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How to Connect Inventory to the CRM in Inventory Link
Once your feed is loaded in Inventory Link, the same cars show up in the CRM Inventory menu, in every text and email composer, and on the phone app. Here is how to get there and how to check it.
Step by Step
Check the feed in Inventory Link
Sign in to Inventory Link and look at the dashboard. Your feeds lists what the account is loading and Last refresh tells you when it last came in. If you have no feed at all, the portal can read the inventory straight from your own website instead, so a store with a website and no feed still ends up with a full list.
Open Inventory in the CRM
Sign in to the CRM and click Inventory in the menu. Your cars load with a Photo, the year, make and model, the stock number and the Price. Nothing here is typed by hand: what you see is what Inventory Link is holding for the store.
Find a specific unit
Use Search year, make, model, stock, VIN for a single car, or narrow the list with New, Pre-Owned and All. Search on the last six of a VIN when a customer sends you a window sticker photo and you want the exact unit rather than the trim.
Put a car in a message
Open a text or email to a customer and click Insert a vehicle from your inventory. Pick the unit and it drops into the message with its photo, year, make, model and price, so the shopper gets the car instead of a description of the car. The same button sits in the email composer.
Work a car from the lead screen
On an open lead, use Browse Inventory to attach the unit the customer is asking about, then Refresh inventory if a car sold this morning and you want the list current before you quote. The vehicle you attach travels with the lead into the deal.
Check the phone app
Open the LeadLocate app on your phone and go to the inventory section. The same cars, the same photos and the same search are there, which is what matters on the lot when a customer points at something and asks what it is.
Ask for a feed change if something is off
In Inventory Link, open Ask us to change a feed, pick Which feed, describe it in What needs to change and click Send request. Wrong prices, missing photos and units that should not publish are all handled there.
Before you start
You need a CRM login and Inventory Link on the same account, which is how every plan is set up. You also need one of two things on the inventory side: a feed from the provider who already publishes your cars, or a website of your own that the portal can import the inventory from. An inventory feed and DMS access are not required to run the platform, so a store that has neither still gets a working list by hand or from its site.
It helps to have one stock number in mind before you start, ideally a car you know is on the ground today. Checking a single unit end to end is faster than reading the whole list, and it tells you the connection is real. The full picture of what the two products do together is on the automotive CRM with inventory integration page.
What you should see
In the CRM, Inventory opens a grid of your cars with photos, prices and stock numbers, filtered by New, Pre-Owned or All. In a text, Insert a vehicle from your inventory gives you the same list in a picker, and the message that goes out carries the photo and the price. On a lead, the car you attach shows on the record, so a manager reading the lead knows which unit is in play without asking.
On the Inventory Link side, Your feeds shows the feed as Open with a time under Last refresh, and the vehicle count on the dashboard matches what the CRM shows. Those two numbers agreeing is the whole test. If your site also runs pages built in the portal, Show matching vehicles from your inventory puts the same cars in front of shoppers there too, which is why the count matters.
Questions? Request a Call Back
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.
If it did not work
The CRM says Inventory is not connected yet. The feed has not finished its first load. Check Your feeds in Inventory Link: a feed that has never refreshed has no time under it. Open a request with Ask us to change a feed and our team gets it loading.
A car you sold is still listed. Your list is a picture of what the feed last sent. Click Refresh inventory for the current set, and if the unit keeps coming back, it is still marked available in the source. Fix it at the source or tell us in What needs to change.
A unit has no photo. The feed sent the car without images. The portal can fill the gap with stock imagery for the model so the listing still looks like a listing, and your photographer can replace it later.
The price in the CRM is not the price on your site. Both read the same feed, so a difference means one of them is caching an older load. Refresh inventory settles it, and the feed change request handles a price that is wrong in the source.
Why this connection earns its keep
A salesperson who has to leave the CRM to look up a stock number will stop looking it up. That is the real cost of a disconnected list: generic answers, wrong prices quoted from memory, and a shopper who asked about one car getting a paragraph about none. With the list in the composer, the reply is the car, with the photo and the price, in about four seconds.
It pays off again at the desk. The unit attached to the lead carries into the worksheet, so the numbers you pencil are the numbers for that VIN. And because everything lives in one login, the same list is on the phone in your pocket. Start at the platform overview if you want to see how the rest of it fits together.
Related tasks
Feeds, the feed editor, the website builder and the embeddable widget all live on the Inventory Link page. What the CRM does with a car once it is attached, from texts to worksheets, is on the LeadLocate CRM page, and the inventory search in your pocket is covered on the mobile app page.
The LeadLocate Help Center has the neighbouring guides: sending a vehicle in a text, scanning a VIN on the lot, and importing inventory from your website when there is no feed to hand. An inventory connection your store needs that you do not see listed is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a feed to connect inventory to the CRM?
No. Inventory Link imports the cars from your own website when there is no feed, and a store can also list units by hand. A feed and DMS access are not required on any plan.
How often does the inventory in the CRM refresh?
It follows the feed, and the dashboard shows the time of the last refresh. Refresh inventory on the lead screen pulls the current set when you want to be certain before quoting.
Can I text a car to a customer from the list?
Yes. Insert a vehicle from your inventory sits in every text and email composer and drops the unit into the message with its photo, year, make, model and price.
Who fixes a wrong price or a missing photo in the feed?
Open Ask us to change a feed in Inventory Link, say which feed and what needs to change, and send it. Our team handles the feed side and you keep working the leads.
Your cars, in the CRM and in every message
Inventory Link and LeadLocate CRM come together on every plan, month to month. See the whole loop in the recorded demo, or have us load your feed and show you the list.
Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.
LeadLocate™ All rights reserved. Other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
Answers to your questions:
LeadLocate is an all-in-one lead generation software and CRM platform. We generate in-market sales leads and provide you with all the tools necessary to sell that customer. All of your leads, texts, calls, emails, deals, and files are available in one place, accessible with a single login.
LeadLocate™ All rights reserved. Other product and company names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
Answers to your questions:
LeadLocate is an all-in-one lead generation software and CRM platform. We generate in-market sales leads and provide you with all the tools necessary to sell that customer. All of your leads, texts, calls, emails, deals, and files are available in one place, accessible with a single login.