Text Automation Triggered by Lead Activity

The best first text goes out before a salesperson has read the lead. The best fifth text goes out on the day the process says, to the customer who has not answered yet. Neither should depend on memory.

Text Automation in LeadLocate CRM is the set of tools that send a text because something happened to a lead rather than because a rep remembered: a lead arrived on a feed, an appointment was confirmed, a day in a follow up process came due, a customer texted a keyword, or a rep set a date and time. Each automated text goes out on the store's tracking numbers, lands on the customer's thread in the two way texting inbox with a delivery status, and the rep who owns the lead takes over the conversation from that thread the moment the customer answers.

Searches for text automation usually turn up phone tricks and generic business tools that fire on a timer. A dealership needs the trigger to be the lead. The dealership SMS marketing automation page covers cadence and consent as a strategy; this page is the four places automation actually lives in the CRM and what each one is called.

A lead lands on the store's inbound feed at 8:52 a.m., before the first rep is at a desk. The feed's Automated TEXT Messages (on Lead Receipt) template fires: a short text from the store, by name, thanking the customer for the inquiry about the vehicle they asked about and asking when they would like to come in, with the rep's name merged in. At 8:53 the assigned rep's phone gets the New Lead Alert; at 8:57 the customer replies with a question about a trade, and the rep's Text Reply Alert takes it from there. From that point the thread has a human in it.

A different lead from last Tuesday has not answered anything. It sits on the store's follow up process for inbound leads, so on day three the process sends its text step, on day five the email step, and on day seven it creates a call task for the rep. A third customer confirmed an appointment for 4 p.m. and gets the Automated TEXT (on Appointment Confirmation) with the address and the rep's name. And a rep who spoke to someone this morning who said try me Thursday opened the thread, clicked Schedule TEXT Follow-up, picked Thursday at 10, and moved on. Four kinds of text, four triggers, no spreadsheet.

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The first tool is Automated Templates, under Billing and Admin. It holds the messages that fire the moment a lead is received, organized by feed: Inbound Lead Automated Templates for buyer leads, Acquisitions Lead Automated Templates for consumer sellers, and a Company Default set used to set up new feeds. For each there is an Automated TEXT Messages (on Lead Receipt) template, an Automated Email Messages (on Lead Receipt) template, a First Automated Voicemail (on Lead Receipt) that plays a recording the rep made in the browser, and Appointment Confirmation Templates with an Automated TEXT and an Automated Email of their own.

Templates take merge fields, so the customer's name, the vehicle, the rep and the store fill in per lead, and the store can save six custom merge fields of its own for the things templates always need, such as the finance desk's direct line. Attach Business Card puts the rep's card on the automated email. There is one master switch: when automation is off for the account, the page says so in plain words, and nothing fires. Unassigned lead automation covers the lead that has not been routed yet, so a customer never waits on a round robin to hear from the store.

The second tool is Follow Up Processes, also under Billing and Admin. A process is a series of steps for a lead type, each step a number of days out with its channels: Text, Email, Call, in any combination, with an SMS body and an email subject and body written with merge fields. Auto Send steps go out by themselves; a call step becomes a task for the rep with instructions. An Appointment Event can trigger a step, so an appointment that is completed or missed moves the customer onto the right message. After Last Step the process can change the lead to a Final Status, so a lead that never answered ends in a status a manager can report on rather than in limbo.

Processes come with defaults the store can edit, and a Restore Defaults button brings back any default process that was deleted. The page includes a short How Follow Up Processes Work explainer and the list of Available Merge Fields, because a BDC manager should be able to build a process without a support call. The follow up processes page goes deeper on building them; for this page the point is that a text step in a process is text automation triggered by time since the lead, and every reply lands on the thread in front of the rep who owns it.

The third tool is the one named on the dock: Marketing Tools, then Text Automation. The page lists every scheduled text with its To, Message, Template, Attachment, Schedule and Status, and lets a user queue a new one for a date and time, to a contact or to a whole campaign list with Send to Campaign. When it is saved the page confirms TEXT Scheduled, and it goes out at that time. The same scheduling is one click from any thread as Schedule TEXT Follow-up, which is how a rep turns call me Thursday into a text that arrives Thursday without a reminder.

The fourth is the keyword. Keyword triggers on a lead respond to words a customer texts, and Texting Chatbots extend that into campaigns, where a customer who texts a word to the store's number gets the reply the store wrote, is subscribed, and becomes a lead. Intake Process Automation sits underneath all four: in-house intake automations that replaced the per dealer third-party automation tools stores used to string together, with an intake hook, so a lead from any source gets the same treatment on arrival.

Stores without text automation run follow up on the rep's memory and the manager's nagging, and both fail on busy days, which are the days the leads come in. The tools sold to fix it are usually a marketing automation platform bolted onto the CRM, priced per contact, with a drag and drop builder that a BDC manager sets up once and nobody maintains, and no way for the automation to know that a rep already answered the customer by text ten minutes ago.

Built in, the automation and the inbox are the same system. The template fires from the lead record, the process step reads the lead's status, the scheduled text sits on the thread, and a reply from the customer lands on the same thread the automation wrote to, so the rep and the process are looking at one conversation. There is no per contact price and no second vendor; Text Automation is part of every plan on the pricing page. The cost of the alternative is the lead that got the first text and then silence, and the lead that got its fifth automated text after buying somewhere else because the marketing tool never saw the CRM.

Automated texting to consumers is where a store's texting practice gets tested, so the safe behaviors are built in rather than configured. Every automated text goes to a lead who submitted a request or texted the store first, and it goes out on the store's tracking number that the customer already has. A stop word from the customer opts them out automatically, adds the number to the two way blacklist, and halts every process, template and scheduled text for that number; no automation checks a list a rep forgot to update. The DNC Blacklist runs a live do not call lookup and blocks spam in both directions. The master automation switch turns everything off for the account in one place when the store needs that.

The record is complete because the automation writes to the same place a rep does. Every automated text is on the customer's thread with its delivery status and in the communications log with calls, emails and voicemails, so a manager can see what the store sent and when, and read it in order. The TCPA compliance for dealership texting page is the plain language guide to the rules the store still owns.

Automated Templates and default Follow Up Processes come with the account, so a new store has a text on lead receipt and a default process the first day; a Master Administrator edits the wording under Billing and Admin and turns the master switch on. Scheduled texts need nothing but a date. Keyword campaigns need a keyword and a reply. Anything beyond that, a process for a lead type the store invents or a trigger on a custom status, is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership. If we are ever briefly unreachable, texts already sent are on customers' phones, the tracking numbers are yours, and the templates and processes are stored with the account and resume when the system is back.

Pair Text Automation with lead notifications, so the rep knows the moment a customer replies to an automated text and the handoff from system to person is immediate. Pair it with the Phone Validator, whose validity dots on the lead keep automation from texting a number that cannot receive it. And pair it with Email Automation and Voicemail Drops, the other two channels in the same Marketing Tools menu, so a process can text, email and leave a recorded message without leaving the CRM. The full set is on the all features page.

What triggers an automated text in LeadLocate CRM?

Lead receipt on a feed (Automated Templates), an appointment confirmation, a day coming due in a Follow Up Process for that lead type, a keyword the customer texts, or a date and time a rep set with Schedule TEXT Follow-up or on the Text Automation page. Each one lands on the customer's thread with a delivery status.

How do I stop automated texts for a customer or for the whole account?

A stop word from the customer halts every process, template and scheduled text for that number and adds it to the two way blacklist. A user can edit or delete a scheduled text from the Text Automation page, and the master switch under Automated Templates turns all automation off for the account.

Can I send a different first text for buyer leads and seller leads?

Yes. Automated Templates are organized by feed: Inbound Lead Automated Templates, Acquisitions Lead Automated Templates and a Company Default used to set up new feeds. Each has its own Automated TEXT Messages (on Lead Receipt) with merge fields.

Where is Text Automation in the CRM?

In the dock under Marketing Tools, second item, for scheduled texts. The templates that fire on lead receipt are under Billing and Admin, Automated Templates, and the multi step drips are under Follow Up Processes in the same menu. Schedule TEXT Follow-up is inside every conversation.

Can a follow up process include calls and emails as well as texts?

Yes. Each step has channels: Text, Email and Call, in any combination. Text and email steps can Auto Send; a call step creates a task with instructions for the rep. After the last step the process can move the lead to a Final Status.

Does Text Automation cost extra?

No. Automated Templates, Follow Up Processes, scheduled texts and keyword replies are part of LeadLocate CRM on every plan, including CRM Only from $199 a month. Plans are on the pricing page.

Templates on lead receipt, processes by lead type, scheduled texts and keyword replies, all on the customer's thread where a person takes over. See it run in the pre-recorded demo or start month to month.

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