Tekion ARC CRM Alternative for Car Dealerships

Keep Tekion ARC running accounting, parts and service, and put a sales layer beside it that brings its own exclusive local leads, phones, texting and customer deal pages.

Tekion sells the Automotive Retail Cloud, usually shortened to ARC, as one cloud platform for a dealership. Public materials describe it as uniting the dealer management system, CRM, service lane technology, payments, payroll and analytics, with sales, service, parts, F&I and accounting sharing one data model. The CRM is built natively into that platform, and Tekion positions it around AI assisted lead prioritization, real time alerts on customer activity and analytics that draw on everything else ARC knows about the store.

That design is the whole point of the purchase. A store that chooses ARC is choosing one vendor for the back office and the front office, and the CRM comes as part of that decision. Franchise stores and dealer groups are the core audience, and Tekion states that the platform scales from a single rooftop to large groups.

Modules, packaging and pricing change over time, and ARC is usually sold as a bundle. Confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly, including what the CRM costs on its own and what changes if you run a different sales layer beside it.

Most dealers asking about a Tekion ARC CRM alternative are not asking to replace Tekion. The accounting, deal posting, parts, repair orders and payroll stay in ARC, and that is exactly where they belong. What the store wants is a sales and marketing layer that brings more to the floor than a CRM tab inside the dealer management system you run.

LeadLocate is built for that job. It sits beside ARC as the place where leads arrive, conversations happen and deals get built and shared with the customer. When a deal is sold, it posts in Tekion the way it does today. Nothing about the back office has to change for the sales floor to get stronger.

There is a practical upside to that split. The sales layer can be tested on one team, on one lead source or at one rooftop without touching the platform that runs the accounting. Month to month terms mean the store decides every month whether LeadLocate is earning its place, and the back office never feels the experiment.

Stores that run LeadLocate this way usually describe it in simple terms: Tekion keeps the books, LeadLocate fills the calendar.

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Exclusive local leads, included in the lead plans. A CRM inside a dealer management system works the leads your other vendors send. LeadLocate brings its own. In Leads Manager your store draws its zone with the zone editor, chooses the campaign type, writes the prescreening questions and previews sample ads with See Samples, and our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture, and backed by a replacement review. Opt in seller leads from local owners who asked for an offer add an acquisition line beside the buyer leads.

A phone system inside the CRM. Tracking numbers per source, an IVR call flow builder with your own audio, business hours routing, a Forward Calls To ring list, a VoIP softphone with click to call, and every call recorded and transcribed on the lead. Call Alerts check transcripts for the words you choose, such as trade in or payment.

Texting and email built for the floor. SMS and MMS with delivery status on every bubble, RCS with automatic SMS fallback, Texting Chatbots, bulk texting, bulk email from your own authenticated domain, voicemail drops and scheduled sends. A vehicle button in every composer inserts a unit with photos and price.

Contact hygiene. The Phone Validator and Email Validator show a validity dot on every lead, and a live do not call lookup sits on the DNC Blacklist page.

Room for everyone who sells. Individual salespeople, BDC reps and brokers get a personal salesperson website, lead pages and their own pipeline, and Jax, the bilingual AI assistant, drafts texts and emails in English or Spanish inside the CRM.

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

Here is a normal Saturday at a store running both. A shopper in your zone submits a request, and the lead lands in LeadLocate with the answers to your prescreening questions attached. The Automated Template for that feed sends the first text in seconds, round robin assignment puts it in front of the next rep up, and a manager copy lands in the sales manager inbox. The rep calls from the softphone, the call is recorded and transcribed, and the appointment goes on the shared calendar with a reminder.

When the customer is ready to talk numbers, the desk builds the deal in DealTracker EZ Desking with the 50 state tax matrix, three lease tax methods and OEM incentives from the Incentives Showroom. The customer reviews the deal on a PIN protected deal page skinned to your store, signs, and asks questions in deal chat. On the finance side, a SecureWebX apply link collects a five step credit application with co applicant support, and worksheets push from desking into SecureWebX so nobody retypes a number.

Anything the business office needs travels in the format it expects. SecureWebX exports an application to your lender or dealer management system as STAR XML, fixed width, CSV or JSON, and Send to Lender shares an application with a lender you choose through a code gated, expiring, watermarked link. From there the deal posts in Tekion exactly as it does now.

Inventory follows the same pattern. Inventory Link reads your live feed, or imports inventory from your website when there is no feed, and every unit is available to the vehicle insert button in texts and emails. Our page on CRM alongside your DMS covers the connection points in more detail.

Because Tekion keeps the books, moving the sales layer is a smaller project than a full platform change. Stores usually follow this order.

1. Pick the scope. Decide whether LeadLocate takes every lead source on day one or starts with one team or one rooftop.
2. Bring the contacts over. Export customers and open leads from ARC CRM in the format your agreement provides, then load them with contact import and clean the overlap with merge duplicates.
3. Repoint the sources. Create a feed per source in the Lead Feeds Manager and connect your website forms through your form intake link so every form lands in the CRM with its fields mapped.
4. Set the cadence. Load Follow Up Processes and Automated Templates per lead type, and set up the IVR and tracking numbers.
5. Measure for a month. Track time to first response, touches per lead and appointments set against the same period on the old setup.

Training is included with every plan through the video training library, Live Training and Schedule Training on the top bar. The Tekion switching guide and our implementation plan go step by step.

Bring the same questions to Tekion and to us, and get the answers in writing.

What does the CRM cost on its own, and does the platform price change if we run a separate sales layer? What is the term and the renewal? Can we export our customer and lead history, in what format, and on what timeline? Are leads included, and are they exclusive to our store? Can a rep call, text and desk from a phone? What can our managers see about a call without listening to the recording?

On our side the answers are short. LeadLocate is month to month with no long term contract. CRM Only starts at $199 a month and lead plans start at $799, with seller lead plans from $999 and the Buyers & Sellers Hybrid Plan from $1,599. Every account is set up for your market, usually the same day, and neither an inventory feed nor DMS access is required to start.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, appointments, close rates or sold units, because those depend on your market, your inventory and your people, and no vendor can. What you get is every lead in your zone, a CRM that works it from the first second, and reporting that shows exactly what each source produced. See it running on real lead flow in the demo.

Do we have to leave Tekion to use LeadLocate?

No. Most stores keep Tekion ARC for accounting, parts, service and payroll and run LeadLocate beside it for leads, texting, calling, desking and follow up. Sold deals keep posting in Tekion as they do today.

Does LeadLocate replace the dealer management system?

LeadLocate is the sales and marketing layer. The dealer management system you run keeps the books, parts and service, and LeadLocate handles the customer from first click to signed deal.

How do credit applications reach our business office?

SecureWebX collects the application through your apply link and exports it to your lender or dealer management system in the format it expects, including STAR XML, CSV and JSON. Send to Lender shares an application securely with a lender you choose.

Are the leads exclusive to our store?

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

Can we start with one rooftop or one team?

Yes, and it is the approach we recommend for groups. Month to month terms let you prove the sales layer on one store before rolling it out across the group.

What does it cost?

CRM Only starts at $199 a month and lead plans start at $799, all month to month with no long term contract. See the pricing page for every plan.

We will map a zone around your store, show LeadLocate working real lead flow beside the platform you run today, and give you a straight number. Month to month, every month.

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