Switching From DealerClick

Which half of the system you are actually unhappy with decides everything about how this move should go.

DealerClick sells software that covers more than one job, and stores that say they want out are usually unhappy with one specific part of it. Before you shop anything, get precise about which part, because the answer changes what you should even be looking at.

If the problem is back office. Accounting, financing and loan servicing, forms and contract printing, title paperwork, month end. That is dealer management system territory. We do not build that, do not sell it, and will not pretend otherwise. If those are your complaints, you are shopping for another back office system and this page will help you sequence the move but not replace it.

If the problem is the front end. Leads sit unworked. Texting is clumsy or happens on personal phones so nothing is logged. Follow up dies after two touches. There is no real campaign capability. Reporting cannot tell you who responded first and who never called at all. That is a CRM and communication problem, and it is what we actually replace.

If the problem is that you have no lead flow. No software fixes an empty pipeline. That is a separate purchase, and it is worth being honest with yourself about whether you are shopping for a new system or for customers.

Most stores that call us are in the second and third groups at once. They want the front end rebuilt and they want leads coming in the door, and they would rather not add a third vendor to do it.

DealerClick has been in the independent and buy here pay here market for a long time and is known for covering the whole operation from one place: dealer management functions alongside sales tools, with a customer base that skews toward independent used car stores and smaller operations. Stores that run it tend to run all of it, which is exactly why leaving is a bigger decision than swapping a CRM.

That breadth is the argument for staying. If your accounting, your financing side and your paperwork all live in one system that your office manager knows cold, pulling the front end out has to be worth the disruption. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the right answer is to keep the back office exactly where it is and add a front end that actually works, which is a much smaller change than a full migration.

Product packaging, module availability and pricing change over time, and we are not going to guess at their current lineup. Verify the specifics directly with the vendor rather than relying on any comparison page, including this one. If you want the shorter version of this comparison, the DealerClick alternative page covers the same ground more briefly.

Let us be blunt about the boundary first. LeadLocate has no general ledger, no accounts payable or receivable, no payroll, no bank reconciliation, no deal posting to accounting, no title or registration processing, no parts and no repair orders. If you need those, keep the dealer management system you run or replace it with another one. We sit next to it.

What we are is a lead generation platform with a full CRM built around it, sold month to month. The lead side delivers exclusive local leads inside a territory you pick, in two families: inbound buyer leads from in market shoppers, and opt in seller leads from local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request and asked to be contacted about selling their car. Nothing is filtered or scored. Every submitted lead in your zone is delivered to you exclusively, and problems are handled by post delivery replacement review rather than by a quality promise made up front.

The CRM side is where most of the daily work happens: lead inbox and distribution rules, SMS and MMS with RCS and automatic SMS fallback, a click to call dialer with a VoIP softphone, call recording with transcription, voicemail drop, email with a composer and inbox, bulk email, automations and follow up processes, drip campaigns, appointments and reminders, lead pages, personal salesperson websites, a free live chat widget for your site, and three layers of reporting.

There is also desking. Loan and lease, a fifty state tax matrix, semimonthly payment frequency, trade credit caps and three lease tax methods, with customer facing deal pages so a shopper sees their own numbers on a link instead of a photo of a worksheet. Detail is on the desking tool page.

Features and pricing change. Confirm anything that will drive your decision with each vendor directly before you sign.

We would rather tell you to stay than watch you switch and switch back. Stay where you are if any of these describe your store.

• Your buy here pay here portfolio and loan servicing run through the system and moving them would put collections at risk.
• Your office manager runs your accounting inside it and there is no appetite for retraining the back office this year.
• Your forms, contracts and paperwork are configured the way your state and your lenders expect, and reproducing that elsewhere is a project nobody has time for.
• Your front end complaints are actually process complaints. Leads not worked and follow up dying on day three do not get fixed by new software on their own.
• You are already happy with your lead sources and do not need a vendor supplying customers.

That fourth point deserves emphasis. Changing systems to solve a discipline problem is how stores end up changing again in eighteen months. New software makes the problem visible, which genuinely helps, but visibility is not a fix.

The case is strongest when several of these are true together.

• You want leads and CRM from one vendor on one bill rather than stitching two together yourself.
• You want exclusive local leads rather than shared internet leads that three stores are calling simultaneously.
• Your team communicates with customers on personal cell phones, so your reporting is fiction and your opt out records live nowhere.
• You want texting, calling, transcription and voicemail drop in one place, logged against the customer record automatically.
• Contract length is a sticking point and you want the freedom to leave if we stop earning it.
• You want individual salespeople to be able to run on the platform, not just the store.
• You do not have, or do not want to depend on, a DMS connection or an inventory feed. Neither is required to operate.

If you are a buy here pay here store keeping your back office and rebuilding the front, the BHPH CRM page covers that specific split in more detail.

The order you do this in matters more than the vendor you choose. What works, in sequence.

1. Get your export before you give notice. Leverage disappears the moment you cancel. Ask in writing what you can extract, in what format, and whether communication history comes with it.
2. Decide the boundary. Write down which system owns which job after the change: customer records, communication, desking, paperwork, accounting. Ambiguity here becomes an argument in month two.
3. Overlap deliberately. Plan on paying two vendors for a few weeks. Cutting over with no overlap is the single most common way stores lose leads during a change. There is a page on running two systems during migration if you want the mechanics.
4. Repoint your inputs. Every source that currently posts into your system has to be redirected: website forms, third party lead providers, chat, phone. Build the list before you start, not while you are live.
5. Pilot with a team, not the store. Three to four weeks with a few people, on real lead flow, before everyone moves. Month to month pricing exists so this is possible without a commitment.
6. Pull your historical reports. Whatever you want to compare against next year, export it while you still have access.

Our CRM migration checklist runs through this in order and is written to be used with any vendor.

The export conversation is where most switches go wrong, because dealers ask for their data and receive a spreadsheet of names and phone numbers with none of the context that made the database valuable.

Ask for these specifically, by name. Customer and prospect records with all contact fields. Notes and activity history against each record. Communication history, meaning the actual texts, emails and call logs rather than a count of them. Appointment history. Deal and worksheet records if the system holds them. Opt out and do not contact flags, which matter legally and are the field most often left behind. Vehicle interest and trade information. Source attribution, so you can still tell where a customer came from a year from now.

Then ask two follow up questions. What format, and is it a one time export or something you can run yourself? And who at the vendor is responsible if the export is incomplete? Getting a name is worth more than getting a promise. The data export checklist has the full list in a form you can hand to a vendor.

On our side, opt out status is the field to be most careful about. If a customer told your store to stop contacting them, that has to survive the migration. Import your suppression list into the blacklist before you send anything, not after.

Take these into every demo. The answers separate vendors faster than any feature grid.

What is the total monthly cost with every module I actually need, and what does it become at renewal? What is the contract length and what does cancelling involve? Exactly what can I export if I leave, in what format, and does it include communication history? Who owns the customer data? How long does implementation take and what does my store have to supply? What does support look like at six on a Saturday evening? If leads are included, are they exclusive to my store, and how is my territory drawn? What happens when a lead is bad?

Write down the answers. Vendors comfortable being pinned down in writing tend to be the ones still worth having in year three. If you want ours answered live, start with the demo, or contact us and ask directly. We cannot guarantee results and will not pretend to, but we will give you a straight answer about what the software does and does not do.

Is LeadLocate a replacement for DealerClick?

For the CRM, communication, follow up and desking side, yes. For back office functions like accounting, financing and loan servicing, no. We do not build those, so either keep the dealer management system you run or replace it separately.

Can we keep our back office and only change the front end?

Yes, and for many independent stores that is the sensible move. It is a much smaller disruption than a full migration and it targets the part most stores are actually unhappy with.

Do we need a DMS integration or an inventory feed to start?

No. Neither is required, which is why brokers and individual salespeople can also run on the platform. If you do have an inventory feed, Inventory Link can ingest it and advertise your actual vehicles.

What happens to our buy here pay here loan servicing?

It stays where it is. We have no loan servicing, collections or portfolio accounting, and no page here should suggest otherwise.

How long does the switch take?

Far less than a back office migration because there is less to configure. The realistic constraint is team adoption rather than setup, which is why we suggest running a small pilot team for three to four weeks first.

Can we run both systems during the transition?

Yes, and we recommend it. A few weeks of overlap costs less than the leads a hard cutover loses.

Tell us which part of your current setup is costing you deals and we will show you exactly what we replace and what we leave alone. Month to month, no long term contract. Call 844-376-2274.