VoIP Softphone and Click to Call for Dealerships

The phone is still where most car deals get made. LeadLocate CRM puts it inside the lead, so every call is dialed with one click and logged without anyone remembering to write it down.

Click to call is exactly what it sounds like: the phone number on a lead is a button, and pressing it places the call. The VoIP softphone is the phone that does the dialing. It runs in the browser, so a salesperson with a headset and a laptop has a complete dealership phone line without a desk set, a wall jack or a separate phone vendor's app open in another window.

The part that matters to a manager is what happens around the call. Because the call starts from the lead, the CRM already knows who is being called, which salesperson is calling, and which tracking number the customer is going to see. The call is recorded, the outcome is stamped on the record, and the recording is waiting on the Calls page afterward. Nobody types a note that says called, left message. The system wrote it.

The dealer VoIP phone system page covers the buying question of moving a store's phones onto the internet in general. This page is the product side: what the softphone in LeadLocate CRM does, where it lives, and how a store uses it on a Tuesday.

A rep sits down at nine with coffee and a Workspace full of yesterday's leads. The first one is a shopper who asked about a used crew cab overnight. She opens the lead, reads the message, and presses the phone number. The softphone rings through her headset, the customer picks up, and they talk for four minutes about whether the truck has the tow package. When the call ends, the recording and the duration are already on the lead's timeline next to the text she sends a minute later with photos of the hitch.

The next lead is a customer who never answers unknown numbers. She calls anyway, gets voicemail, and instead of reciting the same message for the fortieth time this month she presses Drop Voicemail on the softphone and picks her saved greeting from the list. Thirty seconds saved, and the call is logged as a voicemail drop rather than a mystery.

By ten she has made eleven calls without touching a desk phone, and her manager, looking at the Calls page from his own screen, can see all eleven, play any of them, and read a transcript of the crew cab conversation before the customer walks in at noon. That is the whole point. The phone stopped being a black box.

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Not every rep wants a headset, and not every store wants reps tied to a laptop. The softphone gives three outbound paths, and all three land on the same call log.

The first is the browser softphone itself. Press the number on a lead, or open Make a Call from the top bar and use the VoIP Phone dial pad. Audio runs through the computer's microphone and speakers or a plugged in headset, and Record this call is a switch on the phone.

The second is a triggered call to a physical phone. A rep who prefers to talk on the office line or their own cell picks that phone as the source, and the CRM rings it first. When the rep answers and accepts, the CRM bridges the customer in. The customer sees the dealership's tracking number, not the rep's personal cell, and the recording still attaches to the lead. This is the path for a used car manager who lives on his cell but wants every conversation in the system.

The third is the LeadLocate mobile app, which carries a VoIP dialer, an inbound call alert screen and a Call button on the bottom dock. A rep walking the lot taps a lead and calls from the phone in their hand, and the call shows up in Call Logs beside every call placed from a desk. The LeadLocate mobile app page lists everything else the phone version carries.

On the desktop CRM, the softphone is never more than one click away. Make a Call sits in the top bar beside Send a Text and Send an Email, and it opens the dial pad from any page. Inside a lead, the phone number itself is the button. The Calls entry in the main menu opens the call log, where every inbound and outbound call sits with its caller ID, direction, duration, status, recording and transcript. Filtering that page to one salesperson is how a manager coaches from real calls instead of from memory.

On mobile, the bottom dock holds Text, Call, New Lead, Email and Team. Call opens the VoIP dialer, and Call Logs is the phone version of the desktop Calls page. An inbound call on the store's tracking number that reaches a rep's phone shows an alert screen with the caller's name from the CRM, so the rep answers knowing who it is.

Everything the softphone produces also flows into the communications log, the single timeline on every lead that holds calls, texts, pictures, emails and voicemails in the order they happened. A manager reading that timeline sees the call, the text that followed it and the email with the price sheet as one conversation.

Most dealerships pay for the phone three times. There is the phone system itself, billed per seat. There is call tracking from a second vendor so marketing can see which numbers ring. And there is the CRM, which has a phone icon that logs a call only if somebody clicks it after hanging up. Three bills, three logins, and the call recording lives with the phone vendor while the lead lives with the CRM, so nobody can play the call from the lead.

The LeadLocate softphone collapses that. The line, the click to call, the recording, the tracking number and the log are one feature of the CRM, and the CRM is what the store already pays for. There is no per seat phone charge and no second call tracking subscription to reconcile. Plans and what they include are on the pricing page; the CRM Only plan starts at $199 a month and carries the softphone like every other plan.

What it does not replace is a store's existing desk phones if the store likes them. Reception, service and parts can keep whatever they have. The softphone is for the people who work leads, and a triggered call to a desk phone means even a rep who never opens a headset still gets every call logged.

Outbound calling has rules, and the softphone is built to make following them the easy path. Before a number is dialed, the DNC Blacklist is the store's own list of numbers never to contact, with a live do not call lookup on numbers and a two way inbound spam block. A store that scrubs its lists and honors its blacklist has a record of having done so, and the do not call scrub and blacklist page walks through that tool.

Recording is the second angle. Call recording laws differ by state, and some states require every party on the call to know it is being recorded. LeadLocate records and stores the call; the store decides its announcement policy and trains its people on it. Recording is a switch on the softphone, so a store in an all party consent state can run a recorded line with a spoken disclosure, or leave recording off for particular calls.

The third angle is the record itself. Every call, its duration, its outcome and its recording are stored against the lead, in a log the store's managers control. When a customer disputes what was said about a payment, the answer is a recording with a date and a name on it, not two people's memories.

There is nothing to install. When a dealership's LeadLocate account is created, a tracking phone number is provisioned for it, the softphone is enabled, and the number a customer sees on outbound calls is that tracking number. A rep signs in, opens a lead, and presses the phone number. If the browser asks for microphone permission, that one click is the whole setup for a headset user.

A rep who wants to use their own cell or desk phone as the talking device picks that phone as the source the first time they trigger a call. A rep who wants their personal office number to show as the caller ID instead of the tracking number runs the caller ID verification once, which is covered on the caller ID and contact validation page.

Anything a store needs beyond that is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership. The pre-recorded live demo shows a call being placed from a lead and landing on the Calls page if you want to see it before you sign up.

The softphone is the front half of the phone stack. Pair it with call recording and transcription so a manager can read a call instead of listening to the whole thing. Pair it with tracking phone numbers so each lead source has its own line and inbound calls carry their source into the lead. Pair it with call forwarding and ring lists so a call to the tracking number rings the right people and gets logged the same way an outbound call does.

For the voicemail side, the voicemail drop library is what turns the Drop Voicemail button into a saved minute per call. And for reps who text as much as they call, the two way texting inbox sits beside the softphone in the same lead, so the follow up text after a call is two clicks away.

The all features page shows where the softphone sits among everything else in the platform, and the automotive phone system page frames the same capabilities from the store's phone system point of view.

Every vendor has downtime, and a store should know what that looks like before it happens. The softphone rides on the CRM, so if the CRM is unreachable, browser calls from the CRM pause with it. Your tracking numbers, however, are provisioned on the phone service, and inbound calls to them keep forwarding to the phones on your ring list, because that forwarding does not run through the CRM's web pages. Your reps still have their cell phones and the customer's number on their screen from before the interruption, and every call already recorded is stored and returns when the CRM does. If you need a person during an interruption, the contact page reaches one.

Do my salespeople need a headset to use the softphone?

No. A headset gives the best experience for browser calls, but a rep can trigger the call to their own desk phone or cell instead. The CRM rings that phone first, bridges the customer in when the rep accepts, and logs and records the call exactly as a browser call.

What caller ID does the customer see?

The dealership's tracking number by default, so a callback comes into the CRM. A rep can verify their office or cell number and show that instead. The rep's personal cell is never exposed unless the rep chooses to verify and show it.

Are calls recorded automatically?

Recording is a switch on the softphone, so a store can record every call or leave it off for particular calls. Recordings and transcripts sit on the Calls page and on the lead's timeline. Recording laws vary by state, and the store sets its own announcement policy.

Can I call from the mobile app?

Yes. The LeadLocate mobile app has a VoIP dialer, a Call button on the bottom dock, an inbound call alert screen and Call Logs. Calls placed from the app land in the same log as calls placed from a desk.

Is the softphone extra, or part of the CRM?

It is part of every LeadLocate plan, including CRM Only from $199 a month. There is no per seat phone charge. A tracking number is provisioned when the account is created and the softphone works the first time a rep opens a lead.

Does click to call work for contacts that are not leads?

Yes. The dial pad under Make a Call works from any page, and the phone number on a contact record is a button the same way it is on a lead. The call is logged against whichever record it was placed from.

Every LeadLocate plan includes the VoIP softphone, click to call, recording and a shared call log, month to month. See a call placed from a lead in the pre-recorded demo, or start on CRM Only.

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