How to Automate DealerSocket

The Desk Log is where a DealerSocket sales manager starts the day

DealerSocket is the CRM franchise and independent car dealers run their showrooms on. It belongs to Solera, which sells it beside PrecisePrice for digital retailing, DealerFire websites, Inventory+ and the IDMS and Auto/Mate dealer management systems.

Every showroom visit and internet lead becomes an opportunity with a salesperson attached. Desking works out the payment with the rates, residuals and rebates already loaded, and texts and emails to the customer go out from the same record, at a desk or from the mobile app on the lot. RevenueRadar combs the database for past customers worth a call, in 11 sales and service categories, each with a buying score.

The sales manager keeps the Desk Log up all day. It shows how many units have sold today, who has come and gone with their notes, and whether the salesperson has checked in each visit, the demo and the write-up, and sent the deal to F&I.

Saturday's unsold test drives are still unanswered on Tuesday

Saturday fills the showroom. A couple drives a Highlander, likes it and leaves to talk it over, and a man hears the appraisal on his Silverado and says he will think about it. The salesperson who met both has four more ups that afternoon.

By Tuesday both visits are still on the Desk Log with the salesperson's notes, and neither customer has heard from the store. An email that arrived at nine on Saturday night asks whether the white Highlander on Cars.com is still there, and nobody can answer it without checking the listing.

At Monday's sales meeting the general manager asks for the weekend's units, gross and finance penetration from the DMS, next to the leads that came in overnight.

Solera's AI answers internet leads around the clock inside DealerSocket

Solera's conversational AI, added to DealerSocket CRM in February 2026, replies to internet leads at any hour in the dealership's name, answers common questions and moves qualified shoppers toward an appointment. AI lead scoring arrived with it, putting high-intent shoppers first for the sales and BDC teams and keeping lower-intent ones on automated outreach. In September Solera added AI Sales Coach, which places every rep in a performance tier and writes coaching notes for the manager.

RevenueRadar mails and emails past customers when their score says they are ready, and live agents greet the responses around the clock. Lifecycle marketing campaigns run on their own, and reporting runs on Microsoft's business intelligence engine.

Those tools start from a new lead or a scored past customer. The Highlander couple and the Silverado owner are visits on the Desk Log, with the salesperson's notes and an appraisal figure, and the note back to each comes from the salesperson who met them. The emailed question about the white Highlander waits on someone checking the store's listing.

Every unsold demo comes back to its salesperson as an email to send

An email to the Highlander couple, naming the car and what they liked on the drive from the visit notes, is in their salesperson's Gmail drafts by the next morning, with a direct message in Slack saying how many hours have passed since the drive. The salesperson changes what needs changing and sends it.

In #buying-team, the used-car manager sees every appraisal from the past week that never became a deal, highest figure first, with the days since each and an email to the owner citing the vehicle and the number offered.

The internet sales manager opens Saturday night's question about the white Highlander to find it logged in DealerSocket as a new lead, with a reply drafted after a check of the store's Cars.com listings. For each new web lead, the assigned salesperson has a draft email about the car the shopper asked after within about 15 minutes, and #sales lists the lead with a link to its DealerSocket record.

In a CDK store, #sales-desk carries a post before the floor opens with the previous day's new and used sales, total gross and finance penetration, next to DealerSocket's overnight leads with any hot ones flagged.

Logging and marking leads are the only changes WebRun makes in DealerSocket

DealerSocket CRM runs in a browser at bb.dealersocket.com. WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser; under a user the store creates for it, WebRun reads the visit notes, the appraisal log and the new leads, with Gmail, Slack and the dealer's Cars.com account open alongside.

Each follow-up leaves from the drafts folder when the salesperson on the opportunity sends it, and none goes by text. Inside DealerSocket, WebRun logs an emailed inquiry as a new lead and marks each new lead it has drafted for, and it leaves desking, prices and the sales process alone. Where Solera's AI lead response is switched on, the new-lead card covers the same ground; the test-drive and appraisal cards work from showroom visits instead.