Intake Process Automation Replaces Per Dealer Zaps

Every lead source that is not a standard feed used to need its own zap in a third party automation tool, per store, per source, per month. Intake Process Automation brings that work inside the CRM.

Intake Process Automation turns any source that can send an email, post data to an address, or ring a phone into a lead in LeadLocate CRM, delivered to the feed you choose, with a run history you can read. That is the one sentence version. It lives behind the Intake Process Automation button on the Lead Feeds page, next to the Lead Feeds Manager, because intake and feeds are two halves of the same job: a feed is where a lead lands, an intake process is how it gets there.

The processes are built in house, inside the platform, and they replaced the per dealer zaps that stores used to run in third party automation tools. That history matters because it explains the design. A zap was one store's private wiring between a lead source and the CRM, built by whoever knew the tool, billed monthly, and silently broken the day the source changed its email format. An intake process is the same wiring as a first class feature of the CRM, with a Test button, a run log, and an intake hook that the rest of the platform can use.

The buying side of the routing question, what a BDC should expect from lead routing software in general, is covered on BDC lead routing software. This page is the tool.

A store signs a deal with a regional marketplace that sends leads by email, one per lead, to whatever address the dealer gives it. There is no feed format, no integration, just an email with the customer's name, phone and the vehicle in the body. On most CRMs that email goes to the internet manager's inbox and gets typed into the CRM by hand, on the days someone remembers.

On a store with Intake Process Automation the internet manager opens the Lead Feeds page, clicks New Process, gives it a Process name, picks the type Email Intake, sets the Mailbox to watch to the address the marketplace sends to, and picks the Target Feed, which is a feed she created for that marketplace so its leads get their own automated templates and their own round robin. She presses Test with a sample email, sees a lead land in the target feed with the right name and phone, and saves.

From then on every email from the marketplace becomes a lead in that feed the moment it arrives. The first text goes out through Automated Templates, the lead is assigned by the feed's rule, and the manager checks Runs on Friday to see how many came through and whether any failed. The marketplace never knew it was integrated.

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Each process has a Type, and the types cover the ways a lead source can reach a store. Email Intake watches a mailbox and turns each message into a lead, which handles every provider that sends leads by email. Webhook (any data) gives the process an Endpoint address; anything that can post data to a URL, a website form, a chat tool, a landing page builder, sends there and the process maps it into a lead. Phone Call Intake turns an inbound call into a lead so a caller who never filled out a form still exists in the CRM.

Two types come from SecureWebX: SWX Credit (Complete) fires when a customer finishes a credit application, and SWX Credit (Abandoned) fires when a customer opens an apply link and stops partway. The second is the more valuable of the two. A customer who got to the income step and quit is a customer who wanted to buy, and the abandoned process makes that person a lead with a follow up task rather than a row nobody sees. The apply links page covers the application side.

Every process carries a Target Feed, Notes for the next person who has to understand it, and Copy, Edit and Delete controls, so a process that works for one source is duplicated for the next in a minute.

The difference between a zap and an intake process is visible on the process list. Each process shows its Runs, and opening the run history shows each lead that came through, when, from which Source, and with what result. Activity is the live view of what the processes are doing right now. The Report summarizes intake over a period, so a manager comparing lead sources can see which one actually produced leads rather than which one sent the most invoices.

That visibility is what stores lost with third party automations. A zap that stopped working stopped silently; the first sign was a salesperson asking why the marketplace had gone quiet. An intake process that fails shows a failed run, and the store's notification preferences can carry the alert. The lead notifications and alerts page describes those toggles.

Because every process delivers into a feed, the downstream is the same as for any lead: the feed's automated templates, its assignment rule, its follow up processes. A lead from a webhook and a lead from a standard feed are indistinguishable once they are in the CRM, which is the point.

The cost of per dealer zaps was never just the subscription. It was the hour a manager spent building one, the day nobody noticed it had broken, and the fact that the wiring lived in a tool the store did not control, under a login one person knew. Multiply that by every lead source that was not a standard feed and by every rooftop in a group, and the number of small private integrations a group was quietly maintaining was in the dozens.

Intake Process Automation removes all of them. The processes live in the CRM, under the store's own account, visible to every manager with the right role, with a run log and a test button. There is no third party automation subscription to keep paying and no vendor login to lose when the internet manager leaves. It is part of the platform, and the plans on the pricing page all carry it.

For the standard cases, a lead provider that already sends a recognized feed, the Lead Feeds Manager with instant push to the CRM handles intake without a process at all. Intake Process Automation is for everything else, which at most stores is more than half of the sources.

An intake process is not only for outside sources. The intake hook is an internal entry point the rest of the platform uses to create leads the same way an external source would. The two SecureWebX credit application types are the visible example: the credit application system on one side of the platform creates a lead on the other side through the same intake layer a marketplace email uses. The Phone Call Intake type is another: the phone stack described on the BDC Phone Service page hands an inbound caller to intake so the caller becomes a lead.

The practical result for a store is one place to look. Whether a lead came from an email, a webhook, a phone call or a credit application, it entered through a process with a name, a target feed and a run history. A manager asking "where did this lead come from" opens the lead, reads the feed, and if needed opens the process and reads the run. Nobody is reconstructing an integration from memory.

Anything a store needs that the current types do not carry is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership; the process list is designed to grow a type at a time.

Where a lead came from is a compliance question as often as a marketing one. When a customer asks how the store got their number, the store needs an answer that is a record, not a guess. An intake process gives every lead a documented entry: the process that created it, the source it came through, the time, and the feed it landed in. A lead typed by hand from a forwarded email has none of that.

Consent handling starts at the source and continues in the CRM. The pre screening questions and consent language a store puts on its own forms travel with the data into the process; once in the CRM, the lead is subject to the same DNC blacklist, opt out handling and communications log as any other. The do not call scrub and blacklist page covers the number side. The run history and Notes on each process are the documentation a store is glad to have when a source is questioned. None of this replaces the store's own consent practice; it records how each lead entered so that practice can be shown.

Intake Process Automation is part of the LeadLocate CRM subscription. To set up a source, create its feed in the Lead Feeds Manager first, so it has its own automated templates and assignment rule, then click Intake Process Automation, New Process, pick the type, point it at the mailbox or hand the endpoint to the source, choose the target feed, press Test with a real sample, and save. Write the Notes. Check Runs after the first day. Plans are month to month, listed on the pricing page.

Pair it with round robin lead assignment on the target feed so every intake lead gets an owner on arrival, with merge duplicate leads for the customer who reaches the store through two sources, and with Follow Up Processes so the abandoned credit application lead gets a timeline, not just a row. The all features list shows the rest.

If we are ever unavailable, the leads already in your feeds are already there with their run history, the sources keep sending, and an email intake mailbox holds its messages until the process runs again. The pre-recorded live demo shows a source becoming a feed before you sign up, and the contact page reaches a person if you want the first process built with you.

What is an intake process?

A named rule in LeadLocate CRM that turns a source into leads: it watches a mailbox, accepts data at a webhook endpoint, takes a phone call, or reacts to a completed or abandoned credit application, and delivers each lead into the target feed you choose.

Do I still need a third party automation tool for lead intake?

No. Intake Process Automation replaced the per dealer zaps stores used to run in those tools. The processes live in the CRM under your account, with a Test button and a run history.

What if my lead provider only sends email?

Create an Email Intake process, set the Mailbox to watch to the address the provider sends to, pick the target feed, and test it with a sample. Every email after that becomes a lead in the feed.

Can a website form or another tool send leads directly?

Yes. A Webhook (any data) process gives you an endpoint address. Anything that can post data to a URL sends there and the process maps it into a lead.

How do I know a process is working?

Each process shows its Runs, with every lead that came through, its source and result. Activity is the live view and the Report summarizes intake over a period. A failed run is visible, not silent.

What happens to an abandoned credit application?

The SWX Credit (Abandoned) type turns it into a lead in the target feed, so a customer who stopped partway through an apply link gets a follow up instead of being lost.

Intake Process Automation is part of every LeadLocate CRM plan, month to month. See an email lead source become a feed with a run history in one sitting.

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