Test Drive to Sale Pipeline

A vehicle inquiry arrives at 11:14pm from a listing portal. The lead sits in a shared inbox until 9:30am, when whichever salesperson opens it first replies. By then the buyer has inquired on four other cars and two of those replied within minutes. Speed of first response is the single strongest predictor of who gets the test drive, and most dealerships lose on it structurally rather than through any individual's fault. Nobody is rostered to answer a message at eleven at night, and nothing is set up to answer on their behalf.

The second leak sits in the middle of the process. A buyer takes a test drive, likes the car, and then needs three things to happen: a trade-in valuation, a finance decision, and a set of documents. Each of those lives somewhere else. The trade appraisal with the used-car manager, the finance application with a lender portal, the documents in a folder on someone's desk. The buyer's deal is not stalled on the vehicle; it is stalled on a handoff nobody owns. Days pass. The salesperson says “waiting on finance” in the morning meeting, which means nothing is visible and nothing is chased.

The third leak is the test drive that went well and then nothing happened. The buyer drove the car on Saturday, said they would think about it, and was never contacted again in any structured way, or was contacted so clumsily that they stopped replying. No record of what they said about the car, no record of what was holding them back, no sequence that addresses it. This build puts the whole journey on one board, makes the finance and trade-in and document steps into visible stages with their own owners and their own chase sequences, and treats the post-test-drive window as the specific, time-limited event it is.

Pipeline and stages

One pipeline, Vehicle Sales, twelve stages. The important design choice is that finance, trade-in and documents each get their own stage rather than being a note on a single Negotiation stage. If a deal can stall there, it needs a stage there.

• New Inquiry: any inbound on a specific vehicle or on stock generally.
• Contacted: a two-way exchange has happened.
• Qualified: budget approach, timeframe, trade-in presence and finance intent are known.
• Test Drive Booked: slot held on a vehicle-specific calendar.
• Test Drive Completed: the debrief form has been submitted. Entry is the form, not the appointment time.
• Trade-In Appraisal: the buyer's vehicle is being valued.
• Finance Application: submitted to a lender, awaiting decision.
• Finance Approved: decision received, terms accepted by the buyer.
• Deposit Taken: the vehicle is reserved.
• Documents Pending: identity, license, proof of address, insurance confirmation outstanding.
• Ready for Delivery: everything cleared, vehicle prepped, handover slot booked.
• Delivered: keys handed over.

Three terminal stages: Lost: Bought Elsewhere, Lost: Finance Declined, Lost: No Longer Looking. Separating them matters, because the follow-up for a declined finance application is completely different from the follow-up for someone who bought a rival car.

Calendars

• Test Drive: Standard: 45-minute slots, one per available demonstrator or stock vehicle, with a 15-minute buffer after for the debrief conversation.
• Test Drive: Extended: 2-hour slots, capped at two per day, for buyers who need a longer drive or a specific route.
• Overnight or Weekend Loan: a day-based calendar for extended loans, with an insurance-confirmation gate before the booking can be completed.
• Finance Consultation: 30-minute slots on the business manager's calendar, bookable directly by the buyer or by the salesperson on their behalf.
• Trade-In Appraisal: 20-minute slots on the used-car manager's calendar.
• Handover: 60-minute slots, limited per day, because a rushed handover is where reviews are lost.

Put the vehicle on the calendar as the bookable resource, not the salesperson. Two buyers cannot drive the same car at the same time, and that is the constraint that actually matters.

Custom fields

• Vehicle of interest: stock_number, interest_make, interest_model, interest_year, interest_variant, second_choice_stock_number.
• Buyer intent: purchase_timeframe (single select: This week, This month, 1–3 months, Just looking), payment_intent (single select: Finance, Cash, Lease, Undecided), budget_band (single select, ranges the dealership defines internally: never shown to the buyer in messaging), primary_use (free text: commuting, towing, family, business).
• Trade-in: has_trade_in (checkbox), trade_make, trade_model, trade_year, trade_mileage, trade_condition_notes, trade_outstanding_finance (checkbox), trade_appraisal_status (single select: Not started, Booked, Valued, Offer made, Accepted, Declined).
• Finance: finance_status (single select: Not started, Pre-qualification sent, Application submitted, Approved, Conditionally approved, Declined, Withdrawn), finance_submitted_date, lender_name, finance_decision_date, finance_conditions_outstanding (long text).
• Test drive: test_drive_date, test_drive_vehicle_stock_number, license_verified (checkbox), insurance_confirmed (checkbox), drive_feedback (long text, the buyer's own words), objection_noted (single select: Price, Specification, Color or trim, Finance terms, Trade-in value, Partner needs to see it, Comparing another vehicle, Timing, None stated).
• Documents: id_received, license_received, proof_of_address_received, insurance_cover_note_received, finance_docs_signed: each a checkbox, because a single “docs done” field tells you nothing about what to chase.
• Delivery: handover_date, plate_transfer_required (checkbox), accessories_ordered (long text), delivery_notes.

Tags

• sales-inquiry, portal-lead, walk-in, referral, repeat-buyer
• hot-this-week, warm-this-month, long-horizon: set from purchase_timeframe, driving cadence rather than message content.
• drive-booked, drive-completed, drive-no-show
• has-trade, trade-valued, trade-offer-made
• finance-submitted, finance-approved, finance-conditional, finance-declined
• docs-outstanding, deposit-taken, delivery-booked, delivered
• objection-price, objection-spec, objection-partner, objection-comparing, objection-timing: the tag that selects which post-drive sequence runs.
• sms-opted-out, email-unsubscribed

Forms

• Vehicle Inquiry: the public form on every stock listing. Pre-populates stock_number from the page. Fields: name, mobile, email, purchase timeframe, payment intent, trade-in yes or no, best time to call, SMS consent checkbox.
• Test Drive Request: adds license held yes or no, license category where relevant, and the insurance acknowledgement. License verification is a gate, not a nice-to-have.
• Trade-In Details: make, model, year, mileage, condition notes, outstanding finance yes or no, and a photo upload for four angles plus the dash. Photos before the appraisal appointment save the used-car manager a trip to the parking lot.
• Test Drive Debrief: the salesperson's form, completed within 15 minutes of the buyer leaving. Fields: what they said about the car in their words, objection_noted, next step agreed, agreed follow-up date. This form is the entry condition for the Test Drive Completed stage and the input to every post-drive sequence.
• Document Upload: a single secure link covering identity, license, proof of address and insurance cover note, with each item ticking its own checkbox on submission so the chase sequence knows exactly what is still missing.
• Handover Confirmation: completed at delivery: items handed over, accessories fitted, plate transfer done, buyer walkthrough completed.

BO's role and guardrails

BO's single most valuable job here is answering within a minute of an inquiry arriving, at any hour. BO may confirm the vehicle is still available, confirm basic specification from the listing, ask the qualifying questions, capture trade-in details, offer and book test drive slots on the correct vehicle, send the document upload link, and chase outstanding documents.

The guardrails are tighter than in any other build on this site, because vehicle sales messaging is regulated. BO must never quote or negotiate a price, a monthly payment, an interest rate, an APR, a deposit figure, a trade-in value or a discount. Every one of those routes to a human, immediately, with no number in the reply. BO must never state or imply that finance is available, likely, or approved, must never suggest a buyer will qualify, and must never discuss terms; all finance conversation routes to the business manager. BO must not give a trade-in valuation or an indication of one, even a range, even when pushed. BO must not confirm a test drive without license_verified, and must not confirm an overnight loan without insurance_confirmed. BO must not promise a delivery date before Finance Approved and Documents Pending are both cleared. On any complaint, any mention of a dispute, or any request for a figure, BO hands off on that message and says a named person will come back, then creates the task that makes that true.

Numbers and channels

• A dedicated sales number, separate from the service number, with missed-call text-back inside 30 seconds and out-of-hours auto-response answered by BO.
• Portal and listing leads routed in by email parse or integration, hitting the same intake workflow as the web form so response time is identical whatever the source.
• SMS for speed: first response, slot offers, reminders, document chases. Email for anything with detail: vehicle specification, finance appointment confirmation, document checklist, handover information.
• A vehicle landing page per stock item with the photo set, the specification, the test drive booking widget and a click-to-call, used as the destination for every link in the build.
• A finance inquiry page that explains the process and books a Finance Consultation, carrying whatever regulatory wording the dealership's own compliance requires: never improvised copy.
• Call recording on the sales line, with disclosure, so handover of a deal between salespeople does not lose the context.

One buyer, from an eleven-at-night portal inquiry to handover eleven days later.

1. 11:14pm. An inquiry lands from a listing portal on stock number 7741, a used estate. The intake workflow creates the contact, writes stock_number, interest_make, interest_model and interest_year from the listing, applies sales-inquiry and portal-lead, and creates an opportunity in New Inquiry.
2. 11:15pm. BO replies: “Hi Priya: thanks for the inquiry on the 2022 Octavia estate. It's still here. Are you looking to drive it this week, and would you be part-exchanging anything?” She replies within four minutes, because she is still on her phone. This single exchange is what the whole build exists to make possible.
3. 11:22pm. She says yes to a drive and yes to a part-exchange on a 2016 Focus. BO writes has_trade_in, trade_make, trade_model, trade_year, applies has-trade, asks purchase_timeframe (this month) and payment_intent (finance), and applies warm-this-month. Opportunity moves to Contacted, then Qualified.
4. 11:25pm. BO offers three slots from the Test Drive. Standard calendar for vehicle 7741, confirms she holds a full license, and books Thursday 5:30pm. license_verified is ticked from her confirmation and will be checked against the physical license on arrival. Opportunity moves to Test Drive Booked, drive-booked applied. She also gets the Trade-In Details form link, which she completes with photos on Tuesday.
5. Wednesday 9:00am. The salesperson who owns the lead gets an internal brief: the full exchange, the vehicle, the trade details and the photos, so the first human contact is informed rather than introductory. He calls, confirms the appointment and nothing more.
6. Thursday 5:30pm, the drive. She arrives, license is checked physically, the car is already out front and warm because the T-2-hour internal notification told the sales floor which vehicle to prepare.
7. 6:20pm, the debrief form. The salesperson completes it while she is still in the parking lot: drive_feedback records “loves the boot space, thinks the alloys are scratched, needs her husband to see it”, objection_noted is set to Partner needs to see it, next step is a second viewing Saturday. Opportunity moves to Test Drive Completed, drive-completed and objection-partner applied.
8. 6:45pm. The objection-specific sequence fires. Because the tag is objection-partner, the message is an invitation rather than a close: “Great to meet you, Priya. I've put a hold on the Octavia until Saturday so your husband can see it, and I'll have the alloys quoted for refurb by then so you know where that sits.” A task is created to actually get that quote, because the message promised it.
9. Friday. The used-car manager appraises the Focus from the photos and confirms on site at a 20-minute Trade-In Appraisal slot. trade_appraisal_status moves to Valued, then Offer made. The offer is communicated by the manager in person: never by BO and never in an automated message.
10. Saturday. Both come in, the alloy refurb is addressed, and they agree to proceed on finance. The salesperson books a Finance Consultation with the business manager for Monday and moves the opportunity to Finance Application, finance_status to Pre-qualification sent.
11. Monday. Application submitted, finance_submitted_date and lender_name written, finance-submitted applied. The chase workflow now owns this: if no decision in 24 hours it nudges the business manager, not the buyer. The buyer receives one message (“that's with the lender now, I'll come straight back to you”) and then silence until there is news, which is the correct behavior.
12. Tuesday. Approved with one condition: proof of address. finance_status becomes Conditionally approved, finance_conditions_outstanding records the condition, the opportunity moves to Finance Approved, and the deposit link goes out. Deposit paid the same evening moves it to Deposit Taken.
13. Wednesday. Documents Pending. The Document Upload link goes out listing exactly four items. She uploads three. The chase workflow sees proof_of_address_received still unticked and sends one targeted message naming only that item, not a generic “we still need your documents”. She uploads it Thursday morning.
14. Thursday. Everything cleared. Opportunity moves to Ready for Delivery, a 60-minute Handover slot is booked for Saturday 10:00am, handover_date written, plate_transfer_required checked, and the prep task goes to the workshop with the alloy refurb attached.
15. Saturday, handover. The Handover Confirmation form is completed, opportunity moves to Delivered, delivered applied. The post-delivery sequence arms: a next-day check-in, a 7-day review request gated on a positive check-in response, a 14-day “anything you've not worked out yet” touch, and the contact is handed to the service side with the vehicle details already on the record so the first service reminder is correct from day one.

Nine workflows. Every SMS action in all nine is suppressed by sms-opted-out and held outside quiet hours. No workflow here contains a figure of any kind (no price, payment, rate or valuation) and every branch that reaches one routes to a named human instead.

1. Instant Lead Response and Qualification

Trigger: any of: Vehicle Inquiry form submitted; portal lead parsed in; inbound SMS to the sales number; web chat started; missed call on the sales number.

Actions in order:

• Create or match the contact. Write stock_number and vehicle fields from the source. Apply sales-inquiry plus the source tag. Create the opportunity in New Inquiry, named “{{stock_number}}, {{contact.last_name}}”.
• Assign an owner immediately by your chosen rule, and start a 10-minute claim timer. If unclaimed, reassign to the fallback owner and notify the sales manager. A lead with no owner is the failure mode this step exists to prevent.
• BO replies within 60 seconds, every hour of the day. “Hi {{contact.first_name}}, thanks for the inquiry on the {{interest_year}} {{interest_make}} {{interest_model}}. It's still available. Are you looking to drive it this week, and would you be part-exchanging anything?” One question about timing, one about trade. Nothing else.
• Qualification branch. From the replies write purchase_timeframe, payment_intent and has_trade_in, apply hot-this-week, warm-this-month or long-horizon, and move to Contacted then Qualified.
• Price-question branch. If the buyer asks about price, payment, part-exchange value or finance: BO replies “That one's {{owner_first_name}}'s call rather than mine: I'll get him to come straight back to you. Shall I hold a drive in the meantime?”, creates an urgent task for the owner, and does not answer the question.
• Out-of-hours branch. BO continues the whole conversation and books the drive. At 8:30am the owner receives the full transcript plus a brief as an internal notification.
• No-reply branch. At 30 minutes, 4 hours and 1 day send one short follow-up each, then a call task on day 2, an email on day 4, and close to Lost: No Longer Looking on day 10.

Exit: test drive booked, lead closed lost, or a human takes over.

2. Test Drive Booking, Gates and Reminders

Trigger: appointment booked on a test drive calendar.

Gates, checked before confirmation:

• license_verified must be ticked. If not, BO asks and holds the slot as provisional: “I've pencilled you in for {{slot}}, just confirm you hold a full license and bring it with you and I'll make it firm.”
• For Overnight or Weekend Loan, insurance_confirmed must also be ticked. No confirmation is sent without it, no exceptions.

Actions:

• Move to Test Drive Booked, apply drive-booked, write test_drive_date and test_drive_vehicle_stock_number.
• Send the SMS confirmation and an email with the vehicle landing page, the address, what to bring (license, and insurance details for a loan) and the reschedule link.
• If has_trade_in is ticked, send the Trade-In Details form: “If you send a few photos of the {{trade_make}} before you come in, we can have a value ready rather than keeping you waiting.”
• T-24 hours SMS: “Still good for {{slot}} tomorrow to drive the {{interest_model}}? Reply YES or R to move it.” T-2 hours SMS with the address and the owner's direct number.
• T-2 hours internal: notify the sales floor with the stock number so the vehicle is moved to the front, fuelled and clean. This one step changes the first thirty seconds of the appointment.
• No-show branch, start plus 20 minutes: apply drive-no-show, release the vehicle slot, SMS “We had the {{interest_model}} out ready for you. Everything OK? Happy to find another time.”, create a call task, and offer rebooking at day 1 and day 4 before closing.

Exit: debrief form submitted, or no-show sequence completes.

3. Debrief and Objection-Specific Follow-Up

Trigger: Test Drive Debrief form submitted.

Conditions: if the form is not submitted within 2 hours of the appointment ending, nudge the salesperson; at 24 hours escalate to the sales manager. The data in this form is the build's most valuable asset and it decays within the hour.

Actions:

• Move to Test Drive Completed, apply drive-completed, write drive_feedback and objection_noted, apply the matching objection tag.
• Branch on objection_noted: each path is a different sequence, and this is the heart of the build.
• Price: no automated message about price. Immediate task for the owner to call, and a 1-day email restating what the buyer liked, in their own words from drive_feedback, with the specification sheet. Figures only ever come from the human.
• Specification or Color: within 2 hours send up to three alternative stock items matching the stated gap, and write the best one into second_choice_stock_number. “You mentioned you'd prefer the heated seats. Here are two with that spec: {{alternatives_link}}”
• Partner needs to see it: offer a second viewing in the same message, hold the vehicle for a named period, and send an email addressed to both: “Happy to keep it off the forecourt until {{hold_date}} so you can both see it.”
• Comparing another vehicle: send the comparison content the dealership has approved (specification, warranty, history, what is included) and never a word about the rival. Day 2 a call task.
• Timing: ask for the date, write it to a follow-up field, confirm “I'll come back to you nearer {{date}} and leave you alone until then”, then do exactly that.
• Finance terms: book a Finance Consultation. No automated content about terms, ever.
• None stated: standard three-touch ladder (same-evening thank-you, day 2 SMS with one question, day 5 call task) then hand to workflow 9.

Exit: deal advances, or workflow 9 takes over at day 10.

4. Trade-In Appraisal Track

Trigger: has_trade_in ticked, or Trade-In Details form submitted.

Actions:

• Apply has-trade, write the trade fields, set trade_appraisal_status to Not started, and notify the used-car manager with the photos attached.
• If photos are missing, BO asks once for four angles plus the dash and the current mileage. Never ask twice.
• Book a Trade-In Appraisal slot alongside the test drive where possible, so the buyer makes one visit. Set status to Booked.
• After appraisal the manager sets status to Valued, then Offer made. The offer itself is never sent by automation: the workflow creates a task for the manager to communicate it in person or by phone, and only logs the status.
• If trade_outstanding_finance is ticked, create a task to obtain a settlement figure before any offer is discussed, and flag the opportunity so nobody promises a timeline.
• On Accepted, apply trade-offer-made and trade-valued. On Declined, log the reason in trade_condition_notes and continue the deal without the part-exchange.
• If status sits at Valued for more than 2 days with no offer made, escalate to the sales manager.

Exit: offer accepted or declined, or the deal is lost.

5. Finance Application Chase: Internal

Trigger: opportunity moved to Finance Application.

Design principle: this workflow chases staff and lenders, not buyers. The buyer gets one message and then silence until there is news.

Actions:

• Write finance_submitted_date and lender_name. Apply finance-submitted. Send the buyer exactly one SMS: “That's with the lender now: {{business_manager_first_name}} will come straight back to you as soon as there's a decision.”
• At 24 hours with no decision: notify the business manager. At 48 hours: notify the sales manager as well. At 72 hours: create a task to call the buyer with an honest update, because silence past three days loses deals.
• Branch on decision. Approved → move to Finance Approved, apply finance-approved, create a task for the business manager to present the terms. Conditionally approved → write finance_conditions_outstanding, apply finance-conditional, and generate a document request naming only the outstanding conditions. Declined → apply finance-declined, create an urgent task for the business manager to call, and send no automated message of any kind. A declined application is a human conversation.
• On Declined and no alternative found within 5 days, move to Lost: Finance Declined and enroll in a quarterly email-only re-engagement, no SMS.

Exit: decision received and actioned.

6. Deposit and Document Collection

Trigger: opportunity moved to Finance Approved, or a cash buyer agrees to proceed.

Actions:

• Send the Stripe deposit link by SMS and email. On payment, move to Deposit Taken, apply deposit-taken, mark the vehicle reserved on its calendars so no further test drives can be booked on it.
• Move to Documents Pending, apply docs-outstanding, and send the Document Upload link with the four items listed as a checklist.
• The chase is per item. Every 24 hours, check each checkbox and send one message naming only what is still missing: “Almost there. We just need proof of address and we're done: {{upload_link}}” Never send a generic “we still need your documents”.
• At 72 hours with anything outstanding, create a call task for the salesperson. At 5 days, escalate to the sales manager, because a deposit paid and documents stalled is the most expensive kind of stuck.
• When all checkboxes are ticked, clear docs-outstanding, notify the administrator to verify, and on verification move to Ready for Delivery.
• Send finance documents for signature through the e-signature tool and tick finance_docs_signed on completion.

Exit: all documents received and verified.

7. Delivery Prep and Handover

Trigger: opportunity moved to Ready for Delivery.

Actions:

• Offer Handover slots by SMS, book one, write handover_date, apply delivery-booked.
• Create the prep task for the workshop with stock number, accessories_ordered, plate_transfer_required and any agreed remedial work from the debrief notes. Due 24 hours before handover, not the morning of.
• Send the pre-handover email 48 hours out: what to bring, what will happen, how long it takes, and the insurance reminder. The vehicle cannot be released without cover in place.
• T-24 hours internal check: confirm prep complete, documents verified, plates ready. If any is outstanding, notify the sales manager immediately so the appointment can be moved rather than ruined.
• T-2 hours SMS: “All set for {{handover_time}}, the {{interest_model}} is ready and {{owner_first_name}} will be looking after you.”
• On Handover Confirmation submission: move to Delivered, apply delivered, record the delivery mileage into current_mileage and mileage_captured_date so the service side starts with real data.

Exit: vehicle delivered.

8. Post-Delivery, Review and Service Handover

Trigger: opportunity moved to Delivered.

Actions:

• Day 1 SMS: “How's the {{interest_model}} treating you so far? Anything you've not worked out yet, just reply here.”
• Day 3 email: the practical pack, servicing schedule, warranty summary, where to find the manual, the service number, and who to call about what.
• Day 7: satisfaction gate. SMS: “Quick one. How was the whole experience, 1 to 5?” 4 or 5 → wait 1 hour, send the review request with the direct link. 1 to 3 → no review link; urgent task for the sales manager to call that day, plus an internal notification.
• Day 30 email: one genuinely useful item (a feature most owners miss) and a referral ask. No discount language.
• Service handover: write vehicle_year, vehicle_make, vehicle_model, plate_number, current_mileage and mileage_captured_date to the service fields, set service intervals from the interval table, and enroll in the mileage-and-date reminder build. Suppress the first service reminder for 90 days so the buyer is not sold to immediately after delivery.
• Month 11: hand to the service side formally and apply repeat-buyer eligibility for future campaigns.

Exit: day 30 completes and the contact is handed to service.

9. Stall Detection and Lost-Reason Capture

Trigger: scheduled daily at 7:00am, scanning every open opportunity.

Actions:

• Flag anything in New Inquiry over 1 day, Qualified over 3 days, Test Drive Completed over 5 days, Finance Application over 2 days, Documents Pending over 3 days, or Ready for Delivery over 5 days. Each flag creates a task for the stage owner, not a message to the buyer.
• Email the sales manager a single morning digest: stalled deals by stage and owner, drives booked today with their vehicles, debrief forms outstanding, and documents outstanding on deposited deals.
• At 14 days with no buyer engagement, send one honest message: “Are you still thinking about the {{interest_model}}, or have you gone another way? Either's fine. Just helps me know whether to keep it held.” The reply is what populates the lost reason.
• Branch on reply: bought elsewhere → Lost: Bought Elsewhere, and ask the one question worth asking: which vehicle, so the sales manager learns something. No longer looking → Lost: No Longer Looking. Still interested → return to the appropriate stage and create a call task.
• All lost opportunities enter a quarterly email-only re-engagement keyed to purchase_timeframe, with no SMS and a prominent unsubscribe.

Exit: digest sent. Stateless, re-runs daily.

What is different afterwards

• Every inquiry gets a reply in under a minute, including at 11pm. The dealership stops competing on who happens to be rostered and starts competing on process.
• Finance, trade-in and documents are visible. “Waiting on finance” becomes a stage with a submission date, a lender, a named owner and a chase sequence. A deal cannot sit silently for four days any more, because the board shows it and the workflow nudges the internal owner.
• The post-test-drive window is actually worked. The debrief form captures the objection while it is fresh, and the follow-up addresses that specific objection instead of sending the same “just checking in” to everyone.
• The right thing is reserved. Because the vehicle rather than the salesperson is the bookable resource, two buyers are never booked onto the same car, and the sales floor knows by lunchtime which cars to have out front.
• Document chasing stops being nagging. Per-item checkboxes mean each chase names exactly what is missing, which gets it sent and avoids the message that makes a buyer feel accused of being disorganised.
• Lost reasons become usable. Three distinct lost stages mean the dealership can see how many deals die at finance versus how many go to a competitor, and treat those as the different problems they are.
• Handover gets protected time. A capped 60-minute handover calendar is the single cheapest thing in this build and it moves review scores more than anything else.
• The sale feeds the service department. The vehicle record, the mileage at delivery and the contact's consent all pass across, so the first service reminder is accurate rather than a guess.

Metrics to watch

• Median time to first response, split by hour of day and by lead source. Target under two minutes at all hours. This is the headline metric for the build and the easiest to move.
• Inquiry to test drive booked, and then test drive booked to test drive completed: the second number is your no-show rate, and reminders should hold it well above ninety percent.
• Test drive to sale conversion, split by objection_noted. This is the most actionable report in the build: it tells you which objections your follow-up actually overcomes and which it does not.
• Debrief form completion rate. Without it the objection data is missing, so track it per salesperson and treat a low rate as a coaching item.
• Stage dwell time for Finance Application, Documents Pending and Ready for Delivery. These three are where deals rot. Watch the medians weekly.
• Finance approval rate and median decision turnaround by lender, and the share of deals lost at Lost: Finance Declined.
• Trade-in attach rate (deals with a part-exchange as a share of all deals) and trade offer acceptance rate.
• Document completion time: median hours from the upload link being sent to all four checkboxes ticked.
• Delivery-to-review-request conversion, and review volume from handovers, reported monthly.
• Source attribution all the way to Delivered: which portal, campaign or referral produced delivered vehicles, not just inquiries.

Operational prerequisites

• Decide the lead ownership rule before you build. Round-robin, first-to-claim, or by vehicle type. Any of them works, but it has to be decided and encoded, or the fast-response workflow will create leads nobody owns. Set a claim timeout and a fallback owner.
• Agree what BO may say, in writing, with whoever handles the dealership's compliance. This is not optional in vehicle sales. The guardrail list in this build is a starting point; the dealership's own rules take precedence and must be approved before launch.
• Name the owners of each middle stage. Finance Application belongs to the business manager, Trade-In Appraisal to the used-car manager, Documents Pending to a named administrator. A stage with no owner is a stage where deals stall.
• Set up the test drive gate. Decide the license-check procedure, the insurance position for standard drives and for overnight loans, and who is authorized to release a vehicle. Encode it as a hard gate, not a reminder.
• Map stock to calendars. Decide whether every stock item gets a bookable resource or only demonstrators, and who updates it as stock turns over. Stale stock on a booking calendar is worse than no calendar.
• Cap the handover calendar deliberately. Decide how many handovers a day the dealership can do properly and set the limit there, not at the number it can do badly.

Integrations

• Listing portals: connect each lead source either by native integration or by email parsing into the same intake workflow, so response time does not depend on source. Test every source individually; a portal whose format changes silently will drop leads.
• Dealer management system: stock numbers, availability and vehicle specification should flow in rather than being typed. Use Zapier or Make where no native connection exists. The stock feed is the one integration worth paying for.
• Website: the Vehicle Inquiry form embedded on every listing page, with stock_number passed automatically. A form that does not know which car it was submitted from makes everything downstream manual.
• Payments: Stripe for deposit collection by link. Never handle card details in conversation or store them in the platform.
• Document handling: route uploads into the dealership's existing secure document store, or the platform's own file storage with access restricted, and use Docusign or your existing e-signature tool for anything requiring signature.
• Google Calendar or Outlook for every staff calendar, and Google Business Profile for the post-handover review request.
• Accounting: QuickBooks or Xero for deposit and invoice reconciliation.

Numbers and messaging compliance

• Provision the dedicated sales number and complete A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration before switching on the fast-response workflow. The whole value of this build is immediate SMS response, and unregistered traffic gets filtered, which means the fastest reply in the market never arrives. Do this first.
• Explicit SMS opt-in on every intake path: the inquiry form, the test drive form, and BO's first message where a lead arrived from a portal without consent. Where a portal supplies a lead with no consent record, the first SMS should carry the disclosure and the opt-out instruction, and the consent timestamp and source should be stored on the contact.
• Opt-out handling: STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, QUIT and CANCEL set sms-opted-out, which suppresses every SMS action in every workflow here. Deal-critical messages then switch to email and phone rather than being skipped. A buyer who opted out of marketing texts still needs to know their finance was approved, so route that to the salesperson as a call task.
• Quiet hours: no outbound SMS before 8:00am or after 8:00pm local. The exception is the immediate auto-response to an inbound message the buyer just sent. Replying to someone who texted at 11:14pm is a reply, not an outbound campaign, but confirm your own position on this before relying on it.
• Finance and advertising rules are the serious exposure. Any message touching finance, representative examples, APR, monthly payments or affordability is regulated in most markets, and the rules differ by jurisdiction. Nothing in this build generates finance copy; BO refuses and routes to the business manager, and the finance page carries only wording the dealership's compliance function has approved. Keep it that way.
• Call recording on the sales line needs a disclosure at the start of the call, and some jurisdictions require all-party consent.

Data protection

• Identity documents are the highest-risk data in this build. Route them to a secure store with restricted access and a defined retention period; do not leave license or passport images sitting in a general-purpose file area or attached to a contact record indefinitely.
• Keep finance application detail out of the platform. Store the status, the lender, the dates and the outstanding conditions. Never income figures, bank details, credit scores or the application itself. Those live in the lender's system.
• No card numbers anywhere: deposits through Stripe's hosted flow only.
• Store the plate and the last eight of the VIN for the vehicle of interest and the trade-in. A full VIN belongs in the dealer management system.
• Set retention periods for lost inquiries and for uploaded documents, and have a deletion process you can actually execute when someone asks.
• None of this is legal advice. Finance and consumer-credit communication rules, document retention requirements, identity-verification duties and any jurisdiction-specific privacy obligations should be confirmed with the client's own counsel and compliance function before launch.

Scoping

Lead-source count, whether the dealer management system can be integrated, how many stock items need bookable calendars and the dealership's own finance compliance rules all change the shape of this build. Book a call at bookings.appbo.io to scope it against your operation.