a number in both directions, imports the do not call list your store already keeps, and runs a live do not call lookup on a number. A customer who told the store two years ago not to call is on that list, and the campaign respects it without anyone remembering. The result is a smaller list than the one you imported, and every name on it is reachable and permitted, which is the only kind of list worth writing a payment for.

Step four is the number, because the payment is the message. Before anything goes out, the desk builds the replacement pencil in EZ Desking: the new unit, the estimated trade credit with the store's trade credit caps applied, the incentives the OEM is offering on that unit from the Incentives Showroom, and the resulting payment for the term the customer is on now. Centralized deal defaults keep the fees consistent, so the payment in the text is a payment the desk can honor. A customer who sees a specific payment on a specific vehicle replies; a customer who sees an invitation to come in for a free appraisal does not.

Step five is sending it from the Marketing Tools menu on the dock. Bulk Texting goes to the recipient list built from the campaign tag, and the vehicle button attaches the replacement unit from your inventory as MMS with photos and price, so the customer sees the actual car the payment belongs to. AI merge fields put the customer's name and current vehicle in the message, trackable short links report who clicked, and RCS messaging renders the pictures where the phone supports it with automatic SMS fallback. Bulk Email carries the same offer from the store's own authenticated domain, and a Voicemail Drop from the sales manager reaches the customers who do not read texts. For the customers who respond to paper, the print packet with payment ranges and a finance breakdown goes into a #10 envelope with First Class postage and printed indicia, from the same screen.

Step six is the reply, and it comes back into the two way texting inbox on the assigned salesperson's screen and the LeadLocate app, with delivery status on the outbound bubble and the customer's answer under it. Texting Chatbots text back when the floor is busy, and keyword triggers on the record can move the status to replied or fire the next message when the customer uses a word you chose. A reply is the moment the record stops being a list entry and becomes a lead, and the status changes to say so.

The goal of the reply is a visit, so the salesperson sends the booking link from Calendar Settings, with the booking hours for that calendar, and the customer picks a time from their phone. The appointment lands on the shared calendar, assigned by round robin if the store runs the campaign as a team, and on the salesperson's Workspace with reminders. Customers who click the vehicle link but do not reply go into a Follow Up Process, the multi step drip for that lead type, so the second text, the call reminder and the email with a second unit are already scheduled. Click to call from the record dials through the VoIP softphone, and the call is recorded and transcribed on the lead.

From the customer's side it is a text from the dealership they bought from, by name, with a picture of a newer version of their car and a payment close to what they pay now. Then a link to pick a time. Then a reminder the day before. On arrival, a salesperson who knows what they drive, what they owe and what the store will give for it. The pencil becomes a deal page branded to the store, opened with a PIN, with e-signature, a revision view that shows every change since the first text, and deal chat with the salesperson for the customer who goes home to think about it.

PencilRecap produces a shareable recap sheet for the spouse who was not in the building. If the customer wants to finance through the store, a SecureWebX apply link goes to their phone, with co applicant support and document uploads, and the worksheet from CRM desking pushes into SecureWebX so the number on the application is the number from the text. The customer never repeats anything, because the list row, the tags, the text thread, the call transcript, the appointment and the deal page are all one record.

Step seven is the visit, and the store already knows the car, so the visit is a confirmation. In-Store Now flags the customer as physically on the lot. The identity scanner reads the driver license and insurance card into the record from a phone camera. The trade-in form captures the walk around photos and a trade VIN scan, and the Deal Jacket takes the payoff letter and the title through QR intake from the customer's own phone. If the trade's condition changed the number, the multi pencil grid in EZ Desking shows the customer the original payment and the revised one side by side, and the goal seek bays back into the payment the customer said they can live with.

OEM incentives show at deal level inside the deal view, so the manager sees which programs apply to the unit without leaving the worksheet. Start New Deal from the lead carries every field across, the Road to Sale checklist tracks each step, and the signed deal page, the recap sheet and the application all sit in the Deal Jacket. The desking tool page goes deeper on the engine itself.

The manager reads the campaign from the Reports dashboard on the dock, with activity, company and management reporting, filtered by the campaign tag the store set on day one. The questions are the same ones an equity program has always had to answer: how many records went out, how many were reachable, how many replied, how many booked, how many showed, how many traded. Activity reporting shows the texts, calls and emails against each record, and the trackable short link stats show who looked at the car and said nothing.

Every lost record passed through the lost reason popup, so the manager knows whether customers walked over the payment, the trade number, or the fact that they had already bought elsewhere, in the store's own categories. The communications log on any record shows the whole timeline with delivery status on every message and the recording on every call, which is what you want when a customer says nobody told them about the offer. A tracking phone number provisioned for the campaign shows in the call log which calls the mailer and the text generated.

An equity list is a list of your own customers, and the DNC Blacklist, the two validators and the communications log are what keep contacting them defensible. The blacklist blocks a number in both directions and is backed by a live do not call lookup; a customer who replies asking you to stop is added there and the block holds. Every text carries delivery status, every call is recorded and transcribed, and every call, text, MMS, email and voicemail sits in one log on the record. Bulk Email goes out from an authenticated domain. Personal information in the Customer Profile is encrypted, access runs by role, and where financing is involved SecureWebX adds two factor authentication, OFAC screening, state specific disclosures, adverse action notices and a full audit log.

To start, everything on this page is inside LeadLocate CRM on every plan, month to month, with no long term contract. CRM Only is $199 per month for a store that brings its own list and its own sources, and current figures are on the pricing page. An inventory feed and DMS access are not required; when you have a feed, Inventory Link supplies the units the vehicle button attaches to the text. Watch the recorded demo, reach a person on the contact page, or browse more workflows on the solutions hub.

Does LeadLocate build the equity list for me?

The list usually comes from your own sold records, your lender's portfolio report or the service drive, and you import it with Contact Import. Portfolio mining against lender payoff and book value feeds is available on request, our team puts it in production for your dealership.

Why pencil the payment before sending the text?

Because the payment is the message. A customer who sees a specific payment on a specific vehicle replies; a customer who sees an invitation to a free appraisal does not. EZ Desking builds the pencil with trade credit caps and OEM incentives, so the number in the text is one the desk can honor.

How does the customer see the replacement vehicle?

The vehicle button in the Bulk Texting and email composers attaches the unit from your inventory with photos and price, as MMS in the text. Trackable short links report who clicked, and RCS renders the pictures where the phone supports it, with SMS fallback.

What about customers on the list who told us not to call?

The DNC Blacklist blocks a number in both directions, imports the list your store already keeps, and runs a live do not call lookup, so those customers are excluded before Bulk Texting or a Voicemail Drop goes out. Anyone who replies asking you to stop is added there.

How do I know whether the campaign worked?

The Reports dashboard, filtered by the campaign tag, shows texts, calls and emails against each record, and the lost reason popup shows why the ones who did not trade walked. Short link stats show who looked at the vehicle, and the communications log on each record holds the timeline.

Do I need a DMS connection or an inventory feed?

No. Neither is required. The list imports from a spreadsheet, and the vehicle button attaches units from Inventory Link when you have a feed or when Inventory Link imports inventory from your own website.

Watch the recorded demo or book a walkthrough on your own sold list. Month to month, no long term contract, and the payment in the text is the payment on the deal page.

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