Automotive Follow-Up Automation: Follow Up Processes

A lead that did not buy on day one is not lost, it is early. Follow Up Processes put a timeline behind every lead status so the second, fifth and twelfth touch happen without a manager chasing them.

Every dealership already has a follow up plan. It is written on a whiteboard, it says call on day one, text on day two and try again on day seven, and it is followed on the days the manager is watching. Automotive follow-up automation takes that plan off the whiteboard and runs it for every lead, every day, with the salesperson doing the parts only a person should do.

In LeadLocate CRM the tool is called Follow Up Processes, and it sits under Billing and Admin next to Automated Templates. The two do different jobs. Automated Templates send the first text, email and voicemail the moment a lead arrives. Follow Up Processes handle everything after: the shopper who said call me next month, the appointment that was missed, the customer who visited and left, the buyer who deserves a thank you. This is dealership lead nurturing with a start, a pace and an end.

It fits every kind of store we serve. A franchise BDC runs a tight two week plan on fresh internet leads. An independent or used car store keeps a four week plan for shoppers who are thinking about it. A buy here pay here store follows up on credit inquiries that stalled on paperwork. RV and boat dealers, whose buyers often shop for months, lean on the six month plan, and a broker uses the same tool to stay in front of the clients who are not ready yet.

A new account does not start from a blank page. Nine processes come built, each tied to a lead status or an appointment event, each with its own pace. Your manager edits the wording and timing to match your floor.

Day based steps in the defaults land at 9:00 AM on their day, and every default step is a task for the salesperson, with Auto Send off. Both are yours to change.

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A customer books a Thursday 6:00 PM appointment for a three row SUV and does not show. On most floors that is the end of the story. Here is what happens when the Missed Appointment process is running.

1. Trigger, Thursday 7:15 PM. The salesperson marks the appointment missed. The process starts on that event, with no one deciding to start it.
2. Step one, Friday 9:00 AM. A task lands on the rep's Workspace, Follow Up: Missed Appointment 10 Day Follow Up, with the channels call, text and email and the manager's instructions to ask, not accuse. Auto Send is off on this step, so the rep calls, gets voicemail, and texts from the lead with a photo of the SUV attached.
3. Step two, Saturday 9:00 AM. The manager switched Auto Send on for this step, so its text was queued the moment the process started. The rep saw it Friday in the lead's Scheduled texts tab, left it as written, and it went out on time with the customer's first name and the vehicle merged in. The customer replies and asks about Sunday.
4. Exit. The rep books Sunday and sets the status to Appointment. That status has its own process, so the missed appointment timeline stops, its waiting messages are cancelled, a note on the lead records why, and the Appointment Set Reminder takes over with a reminder 24 hours before the visit.

The rep did two things by hand: made a call and sent a text. The process did the remembering. Had the customer never answered, the last step would have come and gone on day ten, and the lead would sit in a clean status instead of in limbo.

Open a process and you are in the Process Builder. It reads top to bottom in the order a lead lives it.

Starts When

Pick Lead status changes to and choose one of your store's statuses, including the custom lead statuses you created. Or pick Appointment event happens and choose Appointment completed, Missed appointment or a number of Hours before appointment, which is how a reminder runs right up to the visit.

Timeline Steps

Add Step creates one. Each step has an Offset and a Unit of hours, days, weeks or months, a Time of day, the Channels it uses (call, text, email, in any mix), a Task Title, Salesperson Instructions, an Optional Text Template, an Optional Email Template and an Auto Send switch. Merge fields such as [leadfirstname], [unit], [inquiry], [myname], [myphone] and [companyname] fill in per lead, so the twelfth message still talks about the car the customer asked about.

After Last Step

Choose Change to status with a Final Status, Move to Lost with reason with a Lost Reason, or No status change. Manager Notes record why the plan is built the way it is, for whoever runs the desk next. Save Follow Up Process saves it, and Restore Defaults brings back the shipped processes if an edit goes wrong. The how to build a follow up process guide walks through each field.

A follow up plan that never stops is worse than none. Every process in LeadLocate has clear ways out.

• A status change hands off. A lead runs one process at a time. When its status changes to one with its own process, the running process stops and the new one starts. When it changes to a status with no process, the running one simply stops.
• Waiting messages are cancelled, not lost. When a process stops, any text or email still waiting to go out for it is cancelled, and a note on the lead's timeline names the process that stopped.
• The last step ends it. After Last Step sets the final status or moves the lead to lost with a reason, so a customer who stopped answering is not followed forever. The reason feeds lost reason tracking.
• Do Not Call stays out. A scheduled message to a number on the DNC Blacklist reads Will not send and never goes out, and a customer who replies STOP is unsubscribed and added to the blacklist.
• Rescheduled tasks carry their message. When a rep snoozes or reschedules a process task on the Workspace, the queued text or email moves with it.
• Deleting a process is safe. Its in-progress tasks are cancelled and every affected lead gets a note.

Automation should do the remembering and leave the judgment to people. LeadLocate gives every step two ways to keep a person in charge.

• Auto Send off: the rep does the touch. The step becomes a task on the salesperson's Workspace, due at the step's time, with the channels and the Salesperson Instructions your manager wrote. The rep calls, or writes the text or email from the lead with a template, a vehicle with photos and price, or the AI writing assistant. Every default step ships this way.
• Auto Send on: the message waits in plain view. The step's text and email templates are queued the moment the process starts, so every one of them is visible days before its send time in the lead's Scheduled tabs and in the Scheduled Messages slide-out. The rep or a manager can read it, edit it, send it now or cancel it before it goes.

Turn Auto Send on for the steps where a person adds nothing, such as a reminder 24 hours before a visit. Managers keep watch from the Scheduled Messages slide-out, the clock in the Messaging, Email and Call Logs headers. With Whole Team View a manager sees every queued message across the team, filters by source to see only process messages, opens any one to edit it, sends it now, or cancels it. Stopping a running sequence from there cancels its waiting messages in one click.

On the phone, the LeadLocate app shows the same Workspace tasks and the same scheduled messages under each customer, so a rep on the lot clears the day's follow ups between deliveries.

Because nine processes come built, most of the setup is editing, not building.

What we need from your store

• Your lead statuses and what each one means on your floor.
• Your current follow up rule, even if it lives on a whiteboard.
• The wording your best salesperson uses for a missed appointment, a lost deal and a thank you.
• Which steps should send on their own and which a person should handle.

What our team does

Our team walks your manager through the Process Builder on a training call, maps your statuses to the right processes, and puts your wording into the templates if you send it over. Training is part of every plan: the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training from the top bar.

What your manager does

1. Open Follow Up Processes under Billing and Admin and read each default.
2. Change the wording and pace, add the steps your best rep does by hand, and write the Manager Notes.
3. Decide Auto Send step by step, then save.
4. Move a test lead to New and watch the first tasks land on the Workspace.

Follow Up Processes sit in the middle of the lead's life. Before them, lead sources and round robin decide who owns the lead, and Automated Templates send the first touch. Beside them, automotive SMS automation and automotive email automation cover the scheduled texts, emails and voicemail drops a rep sets for one customer. After them, the final status and lost reason feed the Reports dashboard.

The strategy behind the steps, how often to reach out and when to stop, is covered on automotive lead nurturing.

Follow Up Processes, the nine defaults, the Process Builder and the Scheduled Messages slide-out are part of the LeadLocate CRM subscription on every plan, including CRM Only. There is no separate automation tier.

What varies is people and volume. Each plan includes a login to start, and more users are an add-on, so the number of reps receiving process tasks follows your users. Usage credits cover bulk texting, phone and email validation and voicemail deliveries. Plans, user add-ons and credits are on the pricing page, month to month.

What starts a Follow Up Process?

A lead status changing to the status you choose, or an appointment event: an appointment completed, a missed appointment, or a set number of hours before the appointment.

Do process messages send on their own?

Only when you want them to. Each step has an Auto Send switch. In the default processes it is off, so the step is a task and the salesperson makes the call or sends the message. With it on, the message is queued when the process starts and can be read, edited or cancelled until it goes.

What stops a process for a lead?

A status change. If the new status has its own process, that one starts instead; if not, the running process stops. Its waiting messages are cancelled and a note goes on the lead. The last step also ends the process with a status you chose.

Can a lead run two processes at once?

No, one at a time, which keeps a customer from getting two plans of messages. Starting a new process on a lead replaces the one that was running.

Can a step be a phone call instead of a message?

Yes. Each step's Channels can be call, text and email in any mix. A call step becomes a task on the salesperson's Workspace with the Task Title and Salesperson Instructions you wrote, and the call is logged on the lead when the rep makes it from the CRM.

What happens if I delete a process?

Any in-progress tasks for it are cancelled and a note is added to each affected lead's timeline, so nothing keeps running from a process that no longer exists.

Can I get the default processes back?

Yes. Restore Defaults on the Follow Up Processes page brings the shipped processes back. Your own processes stay as you built them.

Watch the pre-recorded demo to see a missed appointment start a process, land tasks on the Workspace and end in a real status, then compare plans.

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