Notes for owners · CRM, automation and RevOps
Tracking which source brought the car or bike buyer
How a car or two-wheeler dealer can record where each buyer came from, with one source field, a fixed list and a rule for walk-ins, so spending follows bookings and not noise.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
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A buyer at a showroom desk carries no label. Someone asking about an SUV may have seen a hoarding, then a portal listing, then heard a cousin's opinion. Write "walk-in" in the register and every one of those trails is gone. What works is one source field, picked from a fixed list at the first conversation and never edited afterwards, plus a second field for what made them come today.
What goes wrong when every buyer is a walk-in?
Walk-in is where sources go to disappear. A customer who called after seeing your Instagram reel, was told to visit, and arrived on Sunday gets written down as a walk-in. A portal enquiry the executive phoned back and brought in also becomes a walk-in. After three months the register says most buyers came on their own, and the owner cuts the portal spend that was feeding them.
The general CRM method is in tracking lead source in your CRM. A dealership adds a twist: the same buyer touches the showroom, the phone and the portal in one week.
The register layout
Keep the columns few. This is enough for a showroom that records leads in a sheet or a CRM.
| Column | What goes in it | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Date and time | When the enquiry first reached you | Never changed |
| Name and number | Buyer, and the number used on WhatsApp | One row per person |
| Model asked about | Exact variant, if stated | Free text |
| First source | Pick from the list below | Locked after entry |
| Brought in by | What made the buyer come or call today | Pick from the same list |
| Exchange? | Yes or no | Drives a separate follow-up |
| Status | Open, test drive, booked, delivered, lost | Updated by executive |
| Lost reason | Price, model, finance, delay, bought elsewhere | Only when lost |
The second source column is easy to skip, and it separates the hoarding from the call that finally moved the buyer.
The source list: short and fixed
Use nine or ten values and no more. These will do for most showrooms:
- walk-in with no prior contact
- phone call
- own website or ad form
- portal listing
- brand or OEM allotted lead
- referral from a past customer
- referral from a service customer
- corporate or fleet contact
- event or camp
- other, with a note field
Read the notes at each review. When the same note keeps coming back, it becomes its own value.
Why separate the two referral types? A past buyer who tells a neighbour, and a service customer who mentions it to the advisor, come from different habits and you may reward them differently. Record the referrer's name in the notes, so you can thank them.
Who asks the question, and when?
The sales executive asks, at the desk, in the first five minutes: "How did you hear about us?" Before the booking is made comes a second question: "What made you come today?" Put both on the lead form so nobody can skip them.
Do not rely on the buyer's memory alone for digital sources. For website forms and portal leads, the system already knows where they came from, so write that in automatically and let the executive's question only add the second field.
When two sources claim the same buyer
An invented two-wheeler showroom in Nashik. A student enquires on a portal about a commuter bike, gets called, and says they will think about it. A week later a parent walks in with a hoarding photo on a phone, asking for the same bike. The register shows a new walk-in. The showroom sees the portal number at the next review and the lead count looks small, so it considers dropping the listing.
The rule that fixes it is simple: before opening a new row, search the phone number. If it exists, attach the visit to the old row and fill "brought in by" with the hoarding. Now the portal gets credit for the first contact and the hoarding for the visit. Both are true, and the owner can see that the portal starts family decisions. This works only when someone searches before typing. If the counter is chaotic on Saturdays, give that job to one person and accept a few duplicates.
How should you read the numbers?
Count bookings by first source, not enquiries. A portal can bring many names and few deliveries, and a service-customer referral can bring few names and more deliveries. Judge a source on bookings before cutting it.
Here is how a month might read, with illustrative numbers for a two-wheeler showroom:
| First source | Enquiries | Booked | Booked per 10 enquiries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portal listing | 40 | 4 | 1 |
| Walk-in, no prior contact | 25 | 7 | 3 |
| Service customer referral | 6 | 3 | 5 |
| Brand allotted lead | 15 | 2 | 1 |
The portal supplies the most names and the fewest sales per name, so a careless owner drops it. First set its cost per booking beside the "brought in by" column. If portal buyers keep arriving because of a hoarding or a cousin, the portal started conversations that other sources finished.
The referral line is small and does best per enquiry in this month, but you cannot buy more of it. You grow it by asking service customers, politely, at the service counter.
Then divide your own spend by bookings per source. Treat the first weeks as a draft, because a bike or car takes time to be booked. Do not use the table to blame an executive whose leads came from a weak source. And if the showroom sees only a handful of buyers a week, skip the second column and keep the first.
Making it stick
Lock the first source once entered and give each person the same list. Review the "other" and "walk-in" counts: if either is the biggest, the questions are not being asked.
Try this on your own register. Can it say which source brought last month's deliveries? If it cannot, start the new columns on Monday's enquiries and ignore the old rows. Marketing attribution is the service for this, and the same fields work for any automotive dealer. When you are ready for help, tell us what you need.
