05 / 16 · From stock to sale
Auto dealer CRM with lead management, built for used car dealers
A used car dealer CRM for independent dealers: website forms, the website chat and ADF marketplace leads arrive with their source and the car the shopper asked about. With lead routing on, each one is assigned to a salesperson as it arrives, the assistant drafts replies for a person to approve, and a ready buyer becomes a customer and a deal without being typed in again.
Who does what
The AI works the pipeline. Your team makes the calls.
Answers after hours
The website assistant answers from published inventory and takes the request with the vehicle and a preferred time attached. A request, not a booking.
AI · while chat is onRoutes the lead
With lead routing on, each new lead goes to a salesperson by round-robin or to whoever has the fewest open leads. It is a rule you set, not a choice the AI makes.
System · when switched onDrafts the reply
The assistant writes an email from the lead and the car, or proposes one of your message templates. An email in its own words always waits for approval.
AI · you approveFlags what is going quiet
An active lead with no activity for 7 days gets a follow-up task prepared for its salesperson. Messages waiting more than a day for a reply are named in a morning alert.
AI · each morning
What you get
Dealership lead management: every inquiry in one list, with its source and status
A lead needs more than a name in a list. Each one records its source, its status, who owns it and when someone last worked it, and the lead’s page keeps its emails, logged calls, tasks and documents together. It is an automotive lead management system that shares its records with your inventory and your deals, so nothing is copied from one program to another.
Start with the request
Every lead records its source. Website, chat and marketplace leads also link the car the shopper asked about, so the salesperson begins with context.
Make ownership clear
Use statuses and assignments to show who is responsible, with round-robin or workload routing once you switch it on.
Keep the follow-up moving
Work with connected email, appointments and tasks so the team can see what has happened and what should happen next.
See it in action
English audio · English and Spanish captions
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Read the transcript
English transcript
A customer relationship management system keeps the people and follow up around a sale connected. It helps the team see where an inquiry came from, what has happened, and what should happen next.
A new inquiry starts a conversation. AutoDealer keeps the lead, its source, and the next step together, helping the team see who is interested, what they asked about, and who should follow up.
Start with the lead pipeline, then open a record to review its source, stage, and assigned salesperson. The connected history gives the next person useful context, so the team can continue the conversation without asking the customer to repeat everything from the beginning.
Emails and replies can stay connected to the lead through the dealership inbox. Appointments and tasks make the next step visible, whether that means a call, a test drive, or a visit. Review the existing activity before choosing what should happen next.
Customer profiles bring notes and history together. Lead routing and templates support the team, while appointments and reminders organize the handoff. Staff can review the relationship and decide the right response for the customer.
The AI assistant can summarize leads, draft follow-ups, and propose appointments or tasks. Review the details and approve supported changes before they run.
The details
The used car dealer CRM pipeline, from New to Won
Every lead has a status: New, Contacted, Engaged, Appointment set, Showed, Negotiating, Won, Lost or Dormant. The lead’s page offers only the moves allowed from where it stands, and Last activity shows when someone last worked it.
- A Lost or Dormant lead comes back with Revive.
- Every status change is written to the audit log, with who made it and when.
- Owners and admin managers can open a timeline of a lead’s recorded changes.
Dealership CRM email: replies land on the lead
Send an email from the lead’s page. Your dealership has its own address at mail.autodealer.io, and every email you send carries it as the reply address, so an answer lands on the lead or customer and the salesperson gets a notice. Mail from someone not on file waits in the Inbox.
- A reply from a different mailbox still finds its record by the thread it answers.
- PDFs and photos attached to a reply are filed on the person’s documents.
- Message templates are for the assistant. When you write, the words are your own.
Customer records: history, notes, documents and a driver’s license scan
A customer’s page holds contact details, driver license and address, your team’s notes, every deal they are on, documents, tasks and the communications log. Scan license reads the front of a license into the customer form: name, date of birth, license and address.
- The Deals section shows total deals, sold deals and lifetime spend.
- Team notes can be pinned, and they never appear on your website or in the website chat.
- Stop all emails records that a customer asked not to be emailed, and nothing is sent to them.
From lead to customer to deal
Convert to customer creates the customer, or links the one on file with the same email, and marks the lead Won. Start deal then opens a new deal with the customer filled in and the lead linked, and you pick the car.
- The link to the lead stays on the deal, so the Leads & Marketing report can count which sources sell cars.
- The figures, the paperwork and the signatures happen on the deal. Deals, F&I & E-Sign
Where leads come from
Every way a lead comes in, with its source
Lead tracking by source
Every lead records one of nine sources: Walk-in, Website, Referral, Phone, Email, AI chat, Marketplace, Auction or Other. Website, chat and marketplace leads are tagged on their own, and you pick the source for a lead you add.
- The Leads & Marketing report shows, per source, leads, deals started, sold cars, close rate and sold revenue.
- Website leads are also counted by the form they came from.
Website forms and the website chat
Every form on your website, from a question about a car to a test drive, trade-in or pre-qualification request, creates a lead by itself, and so does a chat the website assistant hands to your team. The lead is linked to the car the shopper asked about, and the answers sit under What they asked for.
- The dealership gets an email with the shopper, the car and the message.
- With the auto-reply on, the shopper gets a confirmation email right away.
- The same person asking about the same car again within 10 minutes does not make a second lead.
Marketplace leads in ADF format
Generate a private lead address under Settings, Marketplaces and give it to any portal that sends leads in ADF format. Each lead lands in Leads with the source Marketplace and the car, and is routed like a website lead.
- A portal that only emails leads needs a mail forwarder that posts the ADF to the address.
- Keep the address private. Rotate gives you a new one.
- Your inventory on the listing sites. Inventory Syndication
Auto dealer lead management for walk-ins, calls and new email
A walk-in, a phone call or a referral goes in with Add lead: a name, an email or phone, the source and notes. Email from someone new waits in the Inbox, where Add as lead makes the sender a lead with the source Email and files the message on it.
- A lead added by hand is routed like any other when routing is on.
- A call is logged on the lead. The system does not record calls.
Day to day
Lead routing: round robin lead distribution, or balanced by workload
Switch on lead routing and every new lead is assigned as it arrives: round-robin through the team, or to whoever has the fewest open leads right now. Pick who is in the rotation, or leave it to the whole sales team. With routing off, a new lead stays unassigned until someone claims it.
- Salespeople can claim an unassigned lead. Owners and managers can reassign any lead.
- The person it is assigned to gets a notice, and a web lead nobody is assigned to rings the bell for owners and managers.
- With Telegram connected, that person also gets the alert on their phone within about 15 minutes. Proactive AI Briefings
Test drive requests and appointments with a day-before reminder
Book a test drive, a sales visit or a delivery from the lead’s page, with the lead already filled in. The day before, the customer gets a reminder email and the assigned salesperson a notice, and nobody has to start it. A day and time a shopper picks on your website arrives as a Scheduled test drive for you to confirm.
- A website request gets no reminder until you press Confirm.
- From Appointment set, Completed moves the lead to Showed and No-show sends it back to Engaged.
- Shoppers ask for a time. Your team books it and confirms it.
A car dealership follow-up system: tasks and quiet-lead alerts
Tasks hang on a lead, a customer, a deal or a car, and sit on one board with a status, a priority and a category. Each morning the assistant names active leads with no activity for 7 days and prepares a follow-up task for each, for the salesperson who owns the lead.
- A new lead nobody has contacted after a day is named to owners and managers.
- So is a message that has waited more than a day for a reply.
- At Ask me first you approve each task. At Do the routine it is created on its own.
An automotive AI CRM: where the AI helps, and what waits for your approval
The assistant reads the whole lead before it acts: the car, the messages, the tasks and the appointments. It drafts replies, proposes your message templates and prepares appointments and status changes, each as a card. An email in its own words always waits for a person, and it never picks a salesperson on its own.
- With the new lead trigger on, every new lead gets a first reply and a follow-up task prepared, both waiting for approval.
- Some emails go with no person: the day-before reminder, the auto-reply and review requests once you switch them on, and your own templates at Run it.
- It never writes to someone who asked you to stop.
Visit requests from your website are confirmed by your team. Lead routing, the auto-reply and the new lead trigger are settings you switch on. The CRM does not place calls, score leads or run email campaigns, and an email the assistant writes goes out only after a person approves it.
In plain words
What this auto dealer CRM does, and what it does not
What it does
- Creates a lead from every website form and every chat handoff, with its source and the car
- Takes leads from portals that send ADF to your private lead address
- Routes new leads by round-robin or by workload, once you switch routing on
- Sends email from the lead and files the replies and attachments on it
- Books test drives and visits, and emails the customer a reminder the day before
- Names quiet leads each morning and prepares a follow-up task for each
- Turns a lead into a customer and a deal, keeping the link for source reporting
What it does not do
- Place calls. You log a call you made yourself.
- Score leads. A lead has a status, a source and a last activity date.
- Run email campaigns or drip sequences to a list. It sends one email to one person.
- Track ad spend, so it cannot show cost per lead.
- Pull leads out of a portal by itself. The portal has to send them in ADF format.
- Confirm a visit on its own. A time a shopper asks for waits for your team.
Questions
Car dealer lead management FAQ
What is car dealer lead management, and is it different from a CRM?
Car dealer lead management is the work of catching every inquiry, giving it an owner and following up until the shopper buys or walks away. The CRM is where that work lives. In AutoDealer.io the CRM for car dealers is part of the platform on every plan, so a lead, its customer and the deal sit beside your inventory and title work, and there is nothing to connect.
See pricingDoes it track where my leads come from?
Yes. Every lead has one of nine sources: Walk-in, Website, Referral, Phone, Email, AI chat, Marketplace, Auction or Other, and website, chat and marketplace leads are tagged on their own. The Leads & Marketing report shows for each source how many leads came in, how many deals started, how many sold and the revenue, and splits website leads by the form they came from. It does not show cost per lead, because ad spend is not tracked.
How to read the leads reportWho gets a new lead when nobody is assigned?
That is up to lead routing, which stays off until you switch it on under Settings, Lead routing. With it on, each new lead is assigned as it arrives, round-robin or to whoever has the fewest open leads, and that person gets a notice. With it off, the lead stays Unassigned until a salesperson claims it or a manager assigns it, and a web lead rings the bell for owners and managers. A new lead still not contacted a day later is named to them the next morning.
How to set up lead routingDo marketplace leads come in automatically?
They can, when the portal delivers leads in ADF format. Generate a private lead address under Settings, Marketplaces and enter it in the portal’s lead delivery settings. Each lead lands in Leads with the source Marketplace, the shopper’s comments and the car, and is routed like a website lead. A portal that only emails leads needs a mail forwarder that posts the ADF to your address. A lead that reaches you any other way, you add by hand.
See inventory syndicationDo replies to my emails show up on the lead?
Yes. Every email the platform sends in your dealership’s name carries a reply address that belongs to your dealership. When the person replies, the message lands on their lead or customer, the salesperson gets a notice and a copy goes to your store email. PDFs and photos they attach are filed on their documents. Mail from an address that matches nobody on file waits in the Inbox, where you add the sender as a lead or link the email to someone.
How the dealership inbox worksCan I book a test drive from a lead?
Yes. Open the lead and press Schedule appointment, then pick Test drive, Sales, Service, Delivery or Other, the date and time, and who it is for. The day before, the customer gets a reminder email and the assigned salesperson a notice. If the lead was Engaged, booking moves it to Appointment set, and marking the visit Completed moves it to Showed. A test drive a shopper requests on your website arrives as a Scheduled appointment that waits for you to confirm it.
How to schedule an appointmentHow do I know my salespeople are following up?
The Leads list shows who each lead is assigned to, its status and its Last activity, which moves whenever someone changes the status, reassigns the lead or logs a call or an email. Each morning, owners and managers hear about active leads with no activity for 7 days, new leads nobody has contacted after a day and messages waiting more than a day for a reply, and each salesperson hears about their own quiet leads. The assistant also prepares a follow-up task for each quiet lead.
How quiet-lead alerts workDoes the AI answer my leads for me?
Partly. On your website, while the chat is switched on, the assistant answers shoppers from your published inventory and hands their request to your team as a lead. It cannot book a time: your team confirms it. In the dashboard it drafts replies and proposes your message templates, and with the new lead trigger on it does that for every new lead. An email in its own words is never sent until a person approves it. It does not reply to Inbox email, and it does not text.
See the AI assistantCan it score leads or run drip campaigns?
No. There is no lead score, only the status, the source and the last activity. And there are no campaigns to a list: the CRM sends one email to one person.
Works with
All 16 features
- Buyer’s guideBest CRM for car dealershipsAutomotive CRM options for chasing leads, working a pipeline and following up without a full DMS switch.
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