HigherGear Alternative for Car Dealerships

Keep the showroom discipline your team built and add exclusive local leads, a phone system inside the CRM, and desking that follows the deal all the way to the customer.

HigherGear is one of the longest running names in automotive CRM. The Higher Gear Group built it specifically around the way cars are sold at a retail dealership, and its public positioning covers internet lead management, showroom control, desking with rates and residuals, mobile apps with driver license and VIN scanning, service marketing, manager accountability tools and real time phone tracking. A lot of franchise stores ran their showroom process on it for years, and plenty of sales managers can still walk through its up log and follow up screens from memory.

That history is worth respecting when you plan a change. A team that has worked one CRM for a long time has real habits wrapped around it: how an up gets logged, who owns a customer after a be back, how a desk manager reads the day at the morning meeting. The right replacement keeps those habits intact and adds everything the old system never carried, so the floor feels the upgrade in the first week instead of fighting it.

Product packaging, ownership and pricing change over time. Confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly, and ask for the current module list in writing so you compare like with like.

When a dealer principal or GM calls us about moving off a long standing CRM, the reason is almost always specific. It is rarely a single missing button. It is the way the whole day is stitched together.

Lead supply lives outside the CRM. Leads come from one company, the CRM from another, the phones from a third, and every month somebody reconciles three reports that never agree. Stores want the leads, the conversation and the deal on one record from one vendor.

Calling and texting sit in separate tools. A rep answers a call on one system, texts from another and logs a note in the CRM afterward, if the note gets logged at all. Managers end up coaching from memory instead of from the transcript.

The customer never sees the deal until the desk. Shoppers expect to review numbers, sign and send documents from their phone. A desking tool that only prints limits how far a deal can travel before the customer arrives.

Terms and flexibility. Long agreements make it hard to try something new on one team. Month to month terms let a store prove a platform on its own numbers.

Salespeople want the whole CRM in their pocket. Not a companion app, but the inbox, the dialer, desking and the deal jacket, all on the phone they already carry.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

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

Exclusive local leads delivered into the CRM. In Leads Manager your store draws its zone with the zone editor, picks the campaign type, writes the prescreening questions, sets Custom Offers and reviews sample ads with See Samples. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, which is included with every plan. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing. Buyer leads are a mix of VIN specific shoppers and people describing what they want, and opt in seller leads come from local owners who asked for an offer on their vehicle.

Every conversation on the lead. Texting with MMS and delivery status on every bubble, RCS with automatic SMS fallback, email from your own authenticated domain, bulk texting and bulk email, voicemail drops, scheduled sends and trackable short links with click stats. Calls, texts, emails and voicemails land on one communications timeline, so the next person to open the record knows exactly where the customer stands.

Contact hygiene most dealers have never seen in a CRM. The Phone Validator and Email Validator put a validity dot right on the lead, so reps stop dialing dead numbers and stop mailing addresses that bounce. A live do not call lookup and the DNC Blacklist keep the store on the right side of its own rules.

Automation that carries the cadence. Follow Up Processes run multi step drips per lead type, Automated Templates answer each feed the moment a lead arrives, Texting Chatbots handle the first reply, and Intake Process Automation replaces the third-party automation tools stores used to glue systems together.

One login for the whole platform. The CRM, SecureWebX credit applications, Inventory Link and the My LeadLocate account portal launch from a single sign on, and Jax, the bilingual AI assistant, drafts texts and emails in English or Spanish right inside the composer.

Features, packaging and pricing change. Confirm every row that drives your decision with each vendor before you sign anything.

HigherGear stores are used to desking inside the CRM, so this is where the comparison gets practical. DealTracker EZ Desking builds cash, finance and lease structures in a multi pencil grid with goal seek bays. The engine carries a 50 state tax matrix, three lease tax methods, semimonthly payment frequency and trade credit caps, all driven by centralized deal defaults so every desk manager starts from the same rules. The Incentives Showroom puts OEM incentives right inside the deal view, and the field set covers auto, RV, powersports, marine, buy here pay here and fleet.

Then the deal leaves the desk. The customer deal page, skinned to your store, opens with a PIN and carries the numbers, a revision view and e-signature, and you can void or revoke a share at any time. Deal chat keeps the customer and salesperson in one thread with photo drops, digital retail on the deal page walks the customer through build, document review, deal review and a shipping quote, and PencilRecap turns a pencil into a clean recap sheet the customer can actually read.

The paper side is covered too. The Deal Jacket takes uploads and QR intake straight from a phone camera, the identity scanner reads a driver license and insurance card into the customer record, and print packets with payment ranges go out on #10 envelope templates with First Class postage and printed indicia.

Financing starts before the customer arrives. SecureWebX apply links open a five step credit application with co applicant support, stipulations with upload to fulfill, adverse action notices, OFAC screening and two factor sign in on the dealer side. When the store is ready, Send to Lender shares the application with the lender you choose through a code gated, expiring, revocable, watermarked link. Our page on CRM with desking goes deeper on the engine.

Phone tracking was a selling point for HigherGear, and it is one of the places dealers moving to LeadLocate feel the biggest step up. Every source gets its own tracking number, and inbound calls ring through a call flow you build yourself in the IVR builder, with options, revisions and your own uploaded audio. Business hours routing sends after hours calls where you want them, the Forward Calls To ring list is built from your own users, and the virtual receptionist can screen callers with press 5 before a rep picks up. Caller ID name lookup shows who is calling before anyone answers.

Every call is recorded and transcribed, and the transcript opens in a lightbox right on the lead. Call Alerts with Alert Keywords check each transcribed call for the words your store chooses, such as trade in, payment or cancel, and a manager picks All Calls or Alert Calls Only. That turns coaching into reading instead of guessing.

Reps call from the VoIP softphone in the browser with click to call, or trigger a call that rings their own cell first. Voicemail greetings are recorded in the browser for the company and each user, the Voicemail Drop library sends a recorded message to a list, and missed call handling with answering service controls covers the hours nobody is on the floor. See call recording in the CRM for how managers use it day to day.

The payoff is simple. When the call, the text and the lead sit on the same record, a manager reading the day sees the whole conversation, and a customer who calls back reaches someone who already knows the story.

A CRM change goes well when it is treated as a process project, not a software install. This is the order we walk stores through.

1. Export first. Pull customers, leads, notes and appointments from HigherGear and confirm the file format before you give notice. Contact import brings them into LeadLocate, and the merge duplicates tool cleans up the overlap.
2. Build the team. Add users with the right roles and permissions, set per user notification preferences and give each rep a Quick Access PIN for the phone app.
3. Repoint every source. The Lead Feeds Manager creates a feed per source, Manager Lead Copies put a manager on any feed, and your form intake link connects the website forms you already run so each one lands in the CRM with its fields mapped.
4. Load the cadence. Set Follow Up Processes and Automated Templates per lead type so the first text fires on arrival from day one.
5. Prove it on one team. Run one team or one lead source for three to four weeks and measure time to first response, touches per lead and appointments set.
6. Train as you go. The video training library, Live Training and Schedule Training on the top bar are included with every plan.

Our migration checklist works through this step by step, and running two CRMs during a migration covers the overlap weeks.

Take the same list into every meeting and write the answers down. It separates vendors faster than any feature tour.

What is the total monthly cost with everything we actually use, and what does it renew at? What is the term and the cancellation process? What can we export, in what format, and does it include communication history? Are leads included, are they exclusive to our store, and how is the territory drawn? What happens when a lead is bad? Can salespeople text, call and desk from their phones? How long does setup take, and what does our store have to supply?

LeadLocate answers most of these on one page. Plans are month to month with no long term contract, CRM Only starts at $199 a month, lead plans start at $799, and every account is set up for your market, usually the same day. An inventory feed and DMS access are not required to run the platform, which is why independents, brokers and individual salespeople run on it alongside franchise stores.

One more thing, said plainly. We cannot guarantee lead counts, appointments, close rates or sold units, because those depend on your market, your inventory and your team, and no vendor can. What we deliver is every lead in your zone, a CRM that works it from the first second, and the numbers to prove it. If you want to see it running on real lead flow, start with the demo.

Can we bring our HigherGear data into LeadLocate?

Yes. Export customers, leads, notes and appointments from HigherGear in the format your agreement provides, and contact import brings them into LeadLocate. The merge duplicates tool then cleans up any overlap. Confirm your export rights with the vendor before you give notice.

Are the leads exclusive to our store?

Yes. You draw your territory with the Leads Manager zone editor, and every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose and backed by a replacement review.

Do we need a DMS connection or an inventory feed?

Neither is required. Many stores connect inventory through Inventory Link, which can import inventory from your website when no feed exists, but the CRM, leads, phones and desking run from day one without either.

Can our salespeople run everything from their phones?

Yes. The LeadLocate app carries the workspace, leads, texting, email, deal chats, the calendar, call logs, a VoIP dialer, inventory, desking and the deal jacket, plus VIN lookup and driver license scan.

What does it cost to try?

CRM Only starts at $199 a month. Inbound buyer lead plans start at $799, Marketplace Acquisitions seller lead plans at $999, and the Buyers & Sellers Hybrid Plan at $1,599. Everything is month to month with no long term contract.

Can we keep our current lead sources?

Yes. The Lead Feeds Manager gives each source its own feed, and your website forms connect through your form intake link, so every existing source keeps flowing while LeadLocate leads arrive beside them.

We will map a zone around your store, show the CRM working real lead flow, and walk your managers through desking and the phone system. Month to month, so staying is your call every month.

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