Dealer FAQ

Straight Answers.
No Sales Pitch.

Everything dealers ask before they partner with us — what LotLink is, what it costs, what it takes to get started, and what results you should actually expect. If the answer isn't here, call John directly at 260-229-9393.

We built LotLink because Northern Indiana dealers kept telling us the same thing: leads are expensive, half of them are junk, and the good ones go cold before anyone calls them back. So we built the thing we wished existed — a local marketplace plus an AI that works every lead inside five minutes, 24/7. These are the questions dealers ask us before signing on.

The Basics

What LotLink actually is.

  • We're a Northern-Indiana-only vehicle marketplace plus an AI BDC — business development center. Think of us as two things in one: a regional shopping site where buyers across the area find your inventory, and an always-on sales assistant named Jordan that responds to every lead within a minute, qualifies them, and books appointments on your lot. We don't own inventory. We don't compete with you. We make the phone ring.
  • Those are national lead platforms. You pay a monthly fee to appear in a search result alongside hundreds of out-of-state dealers, and when a lead comes in it sits in your inbox while you're with another customer. LotLink is regional (buyers here, not in Nevada) and active (Jordan works every lead the moment it arrives, instead of waiting for you). You can keep your existing platforms — nothing about LotLink requires you to drop them.
  • Your CRM is where leads sit and wait for a human to work them. Jordan is the human — except Jordan doesn't sleep, take lunch, or miss a 7pm lead. LotLink plugs into your existing CRM instead of replacing it: leads still get forwarded through your normal workflow, and Jordan's replies and call transcripts flow back so the CRM stays in sync. Nobody at your dealership changes how they work.
  • LotLink is built and operated by John Roberts out of Rochester, Indiana. John ran a dealership-side BDC for years before building this, and every dealer on the platform has his cell number. You're not buying from a call center in Austin — you're buying from a neighbor who knows what it's like to chase a ghost lead at 9pm.

About Jordan (the AI)

What the AI actually does and doesn't do.

  • Jordan is real AI — natural-language voice, SMS, and email — running on the same kind of models that power ChatGPT and Claude. There's no call center behind it, which is why it can respond in under a minute 24/7 without the overhead of a human BDC. For the edge cases where a lead needs a human (complex trade-in questions, negotiation), Jordan escalates to you directly.
  • Jordan is upfront about being an AI assistant if asked — it won't lie about it — but it sounds natural and courteous, not robotic. The transcripts we publish with every customer show why this works: people ask questions, Jordan answers, people book appointments. Nobody hangs up because "an AI picked up." What they actually hate is leaving a voicemail that never gets returned, which is what happens when they call your lot after 6pm.
  • Jordan escalates. If a customer asks something Jordan isn't sure about — trade-in valuation, specific finance terms, a part replacement question — Jordan takes the customer's info, tells them a human will follow up, and pushes the request to you inside the portal with full context. You never lose a lead to "I don't know."
  • We pull your inventory from your dealership website every hour. When you list a new Silverado or sell your last Civic, Jordan knows about it within the next sync. Jordan can answer specific questions about price, miles, trim level, photos — whatever's on your vehicle detail pages. No manual CRM updates required.
  • Yes. Jordan sets the appointment during the call or text thread, writes it into your LotLink portal, and — if you've connected Google Calendar or Outlook — drops it directly on your team's calendar with the customer's name, phone, and the vehicle they're interested in. You show up, they show up, you sell a car.
  • First outbound SMS goes out within one minute of the lead hitting our intake. Industry research says dealers who respond in five minutes close deals at about three times the rate of those who respond in an hour. Jordan beats five minutes on every lead, every time, without fail.

Pricing & Contracts

Straightforward numbers. No small print.

  • Three tiers. Starter ($499/month) covers the AI BDC on SMS and email for a single dealership. Pro ($999/month) adds outbound voice calling, the campaign engine, and the concierge lead-matching feed. Scale ($1,999+/month) is for multi-rooftop dealer groups and white-label deployments. Concierge-only (marketplace listing + manual matchmaking, no AI) is $799/month. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial — no card required.
  • No. Month-to-month. Cancel anytime with a click in the billing portal. We're betting that if the product is working, you'll stay — and if it isn't, we'd rather lose you than trap you. That's the only way we get better.
  • Cancel. You'll pay for the days you used and nothing more. We'll export your leads and conversation history so you don't lose anything. Your Twilio phone number is yours — we'll port it out to wherever you want it. No exit fee, no "we'll keep charging you for three more months" clause.
  • Yes. Every lead Jordan handles is your lead — we're just the pipes. Your contact list, message history, call recordings, and appointment data belong to your dealership and can be exported in full anytime. We never sell your data to anyone, ever, for any reason.

Getting Started

What it takes to go live.

  • Call John at 260-229-9393 or fill out the form on the For Dealers page. We'll get on a 20-minute call, walk you through a live demo with Jordan calling your cell phone, and if it's a fit we can have you live the same day. No procurement process, no 90-day IT onboarding.
  • Ten minutes of your time. We provision a dedicated phone number, clone our Jordan configuration to your dealership, connect your inventory feed, and give you a portal login. The only thing that takes longer is you pasting your new intake email into CarGurus, Cars.com, AutoTrader, etc. — each one is a 30-second copy/paste in their dealer portal.
  • No. LotLink works alongside whatever CRM you already run. We can forward every new lead back to your CRM so nothing gets lost from your existing workflow. Your salespeople don't have to learn a new system — only the dealer manager logs into LotLink to see how Jordan's doing.
  • Almost every dealer website platform (DealerOn, DealerInspire, ProMax, Dealer.com, EpicVIN, etc.) generates an inventory feed automatically — we just need the URL. If yours somehow doesn't, we'll scrape your inventory pages directly. One way or another, your inventory is in the system by the end of setup day.
  • No. You just add our intake email as another "lead delivery" address on each of your lead platforms — it's a field they already provide, takes 30 seconds per platform. No passwords, no API integrations, no security review required. You stay in full control of every account.

Leads & Compliance

The legal stuff, answered plainly.

  • Every SMS Jordan sends includes the required HELP/STOP footer and goes out from a TCR-registered A2P 10DLC short code tied to your dealership. We track opt-in source, opt-out events, and consent timestamps for every message — fully auditable if you ever get a compliance complaint. The rules are the same whether a human or an AI sends the text; we just don't forget to follow them.
  • They get an immediate confirmation and are unenrolled from every active campaign in the system — past, current, and future. Jordan will never text or call that number again, period. No human override, no "oh they probably didn't mean it." Opt-out is automatic and absolute.
  • Two ways. First, Jordan recognizes obvious junk patterns (bot emails, solicitors pitching you SEO services) and never engages. Second — and this is the safety net — when you run a campaign enrollment from the portal, every lead appears as a checkbox. You uncheck spam, junk, or test numbers before clicking Enroll. Your campaigns stay clean without any extra work.
  • Never. Each dealership's data is walled off — a salesperson at one dealer cannot see a single lead from another. We don't run a lead-resale operation. The only leads you see are your own, and the only leads we route to you are your own.

Results & ROI

What to actually expect.

  • The portal shows you every message Jordan sends, every call Jordan makes, every appointment Jordan books — in real time, with full transcripts. There's a Speed-to-Lead KPI that tracks how fast you and Jordan respond vs. the 5-minute industry benchmark. If Jordan ever goes silent, you'll see it before a customer does. Transparency isn't a feature — it's the product.
  • Industry research says dealers responding to leads within five minutes close deals at roughly the rate of those who respond after an hour. Most dealers we talk to are averaging 30–60+ minutes on their best days. The math is simple: faster response + consistent follow-up = more appointments on the lot. We can't promise specific numbers because every dealership is different, but we can promise the volume of appointments your team actually shows up to will go up.
  • Within the first 24 hours you'll see Jordan responding to new leads. Within the first week you'll see the first appointments Jordan booked. The 14-day free trial is specifically long enough for you to see real appointments show up on your lot before you decide. We're not asking you to take it on faith — we're asking you to watch.
  • It happens. We built the portal so you can see every interaction and jump in any time — intercept a thread, send a manual SMS, stop all campaigns for one contact with one click. When something breaks, you'll often catch it before we do, and a quick screenshot to support@lotlinkin.com usually means a same-day fix. This is still new technology; we'd rather be honest about that than pretend otherwise.

Ready to see Jordan work a lead?

The fastest way to understand LotLink is to watch Jordan respond to a test lead in real time. 20 minutes on the phone with John, live demo, no commitment.