Six places a dealership loses money without noticing
None of these shows up as a line on a statement. They show up as a customer who bought somewhere else, a deal that needed fixing after delivery, or an owner who learned about it at month end.
Leads go cold while everyone is busy
A lead arrives from AutoTrader at 10:42, and the only person who checks that inbox is with a customer. By the time anyone looks, the shopper has texted two other stores.
DealerStation takes leads from AutoTrader, CarGurus, Kijiji, Facebook and your own website into one queue. Each one is assigned within seconds by the rules your store sets, and each one starts a fifteen-minute response clock. A manager can see which leads are late and whose they are.
A late lead stops being a surprise in the monthly report. It is a red line on the screen at 10:57, while a manager can still do something about it.
The customer's history lives in six places
The text thread is on one phone, the notes are on a sticky pad, the appointment is in someone's calendar, and nobody remembers whether the customer ever agreed to be texted. When the salesperson is off and the customer calls back, whoever picks up starts from nothing.
Every customer in DealerStation has one page. Texts, notes, appointments, deals and the record of consent sit on it in order, with who did what and when.
Whoever answers the phone can see what was promised, so a customer explains themselves once instead of every time they call.
The desk is where small errors turn into expensive ones
Tax charged on the wrong amount. A fee that should not have been taxed. A bill of sale whose lines do not add up to the total. These mistakes are ordinary, and they surface on delivery day, when fixing them costs the most.
The deal worksheet applies the provincial tax for where the vehicle is delivered, takes trade-in credit into account, and works out finance and lease payments as you change the numbers. The bill of sale is built from the same worksheet, so its lines add up. A used vehicle cannot be published until its disclosures are complete, a check built around Ontario's OMVIC rules.
The paperwork matches the deal that was shaken on, and the disclosure question gets answered before the ad goes up instead of after a complaint.
Good inventory sits where nobody can see it
A unit gets photographed, then waits for someone to key it into four websites. Meanwhile the one that has been on the lot for ninety days is nobody's concern until the floor plan bill arrives.
In DealerStation you publish a vehicle once. It appears on your own hosted showroom and in the feeds for AutoTrader, CarGurus, Facebook and Kijiji. Aged units are counted on the dashboard and the inventory screen, so you see them before they cost you more than they are worth. The public showroom is built to the WCAG 2.0 AA standard Ontario's AODA expects.
Fewer units get forgotten, and the website stops being something one person updates when they have a free afternoon.
The owner finds out last
Month end is often when an owner learns that response times slipped in the third week, or that one salesperson carried the store. By then the quarter is half over.
DealerStation puts the numbers on the dashboard as they happen: today's activity, first-response time, gross by salesperson, aged inventory, and who is behind on follow-ups. Reports export to CSV when your accountant asks for them.
You find out on Tuesday, while it can still change the week.
Texting is a legal question, and staff access is a trust question
Canada's anti-spam law expects proof that a customer agreed to be contacted. DealerStation records consent with its source and time, respects STOP, and checks consent before a text goes out. It is built around Ontario's CASL and PIPEDA obligations, and it does not replace advice from your own lawyer.
The same care applies to your own people. A salesperson sees their own customers and never the cost of a vehicle. The owner decides who sees what, and can change it in a minute.
You can give a new hire a login on Monday without handing them the store's margins.
A day on the lot, from the first overdue follow-up to the bill of sale
Scroll through one ordinary Thursday. The clock moves, and so does the screen the store would be looking at.
8:40 AM: Overdue follow-ups are on the dashboard
Before the first coffee is finished, the owner opens the dashboard and sees the follow-ups that slipped yesterday, and whose they are.
10:42 AM: An AutoTrader lead arrives
A shopper asks about a Tucson. The store's rules hand the lead to Sam within seconds and the fifteen-minute clock starts.
10:44 AM: The first text goes out
Sam answers from his phone. Consent came in with the form, so the text sends, and the thread lands on the customer's page.
2:15 PM: The customer comes in
The appointment has been on the calendar since morning, so the lot, the desk and the owner all know someone is coming.
4:30 PM: The deal is desked
Trade-in credit, 13% HST on an Ontario delivery and a biweekly finance payment. The numbers on the worksheet are the numbers on the paper.
9:00 AM: Next morning, the bill of sale
The documents are built from the worksheet, so the lines on the bill of sale add up to the total on the desk.
Salespeople are on the lot, not at a desk
Open DealerStation on a phone and the first thing a salesperson sees is their own leads, each with how long it has been waiting and a tap-to-call number next to each one. The text thread, the notes and the appointment are one tap away.
Add it to the home screen and it opens like an app. There is no store listing to wait for and nothing to update.
The follow-up gets done between customers, standing next to the car, and not at five o'clock from memory.
Setting up is a checklist, not a project
A new store lands on a Get started card with eight steps: store profile, legal details, inventory, your team, the first published vehicle, showroom authorisation, desking defaults and the first lead. Each step is checked against your real data, so it ticks itself off.
If you are coming from the previous DealerStation app, the import tools bring your customers and inventory across.
Nobody has to keep the list in their head, and the person doing setup can stop halfway and pick it up the next day.
What dealers ask before they sign up
What is dealership CRM software?
It is the system a dealership uses to keep every lead, customer, text, appointment and deal in one place, so nobody has to remember who promised what. DealerStation does that and adds the deal desk and a hosted showroom, so the same record carries a shopper from first enquiry to bill of sale.
Is DealerStation a dealer management system (DMS)?
DealerStation covers the sales side of a dealership: leads, customers, text consent, the deal desk, inventory, the showroom and sales reports. It does not do general ledger accounting, parts or service repair orders, and it does not replace a DMS that your manufacturer requires. A store that keeps its books elsewhere and has no service department can run its sales floor in DealerStation.
Is DealerStation a CRM for Canadian dealerships?
Yes. It is built in Canada around Canadian rules and tools: provincial tax on the deal desk, Ontario's OMVIC disclosure expectations, text consent that follows CASL and PIPEDA, and lead sources such as AutoTrader and Kijiji. It does not replace advice from your own lawyer.
Which lead sources does it take?
Leads from AutoTrader, CarGurus, Kijiji, Facebook and your own website land in one queue. Each one is assigned by your store's rules within seconds and starts a fifteen-minute response clock that the whole floor can see.
Can salespeople use it on a phone?
Yes. Open it in the phone's browser and add it to the home screen, and it opens like an app. A salesperson sees their own leads first, with how long each has been waiting and a tap-to-call number. There is no app store listing and nothing to update.
How does it handle texting consent?
Consent is recorded with its source and time on the customer's page, STOP is respected, and consent is checked before a text goes out. That gives you a record to show if anyone asks, which is what CASL expects.
How does inventory get to AutoTrader, CarGurus, Facebook and Kijiji?
You publish a vehicle once. It appears on your own hosted showroom and in the feeds for those sites. Publishing is opt in for each store and for each vehicle, and a used vehicle cannot be published until its disclosures are complete.
How much does it cost, and is there a contract?
There are three plans: Starter for one person, Core for a store with a team (more stores can be added), and Pro for a bigger team or several locations. Monthly plans are month to month, and annual billing includes free months. There is no setup fee. The pricing section above shows the current prices, and you see the full price before you pay.
How long does setup take, and can you bring over our customers and inventory?
A new store gets a checklist of eight steps, each checked against your real data, and can stop halfway and carry on the next day. Import tools bring customers and inventory across. You set everything up yourself with no setup fee, and support is there to help if you get stuck.