Dealership software / Lead follow-up
AI lead follow-up for car dealerships: the phone and follow-up work of a BDC, without outsourcing it
Lead Friendly follows up your dealership’s leads with AI, as an alternative to an outsourced BDC. It comes with Lead Friendly for Dealers, $349/month, month to month, plus a one-time $500 setup fee, on top of the DMS and CRM you already run. It answers every inbound call forwarded to it as your store, can call each new website form lead who ticks the consent box, inside legal calling hours, texts back missed callers once your texting registration is approved, and emails each new call and form lead to your CRM as ADF. Marketplace leads are not texted or called until you switch that on.
Claims on this page were read against the code on November 4, 2026. Two independent stores in Kent, WA run their leads and inventory on Lead Friendly. Read the case study.
Who it is for
Stores that pay for leads and miss some
CarGurus, Cars.com, your own website, the phone. When the same two people sell cars and answer all of it, some leads wait until tomorrow and some never get a call.
Stores pricing an outsourced BDC
An outsourced BDC puts people on your phones and leads. This puts an AI agent on the phone and the follow-up, at a published monthly price, and hands the lead to your people when it needs one.
Stores with a CRM they like
Leads do not have to live somewhere new. New calls and form leads can be emailed to your CRM as ADF, so your salespeople keep working them where they already do.
What happens to each kind of lead
An inbound call
Answered as your store, day and night, while your plan minutes or wallet cover the call. The agent sorts sales from service, searches your inventory before it describes a car, books the visit, and saves the caller, the car and the summary on their record. With a CRM lead address set, the call is emailed to your CRM as an ADF lead.
A website form lead
Connect your website form to Lead Friendly and the AI agent can call each new lead who ticks the consent box on the form. Auto-call is on when you create the form connection, and you choose no wait or a delay you set. Each call passes quiet hours in the shopper’s time zone, your do-not-call list, opt-outs and your wallet first, and the lead is emailed to your CRM as ADF.
A CarGurus, Cars.com or other ADF lead
It becomes a contact, a pipeline card and a task, and by default nobody texts or calls the shopper. Switch on the AI Auto Responder to text or email them, or an automation with an AI call step to have the agent call. Automations start paused, and the first text or call of each run waits for your approval until you set it to send on its own.
A question about payments
On the phone the agent does not quote a monthly payment, an APR or an out-the-door price, and by default it does not negotiate. The AI’s text replies never carry a payment or a rate. It books the visit, and a complicated finance question goes to a person.
A website chat
If you add the chat to your site, the AI answers shoppers in English, or in Spanish where the chat is set to Spanish, and the chat lands in your inbox. Someone on your team can take a chat over from there and reply themselves.
A shopper who wants a person
On the phone, the agent offers a transfer to your sales, service or parts line inside the transfer hours you set and takes a message outside them. If you add a team member’s mobile number, it texts that person before it promises a callback.
Compared with an outsourced BDC
What a human BDC can do that this does not
A person can work a deal, talk numbers, negotiate, and chase an unsold showroom customer with judgment. The AI does none of that: it answers, finds the car, books the visit and hands off to your people.
Where the AI fits better
It answers the calls forwarded to it at 2 in the morning and on Sunday the same way, in your store’s name, while your minutes or wallet cover them, and every call is transcribed and summarized on the customer’s record.
What you pay
Lead Friendly for Dealers is $349/month, month to month, plus a one-time $500 setup fee, with 1,800 AI voice minutes and 2,500 texts a month, then $0.12 a minute from a prepaid wallet. There is no per-lead or per-appointment fee.
Works with what you already run
Lead Friendly sits in front of your DMS and your CRM. It replaces neither. What connects, and how, checked November 4, 2026:
Your CRM, by ADF/XML email
Give Lead Friendly the lead email address your CRM gives you, up to three of them, and each new inbound call the AI answered where the caller spoke, and each website form lead, is emailed there as an ADF/XML lead: name, number, the car they asked about when they named one, the call summary and a link to the call, and a trade-in when the AI agent took down the car or the form collected one. No customer has switched it on yet, so send a test lead first. Keep using AutoRaptor, VinSolutions, Elead, DealerSocket or whichever CRM takes ADF leads by email.
DealerCenter
Keep DealerCenter for deals, lenders, titling and accounting. One way: DealerCenter sends your inventory to Lead Friendly as a file. Nothing is written back to DealerCenter. There is no API connection, and Lead Friendly writes no deal or lead data into DealerCenter.
Frazer
There is no Frazer connection and no Frazer feed. Keep Frazer for deals, forms, accounting and your notes. Add cars to Lead Friendly with a VIN scan from your phone or an inventory feed URL, or attach your website so the agent answers stock questions from it.
CarGurus and Cars.com
Your inventory is pushed to CarGurus twice a day once CarGurus authorizes Lead Friendly as your feed provider, and Cars.com takes it as a file through ICC. Leads from both arrive by ADF email and become contacts. By default nobody texts or calls them until you switch that on.
Facebook Marketplace
A feed URL in Facebook’s vehicle-catalog format that Lead Friendly sets up on request. Not set up with Facebook for any dealer yet; nothing is posted to Marketplace. Lead Friendly does not post to Facebook Marketplace today, so keep listing and answering there through Facebook’s own tools.
Your phone line and your calendar
Keep your number. Your phone provider forwards calls to your Lead Friendly number: all of them, only when nobody picks up, or only after hours, whichever it can do. Connect a Google or Outlook calendar and the agent checks its busy times before it books.
What it does not do
- ADF and marketplace leads are not texted or called by default. You switch on the AI Auto Responder or an automation, automations start paused, and the first send of each run waits for your approval until you set it to send on its own.
- Every text needs your business texting registration with the carriers, and the missed-call text also waits until your business has passed identity verification and the compliance step in Settings.
- We do not publish a response time for internet leads, because none has been measured.
- Only inbound AI calls where the caller spoke, and website form leads, are emailed to your CRM. Outbound calls, ADF leads that came from your CRM or a marketplace, and website chats are not sent.
- The AI does not quote an out-the-door price, a monthly payment or an APR. By default it does not negotiate; it discounts only within a discount ladder you set on the agent.
- The JSON lead webhook carries new ADF leads and new form leads posted from your own server only. Leads from the embedded website form reach your CRM by the ADF email instead.
- It does not connect to your DMS, and it writes no deal or lead data into one.
- Consent for outbound AI calls and checks against the National Do Not Call Registry are yours. The platform enforces quiet hours, your own do-not-call list and opt-outs, and keeps the consent records you collect.
- It does not service buy-here-pay-here notes. No payment book, no delinquency queue, no collections. If you carry your own paper, you need something else for the servicing.
- It does not yet submit credit applications to lenders. A Dealertrack credit-application rail is built against the Dealertrack API and is in certification with Cox, so it is not carrying real applications yet, and there is no live credit bureau pull yet (a 700Credit prequalification is built and awaiting go-live) — you record what the bank came back with.
What it costs, and the terms
Lead follow-up comes with Lead Friendly for Dealers. That plan is $349/month, or $279/month billed annually ($3,348 a year), plus a one-time $500 setup fee, and includes 1,800 AI voice minutes and 2,500 texts a month, then $0.12 a minute from a prepaid wallet. Sending leads to your CRM is one of the plan’s modules, so it is included. A website for your store is included: contact us, tell us what you want, and we build it and show you.
Monthly billing is month to month: cancel and the plan ends at the end of the current period. Annual billing runs to the end of the paid year and does not renew once cancelled. Payments are not refunded.
A phone number is $3 a month from your wallet and is not part of any plan. Texts past the allowance are 4¢ each, and texts you receive are 0.5¢ a segment.
Frequently asked
What is a dealership lead follow-up service?
A service that makes sure every lead a dealership gets, by phone, web form or marketplace, is answered and worked instead of left for later. Lead Friendly does it with an AI agent: it answers the calls forwarded to it as your store, can call new website form leads who gave consent, and sends each new call and form lead to your CRM as an ADF lead.
Is this an alternative to an outsourced BDC?
For the phone and the first follow-up, yes. The AI answers the calls forwarded to it, finds the car, books the visit and hands off to your people, at a published monthly price with no per-lead fee. It does not talk payments or work a deal the way a person can, and by default it does not negotiate, so those stay with your salespeople.
Does it call new internet leads?
Website form leads who tick the consent box, yes: auto-call is on when you create the form connection, with no wait or a delay you choose, and each call passes quiet hours, your do-not-call list and opt-outs first. CarGurus, Cars.com and other ADF leads are not called or texted until you switch on the AI Auto Responder or an automation.
Does it follow up CarGurus and Cars.com leads?
When you switch it on. Those leads arrive by ADF email and become a contact, a pipeline card and a task. By default nobody texts or calls them. Switch on the AI Auto Responder to text or email the shopper, or an automation with an AI call step to have the agent call; automations start paused and wait for your approval.
Do the leads go into my CRM?
Yes, if your CRM takes ADF leads by email. Give Lead Friendly the lead address, up to three of them, and each new inbound call where the caller spoke, and each website form lead, is emailed there as ADF/XML with the name, number, the car, any trade the AI agent took down and a link to the call. Leads that came from your CRM are not sent back.
How fast does it follow up a lead?
We do not publish a response time, because none has been measured. What is true: inbound calls forwarded to the agent are answered by it, website form leads who tick the consent box are called with no wait or after the delay you set, inside legal calling hours, and marketplace leads wait until you switch on the Auto Responder or an automation.
How much does AI lead follow-up cost?
It comes with Lead Friendly for Dealers: $349/month, month to month, plus a one-time $500 setup fee, or $279/month billed annually, with 1,800 AI voice minutes and 2,500 texts a month, then $0.12 a minute from a prepaid wallet. Sending leads to your CRM is included. A phone number is $3 a month from your wallet. Sales tax is not included in plan prices: at checkout it is calculated from your billing address and added to everything on your invoice.
Keep reading
Call it yourself before you change anything
We build the agent from your website and your inventory and put it on a test number. Call it from your own phone and ask about a car on your lot. Nothing changes on your main line until you say so.