How to set up an auto transport CRM in your first week

Connections come first because leads, texts, email and loads all run through them. Then add the people, then the rules that decide who gets which lead and what goes out on its own. The plan below spreads that over five working days and leaves the end of the week for checks.

What to have ready before day one

• Your Central Dispatch login, and your Super Dispatch account if you dispatch through it.
• Admin access to RingCentral or the calling and texting app your desk uses.
• Each salesperson's email address and the Gmail account they will send from.
• A list of your lead vendors, plus your website form if leads come in there.
• The quote text and the follow-up texts and emails your best salesperson sends today.
• The company's own payment accounts: the $cashtag, Venmo, Zelle phone or email, and bank account customers may pay.

Day 1: Connect Central Dispatch, Super Dispatch and your lead vendors

Connect the load board first, because quotes read from it. Once Central Dispatch is connected, open a test quote on a lane you ship often and check that the carrier price shows. Then connect each lead vendor so its leads arrive in the CRM's inbox, and watch for the first real lead from each one. A vendor that has sent nothing by the end of the day needs a call.

Day 2: Connect the phone and texting app and Gmail

Connect RingCentral or the calling and texting app your salespeople already use. Then test it from a manager's own phone: call and text yourself from a customer record with one button, and check that both show on that record. In Leader CRM each salesperson connects RingCentral and Gmail in the Integrations section of their profile. RingCentral places calls from the browser, sends texts and reads the call history. Gmail lets quotes and follow-up emails go out from the salesperson's own address.

Connect the admin's Gmail too. Risk alerts to managers are sent from the Gmail connected on the admin profile.

Day 3: Add salespeople and sign-in codes

Add each salesperson with the email address they read every day. The CRM holds customer phone numbers, payment records and every conversation, so a password alone is thin protection. Leader CRM sends a six-digit code to the salesperson's email after the password. Have each salesperson sign in once while you watch, so a wrong address shows up today instead of on a busy morning. Keep the admin panel to the owner. Salespeople sign in to the CRM itself.

Day 4: Set lead distribution

Decide who gets the next lead before leads start reaching real people. Fill in these settings for each salesperson:

Leader CRM also handles returning customers. When the same phone already has a lead with a salesperson from the last 30 days, the new lead goes to the next person who does not have that customer, unless the customer already has an order. More in how lead distribution should work.

Day 5: Load templates and turn on the follow-up plan

Put the texts your best salesperson already sends into company templates: the follow-up, SMS, email and ticket templates. Keep the texts short and plain, and let the CRM check length and characters before anything goes out. Then have each salesperson turn on their follow-up plan in their profile, pick the morning and evening send times, and choose the shared templates or write their own for any touch. Preview a full plan before it goes live. See how automated follow-up should work.

Two settings deserve a slow start. If the CRM prices new leads on its own, begin in the mode that only shows the price to the salesperson, and move to writing or sending prices after a week of comparing. If it has an AI responder, start it on after hours only. Read what AI can and cannot do in a broker CRM.

Days 6 and 7: Check the owner dashboard and the alerts

Open the owner dashboard and read the status panel line by line: phone and texts, outgoing messages, email, Central Dispatch, automatic follow-up, AI and background jobs, backups and lead vendors. Fix anything that is not working before the desk's next full day. Then compare today with yesterday for leads, quotes, orders, calls, texts and emails, and check each salesperson's follow-up plan in the admin panel: the next message, what went out today, and anything held back with its reason. What an owner should see every day covers the rest of the dashboard.

Last, enter the company's payment accounts and the manager addresses for risk alerts. After that, any message that asks a customer to pay a different account reaches a manager by email within minutes.

Pick the day your setup starts and book the demo for that week. Bring your Central Dispatch and Super Dispatch logins and your best salesperson's texts. Book a live demo.