Genie — inside the Lead Friendly dealership CRM
An AI assistant for your dealership CRM that you can talk to
Yes. Genie is the AI assistant built into Lead Friendly’s dealership CRM. Type it or say it in plain English — pull up a lead, see who is waiting on a reply, text a customer, book a test drive — and Genie reads your CRM straight away. Anything that sends or creates something shows you a card describing what it will do, and runs only after you approve it.
Two kinds of request
Genie sorts everything you ask into one of two kinds, and the sort is in the code, not in a promise. Looking — contacts, inbox, calls, calendar, inventory, a VIN, a desk calculation — runs the moment you ask. Doing — a text, an email, a call, an appointment, a status change, a saved deal, a campaign — is held back and shown to you first. A single request can include both: Genie looks things up on its own, then shows a card for whatever would change something.
What you can say, and what it reads
These run immediately. They only look.
“Catch me up.”
New leads, appointments, tasks due and calls logged for today, plus your unread conversations with the latest message. “Today” is the UTC day, which rolls over at midnight UTC rather than at your local midnight.
“Pull up Lopez.”
Finds contacts whose first name, last name, email, phone or company contains what you typed (up to ten matches), with their status. Each field is searched separately, so use one word, such as a last name or a phone number; a full name typed as one phrase can come back empty. Ask what happened on a customer’s last call and it reads the call log: direction, length, sentiment and the AI summary when there is one.
“Do we have a Camry under $15,000 with under 100,000 miles?”
Searches your available inventory by make, model, body type, year, price and mileage, cheapest first, up to twelve units, each with its listing link. It reads only units marked available, and it is told not to guess stock, so check the unit before you promise it to a customer.
“Run this VIN.”
Decodes year, make, model, trim, body, fuel and drivetrain from the NHTSA database. A market value comes back only if you have a valuation provider connected; otherwise it says there is no value.
“What is the payment on $14,500, $2,000 down, 72 months at 8.9%? Get them to $350 a month.”
Runs the desk math and returns the worksheet: tax, fees, amount financed, payment, a payment grid, and your front, back and total gross. It can solve backwards for a target payment or gross. It computes and saves nothing.
“Who has equity and could move into something newer at the same payment?”
Ranks the customers whose vehicle you have recorded as worth more than they owe, and matches a newer unit from your inventory at about the same payment. It only uses figures already on file.
“How many leads did we get this week?”
New leads in the last seven days, messages today, conversations needing a reply, and how many campaigns and automations are running.
“How is our F&I? Any deals over the markup cap?”
Attach rate for each product type against industry benchmarks, and a fair-lending report that flags finance deals whose rate markup is over the cap (2.5% unless you give another).
What it can send or change, and the approval card
These stop at a card first. Here is the card you would see for the first two requests below, worded the way the app words it.
- Send text (SMS)to the contact · “Hi Maria, the Camry is still here. Does 4pm Thursday work for a test drive?”
- Book appointmentTest drive · 2026-10-22 16:00
Cancel and Genie is told you declined; nothing runs. Approve and it runs in your signed-in account, scoped to your organization.
The card is short, so read it. A text card shows “to the contact” and the first 80 characters of the message. A booking card shows the title, date and time but not the customer’s name. A call card shows a contact id rather than a name. When several cards are on screen, one click on Grant wish, or one spoken yes, approves all of them.
“Text Maria that the Camry is still here and ask if 4pm Thursday works.”
Drafts the text and shows it on a card. Nothing goes out until you approve. After approval it passes the same checks as any text from your account: opt-out, do-not-call, quiet hours.
“Book Maria for a test drive Thursday at 4.”
Shows the appointment on a card, then puts it on the calendar. It also texts the customer a confirmation when the contact has a phone number and the text clears the same checks. The card does not mention that text, so we do.
“Have the AI agent call Maria back.”
Card says it starts a real call and costs money. Calls are blocked if consent or calling hours fail the dial check.
“Move Maria to appointment booked and tag her Camry. Note that she wants a callback Friday.”
Each change is a card: a status or tag or owner change on the contact, and a note on the timeline. Setting do-not-contact stops future outreach.
“Draft a text campaign called Weekend Sale: “Our weekend sale starts Friday. Reply to book a time.””
Creates the campaign as a draft with that message. Genie does not choose the audience: who receives it is set in the app. It texts nobody until it is activated, and launching is a separate card that says it starts real outreach. Automations Genie builds are saved paused.
Also behind a card:
- Email a contact, or reply to a WhatsApp conversation, after a card.
- Create a contact; record a trade-in, a financing interest (capture only, no credit pull) or a vehicle a customer owns.
- Save a desked deal to a contact, mark a deal sold or lost, generate a deal document with a customer signing link, and create a credit application the customer fills in on their phone.
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Approving a card does not switch off the rules
Genie has no special privileges. A text it sends goes through the same route as a text from your inbox, which checks account verification, acceptable use, do-not-call, opt-out and quiet hours before it leaves. A call goes through the same dial check, and an email through the compliance guard, with an unsubscribe footer when it goes to a contact. If a check blocks the send, Genie tells you it was blocked rather than finding another way. The checks use the consent records and do-not-call list in your account, so keeping those right is still your job. Which organization Genie acts on is settled in the database from your login, not from anything the model says.
Ways to talk to it
In the app: type, or talk
The sidebar chat takes typed requests. Turn on Hey Genie and it listens instead, in Chrome, Edge and Safari, and talks back. When an action needs approval, Genie reads the action titles aloud (not the recipient or the message) and waits for a spoken yes or no. A spoken yes approves everything on screen, so read the card on screen first. Firefox has no speech support, so the mic is hidden there.
Siri and a phone call: ask, but read-only
A Siri shortcut and a call to your own AI number reach the same Genie for questions. Neither can send or change anything: ask for something that writes and Genie tells you to do it in the app. The one exception is finding new business leads, which quotes its cost and waits for your spoken yes. The phone line works only from numbers you allowlist, and with a spoken PIN if you set one.
What Genie will not do
Worth knowing before you rely on it, and worth us saying before you find out:
- It does not search by what a customer asked about, by vehicle of interest or by lead source. Contact search matches name, email, phone, company and status.
- For texts and email it reads unread conversations, not a customer’s whole history (WhatsApp threads can be read). It cannot list or search your saved deals, so changing one means a deal it saved in the same conversation or an id you give it.
- It sits inside Lead Friendly’s CRM and reads what is stored there. It is not an add-on for another CRM, and it has no tool that reads a DMS.
- It does not push deals into a DMS, and it does not submit credit applications to lenders. The Dealertrack rail is built against the Dealertrack API and is in certification with Cox, so Genie records a draft and says so.
- It does not change your plan or billing, delete your data, buy phone numbers or move money. Finding new business leads (not consumers) is the one tool that charges per result, and its card states the cost first. Texts and AI calls cost money when they run too.
- It does not ask for or collect a Social Security number or date of birth: the credit application goes to the customer as a secure link and the numbers are encrypted when they enter them.
- Its instructions forbid quoting your cost, pack, reserve or gross to a customer. That is a rule for the model, not a technical block, so check the wording of anything it drafts: the card shows the message cut off at 80 characters.
- It can misunderstand a request. The card shows what it is about to do: read it before you approve.
Other vendors sell assistants too, and some do things Genie does not. We compared them from their own pages in AI assistants for a dealership CRM, compared, and say where we are not the better fit.
Frequently asked
Is there an AI assistant for a dealership CRM that I can talk to?
Yes. Genie is built into Lead Friendly’s dealership CRM. You type or say what you want in plain English and Genie reads your contacts, inbox, calls, appointments and inventory, desks a payment, drafts a text and books the test drive. Reads run straight away. Anything that sends or creates shows a card describing what it will do, and runs only after you approve it.
Can Genie text customers or book appointments without asking me?
No. Sending a text, email or WhatsApp message, placing an AI call, booking an appointment, creating a contact, saving a deal and launching a campaign each stop at an approval card and run only on your yes. In the app every one of those stops at a card. New campaigns are created as drafts and new automations paused. Siri and the phone line are read-only.
What does Genie read in my CRM?
Contacts (name, email, phone, company, status), unread conversations with the last customer message, calls with their AI summaries, today’s calendar and the next two weeks of appointments, tasks due today, available inventory, F&I product prices and attach rates, your campaigns, automations and AI agents, and headline counts such as new leads this week. It reads only your own organization’s data.
Does a text from Genie skip the opt-out and quiet-hours checks?
No. A text Genie sends goes through the same send route as a text from the inbox, which checks account verification, acceptable use, do-not-call and opt-out status and quiet hours before anything leaves. Calls go through the same dial check, and email through the compliance guard, with an unsubscribe footer when it goes to a contact. If a check blocks the send, Genie reports the block instead of retrying around it.
Will it work with my current CRM, like VinSolutions or DealerSocket?
Genie works inside Lead Friendly’s CRM and reads the data kept there. It does not sit on top of another vendor’s CRM, and it has no tool that reads or writes a DMS. If your leads live in another CRM, they need to be in Lead Friendly for Genie to see them.
How is Genie different from the AI agent that answers my phones?
Genie works for your staff: you ask it questions and it prepares actions for you to approve. Lead Friendly’s AI agents are what talk to your customers on calls and texts. Genie can start one of those agents calling a contact, after you approve the card.
What does Genie cost?
Genie is part of the dealership plan and there is no per-message charge for it today. Texts and calls it sends are metered like any other text or call from your account, and every account has a daily usage ceiling: once it is reached Genie stops answering until it resets at midnight UTC. See the pricing page for the plan.
Can Genie push a deal to my DMS or send a credit application to a lender?
No. The DMS connector is not built, and Genie reports that nothing was written rather than reporting success. Lender submission is built against the Dealertrack API and is in certification with Cox; Genie records the application as a draft and tells you it did not reach a lender.
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