Car Dealership Sales Terms Glossary: Leads, Phones, BDC and Mystery Shopping

This car dealership sales terms glossary explains the words Canadian dealers, managers and salespeople use every day, in plain English. It covers leads and lead sources, the phone, the BDC, the showroom and desk, inventory, measurement and mystery shopping, plus the Canadian rules that show up in daily work. Use it to onboard new hires or to make sure everyone defines terms the same way.

That last point matters more than it seems. If one manager counts a "show" as anyone who walks in and another only counts customers who arrived for a booked appointment, their show rates will never line up. A shared glossary saves a lot of confusion in sales meetings.

Terms are grouped by topic. Some have local variations, so if your store uses a word differently, that is fine. The goal is clarity within your team.

Leads and lead sources

• Lead. Any inquiry from a potential buyer. It may arrive by web form, email, phone, text, chat or a listing site message.
• Internet lead. A lead that arrives online, such as a form on your website or a message through a listing site.
• Lead source. Where a lead came from. For Canadian dealers, common sources include the dealer website, AutoTrader.ca, CarGurus, Kijiji Autos, Facebook Marketplace and manufacturer websites.
• Third-party lead. A lead from a site you do not own, such as a listing marketplace. You often pay for these through a subscription or per lead.
• OEM lead. A lead passed to the dealer from the manufacturer's website. OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer.
• ADF. Auto-lead Data Format, an XML-based standard many lead sources use to send leads into a dealer's CRM.
• Lead routing. The rules that decide which person or team receives each lead. Routing problems are a quiet reason leads go unanswered.
• Auto-responder. An automated message sent immediately after a lead arrives. Helpful as an acknowledgement, but not a substitute for a personal reply.
• Follow-up cadence. The planned sequence of calls, emails and texts after the first reply. See building a follow-up cadence.
• Duplicate lead. The same buyer arriving through more than one source, or more than once through the same one. Agree on how your CRM handles these so a buyer does not get two salespeople at once.
• Aged lead. A lead that has gone quiet over time. Some stores revisit aged leads when new inventory arrives.

Phone terms

• Phone up. An inbound sales call from a buyer, usually about a specific vehicle, price or availability.
• Inbound and outbound. Inbound calls come into the store. Outbound calls are made by the store, such as follow-up calls to leads.
• Transfer. When reception or an operator passes a call to a salesperson or department. Transfers are a common place for calls to stall.
• Hold time. How long a caller waits between the answer and a person picking up.
• Missed call. An inbound call nobody answered, including calls that rang out after a transfer. A missed sales call is worth a call back as soon as possible.
• Call tracking. Software that assigns phone numbers to marketing sources and records or logs calls. It shows what calls came in. A mystery shop shows how a specific scenario was handled. See mystery shopping vs call tracking.
• Call recording. Saving a copy of a phone call. In Canada, recording is generally lawful when one party consents, and businesses have privacy duties. See is it legal to record phone calls in Canada.

BDC and appointment terms

• BDC. Business development centre. A team that handles leads and calls, follows up and sets appointments. It may be in-house or outsourced.
• Speed to lead. Time from a lead's arrival to the first response. Many stores separate the time to an automated reply from the time to the first personal reply.
• Contact rate. The share of leads where the store reached the buyer in a real two-way conversation.
• Appointment set. A buyer agrees to a specific day and time to visit.
• Set rate. Appointments set divided by leads or calls received, over a period.
• Show. A buyer who arrives for a booked appointment.
• Show rate. Shows divided by appointments set. Agree on whether rescheduled appointments count.
• No-show. A buyer who booked an appointment and did not arrive or reschedule.
• Confirmation call. A call or message before the appointment to confirm the time and the vehicle.

For more on how BDCs are measured and shopped, see BDC mystery shopping.

Showroom and desk terms

• Up. A customer available to be helped, especially on the lot or in the showroom. An "up system" is the rotation that decides who takes the next customer.
• Walk-in. A customer who arrives without an appointment.
• Be-back. A customer who visited, left and later returned.
• Walk-around. A guided look at the vehicle's features. Many salespeople also send walk-around videos to remote buyers.
• Demo. A test drive, or in some stores a vehicle used for demonstration.
• T.O. (turnover). Bringing in a manager or another salesperson to help with a customer.
• Desking. Structuring a deal, typically by a sales manager working out price, trade, payments and terms.
• Four-square. A worksheet that shows price, trade, down payment and monthly payment together.
• F&I. Finance and insurance. The office that arranges financing and offers products such as extended warranties.
• Front-end gross. Profit on the vehicle sale itself.
• Back-end gross. Profit from F&I products and financing.
• Unit. One vehicle, as in "we sold 120 units".
• Mini. A minimum commission paid on a deal with little or no gross.
• Spiff. A small bonus for selling a particular vehicle or product.

Inventory and trade terms

Inventory knowledge comes up on almost every phone up, because most callers are asking about a specific unit.

Measurement and mystery shopping terms

• CRM. Customer relationship management software, where leads, notes, tasks and follow-ups are tracked.
• DMS. Dealer management system: the core software for deals, inventory, accounting and service.
• Close ratio. Sales divided by opportunities, such as shows or ups. Define the denominator clearly.
• Mystery shop. A controlled test where a shopper contacts the store as a real buyer and the interaction is recorded and scored. Also called a secret shop. See car dealership mystery shopping in Canada.
• Phone shop. A recorded mystery shop call to the sales line about a real vehicle in stock.
• Internet lead shop. A mystery shop lead sent through a website or listing site, with the first reply and every follow-up timed.
• Scorecard. The list of criteria used to score a shop.
• Criterion. One item on the scorecard, ideally a clear yes or no, such as "appointment requested".
• Inventory awareness shop. A shop focused on whether the team knows what is in stock and can speak to it confidently.
• Trend. How results move from month to month.

Canadian rules and context

• CASL. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which governs commercial electronic messages such as marketing emails and texts. Replies to a buyer's own inquiry are generally treated differently from unsolicited marketing.
• PIPEDA. The federal private-sector privacy law. Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have their own private-sector privacy laws.
• AMVIC. The Alberta Motor Vehicle Industry Council, Alberta's automotive industry regulator.
• OMVIC. The Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council, Ontario's regulator.
• VSA. The Vehicle Sales Authority of BC, British Columbia's regulator.
• All-in pricing. Rules in some provinces, including Ontario and Alberta, that require advertised prices to include most fees and charges. Check your regulator for the details that apply to you.
• GST and HST. Federal goods and services tax and, in participating provinces, the harmonized sales tax. Some provinces also charge their own provincial sales tax.

The regulatory entries here are general information and not legal advice. Your regulator and your lawyer are the right sources for specifics.

How to use this car dealership sales terms glossary

A glossary is most useful when it is part of how a store talks, not a document in a drawer. Some managers walk through a section at a sales meeting, especially the measurement terms, so everyone agrees on what counts as a set, a show or a first response. Others add store-specific terms: the name of your CRM, how your up system works, or what your team calls a particular lead source.

A shared vocabulary makes everything else easier. When your team agrees on what a show is, what counts as a first response and what an appointment set means, your numbers line up and your meetings get shorter. Some managers keep a one-page version of this list for new hires.

If you want to see these terms in action on real calls and leads, the dealership mystery shopping page explains how Lock works with stores across Canada.