Instagram leads for car dealerships usually arrive as two words in a DM: "still available?" Cloodot's AI agent answers every DM and story reply in seconds, asks the few questions your sales team needs, and hands over the buyers worth a call, with the conversation already on the record.
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Is the gray crossover from your reel still on the lot?
It's still here. The agent asked about timing, a trade-in and the best number to reach her.
A walkaround reel of a certified pre-owned crossover does its job: people message. "Price?" "Still available?" "Do you take trades?" The trouble is where those DMs land. On many lots the Instagram account lives on one phone, owned by whoever runs social, and the BDC and the sales floor never see the messages unless someone forwards a screenshot.
Instagram also keeps a clock. Meta generally gives a business 24 hours after the shopper's last message to reply, so a DM sent at 8 p.m. on Friday and noticed on Monday may be one you can no longer answer at all. Megan Whitaker, who asked about the crossover, has moved on to the store across town that wrote back.
Even the DMs that get answered rarely become leads. The reply is a price, the shopper says thanks, and the conversation ends with no phone number, no trade-in details and no idea whether she is buying this month or browsing.
Connect the dealership's Instagram professional account, linked to its Facebook Page, and every DM lands in Cloodot's inbox next to your other channels. The AI agent replies first, any hour, using what you have given it: your inventory as a Collection with photos and prices, your hours and location, financing basics, and trade-in policy. Ask about "the gray crossover from the reel" and it can find the vehicle by name or model and show the card in the chat.
Then it qualifies, the way a good BDC rep would, without sounding like a form. A procedure tells it what to find out and in what order: buying or just looking, timeline, trade-in, financing or cash, and a phone number for a follow-up call. Custom fields with AI Extraction turned on capture each answer, and labels such as Hot lead or Trade-in are applied automatically from your descriptions.
Story replies count too. When someone answers an inventory story with "how many miles?", the Story Reply Received trigger starts a workflow, so you can label it and route it like any other lead. Shoppers from a Click-to-Instagram ad bring that ad with them, so you can tag them by ad.
When the lead is ready, the agent hands over to your internet sales team's inbox, or a workflow assigns it to a named rep. The rep sees the whole DM thread and the captured fields, and calls Megan with the answers already in hand.
DMs from one or several Instagram accounts arrive in the shared inbox, each account as its own channel.
Vehicle cards with a photo, price line and buttons, so the agent can show the car being asked about instead of describing it.
An ordered checklist for qualifying a shopper: what to ask, when to offer quick replies such as Book a visit or Value my trade, and when to hand over.
Explore AI agentTimeline, trade-in vehicle and phone number are filled in from the conversation, so the rep reads a summary instead of scrolling.
Starts a workflow when someone replies to your story, so story-driven questions get labeled and routed instead of lost.
Explore Skills & workflowsIndependent used-car lots, franchise stores and dealer groups in the US that post inventory on Instagram and get more DMs than one social media manager can answer, from Portland to Austin.
It fits a BDC or internet sales manager who wants Instagram worked with the same discipline as a web form.
5 steps
In Settings, open Organization, then Channels, and add Instagram. Sign in with an account that has admin access to the page linked to your Instagram.
Create a Collection of the units you post, with a photo, a price line and buttons, and add hours, trade-in and financing basics to the Knowledge Base.
On the persona's Procedures tab, describe when it applies (a shopper asks about a vehicle) and list the questions in order, ending with a phone number and a handover.
Add Timeline, Trade-in vehicle and Phone as custom fields with AI Extraction on, and Hot lead and Trade-in labels with clear descriptions.
Turn on a team inbox for internet sales and describe it clearly, so handovers land there, or assign a named rep with a workflow on the Hot lead label.
EVM was answering WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and website inquiries in four separate places, and leads slipped between them. It now works all four channels from one Cloodot inbox, with the AI agent qualifying each inquiry before the team picks it up.
Yes. Once your Instagram professional account is connected, Cloodot's AI agent replies to DMs from the same inbox your team uses, grounded in the inventory, hours and policies you give it. It hands over to a person whenever your rules say so, or when the shopper asks for one.
Meta's messaging rules generally allow a business to reply within 24 hours of the shopper's last message, with narrower exceptions for human follow-up. In practice the first reply matters far more than the deadline: a shopper asking about one car is usually asking two other stores too, so an answer in seconds keeps you in the running.
It answers from what you load, and you can tell it exactly how to handle anything it cannot confirm. Because inventory is not synced live, most stores instruct the agent to confirm availability with the team before promising a unit, and to hand over any request for an out-the-door price.
Yes. The agent understands messages in any language and replies in the languages you pick for it, which include English and Spanish. A shopper who writes in Spanish gets a Spanish reply, and your team can translate any message in the inbox into their own language.
Yes. Facebook Messenger, website chat, WhatsApp and email land in the same inbox as Instagram, and the same AI agent, knowledge and handover rules apply across all of them. A shopper who starts on Instagram and later uses your website chat is answered the same way, and your team works every channel from one queue.
Start free. Train a Cloodot agent on your own docs, your own tone, your own tools, and you'll walk away with a working deployment in your inbox the same afternoon.
