Saturday morning and the leads are piling up
Saturday is when people are on the forecourt and also when people are browsing on their phones. The sales team is doing test drives and handovers. Meanwhile the enquiries arrive: is the Golf still available, can I part exchange my Qashqai, what is the lowest you will take, can I see it tomorrow.
They come through Auto Trader's lead email, the website form, a Facebook message and the manufacturer's used car site. Nobody is watching all of them. By Monday some have gone cold, and one customer has bought an identical car from the dealer down the road who replied in ten minutes.
Too many inboxes, not too few salespeople
It feels like a staffing problem. Usually it is a routing problem. Leads come through several channels, each landing somewhere different, and none of them is owned.
- Each advertising site sends leads by email or its own portal.
- Website forms go to a shared inbox.
- Social messages go to whoever manages the page.
- The CRM, if there is one, is updated after contact, not before.
Salespeople naturally prioritise the customer in front of them. Nobody is wrong; the system just has no way to ensure every enquiry is answered.
Where slow replies hurt
Used car buyers often enquire on several similar cars at once. The first dealer to give a useful answer usually gets the visit. A reply the next day is often to someone who has already made an appointment elsewhere.
Slow replies also skew your view of stock. A car with lots of enquiries and no sales looks like a pricing problem, when it might be a follow-up problem.
And some advertising platforms show buyers how responsive a dealer is, so slow replies can affect how your listings are seen.
How we route and answer every enquiry
- Every lead source is connected to one queue: Auto Trader and other marketplaces through their lead feeds or emails, website forms, and social messages where the platform allows it.
- Each lead is matched to the vehicle in your stock by registration or stock number, and to any existing customer record in your CRM or DMS.
- An immediate reply goes out with useful detail about the actual car: availability, key features, photos link and a way to book a viewing or test drive.
- The lead is assigned to a salesperson by your rules, such as rota, brand or who dealt with the customer before.
- If nobody has made contact within the time you set, it escalates to the sales manager.
- Every contact is logged, so you can see response times and outcomes by source and salesperson.
| Lead source | How it arrives | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Auto Trader | Lead email or feed | Parse, match to stock, reply |
| Your website | Form | Create lead directly |
| Manufacturer used car site | Email or portal | Parse and match |
| Social messages | Platform inbox | Pull in where allowed |
The automatic reply is written by you and says what is true. It does not quote prices it should not, or promise availability you have not checked.
A sales team that knows what is waiting
Every enquiry is in one place, with the car and the customer attached. Salespeople pick up leads between customers from their phones. The sales manager sees what is waiting and what has gone cold, and can step in before a buyer is lost.
Over time, you see which sources produce buyers and which only produce questions, which helps decide where to advertise.
Signs your enquiries are leaking
- Leads arrive in several inboxes and portals.
- Weekend enquiries are answered on Monday.
- You cannot say how long replies take.
- Customers mention buying elsewhere after enquiring with you.
- The CRM only has leads someone remembered to enter.