Stalled-lead alerts and automatic follow-up tasks
When an active lead goes quiet for about a week, your assistant alerts the owner and auto-creates a follow-up task so the lead doesn't fall through the cracks.
Leads go cold when nobody touches them. AutoDealer.io watches for that automatically: each morning it flags active leads that have gone quiet, posts a heads-up to the owner, and drops a follow-up task tied to the lead. You don't set anything up — it just runs.
How it works
Two things happen, once a day, for leads that have newly gone quiet:
- The owner gets an alert. Your assistant posts one message into the owner's dealer-AI chat listing the active leads that have newly crossed the 7-day no-activity mark (for example, "3 active leads have gone quiet"). Leads it already messaged about aren't repeated.
- A follow-up task is created. For each stalled lead without an open follow-up task, the system creates a high-priority task titled "Follow up with [name]", linked to the lead.
So the owner sees the big picture in chat, and a concrete to-do lands on the board for each cold lead.
What counts as "gone quiet"
A lead is flagged when both are true:
- Its status is active — anything except New, Won, Lost, or Dormant.
- Its Last activity was 7 or more days ago.
"Last activity" is the last time someone actually worked the lead. The clock resets whenever you:
- Change the lead's status
- Assign or reassign it to someone
- Convert it to a customer
- Log a communication (a call, email, or note) on the lead
Brand-new leads that nobody has contacted yet are handled by a separate daily alert ("New leads still uncontacted"), not this one. This alert is only for leads that were already past New and then went silent.
The follow-up task
For every stalled lead that doesn't already have an open follow-up task, the system adds one so it can't slip:
- Title: "Follow up with [lead name]"
- Assigned to: the rep who owns the lead. If the lead has no owner, the task is assigned to the dealership owner (the person the alert went to) instead.
- Priority: High
- Linked to: the lead — so the lead's tasks list shows it.
Work the lead (log a call, change its status, etc.) and Last activity updates, so it stops being stalled — and once you complete the task it won't come back unless the lead goes quiet again.
The rep who gets the task is notified with a "task assigned to you" alert only when the task lands on someone other than the person who created it. The alert is created under the dealership owner's name, so a task that ends up assigned to the owner (an unowned lead, or a lead the owner already owns) doesn't fire a separate task-assigned notification — it simply appears on the board. The task-assigned notification links to the task board, not the lead.
The system only creates a follow-up task if the lead doesn't already have an open one. If a follow-up task is sitting open and untouched, no new task is added — so the lead won't keep generating duplicate to-dos. It also means the lead can stay flagged in the owner's alert (once per new 7-day bucket) while the existing task waits to be done.
Turning the alert on or off
The follow-up tasks always get created — that's the safety net and it isn't tied to any notification toggle. The owner alert in the AI chat is a notification you can switch off.
- Go to Settings → AI assistant.
- Scroll to Dealer AI — your private assistant, then to the What your assistant keeps you posted on card.
- Under Leads & CRM, switch off Stalled lead (going cold) if you don't want the chat alert.
Switching off Stalled lead (going cold) only silences the owner's chat alert. The follow-up tasks are still created either way.
FAQ
Exactly how many days until a lead is flagged?
Seven. An active lead whose Last activity was 7 or more days ago is counted as stalled.
A lead I'm actively working keeps showing up as stalled. Why?
The clock only resets when you actually record work on the lead — change its status, reassign it, convert it, or log a call/email/note. If you talked to the customer but never logged it, the lead still looks untouched. Log the communication and Last activity refreshes.
Will I get a new task every day for the same cold lead?
No. As long as an open follow-up task already exists for that lead, no duplicate is created. You'll only get a fresh task if the previous one was completed and the lead went quiet again.
Who sees the alert — every salesperson or just the owner?
The morning chat alert goes to the dealership owner. The follow-up task is assigned to the rep who owns the lead (or to the owner if the lead is unassigned).
Will the same cold lead keep nagging the owner in chat?
Only as it ages. The alert is deduplicated per lead, but it re-flags each time the lead crosses a new 7-day mark (7 → 14 → 21 days), so a lead that stays cold surfaces again at each step rather than every single morning.
When does this run?
Once a day, in the morning (in your dealership's time zone). It only mentions leads that newly crossed a 7-day mark, so most mornings stay quiet.