Give Dealer Marketing Vendors a Better Way to Prioritize Requests

Every Dealer Request Cannot Be the Top Priority

Marketing vendors receive requests for new fields, reports, creative tools, integration changes, page modules, exports, and workflow fixes. When intake happens through scattered emails and account calls, the request with the clearest advocate can outrank the request with the greatest customer impact. Dealers also repeat the same problem to several vendors because nobody records the dependency. A shared intake process does not guarantee that every feature will be built. It makes the problem, consequence, evidence, and decision visible enough for a useful answer.

Describe the Problem Before the Feature

Ask the requester to describe the customer or operator problem, who experiences it, how often it occurs, the current workaround, affected rooftops, and evidence such as examples or timestamps. “Add a dashboard tab” is less useful than “BDC managers cannot separate service inquiries from sales leads before the morning meeting.” Include the desired outcome, data required, systems involved, and any deadline driven by an offer, launch, or compliance need. This gives the vendor a chance to propose a safer solution than the first feature idea.

• State the affected customer journey or internal decision.
• Attach a small representative sample, not a large unfiltered customer export.
• Estimate frequency, time lost, revenue or service risk, and number of rooftops affected.
• List dependencies, privacy or compliance considerations, and a requested decision date.
• Name the dealer owner who can clarify the problem and accept the outcome.

Use a Transparent Priority Rubric

A simple rubric can score customer harm, operational reach, urgency, evidence quality, strategic fit, and implementation effort. The score is a conversation starter, not a claim that a spreadsheet can decide everything. A broken lead route may outrank a more popular reporting enhancement; a request affecting one rooftop may be strategically important even when its volume is small. Ask the vendor to state whether the request is planned, needs discovery, depends on another release, is declined, or can be solved through configuration or process.

Keep Dealer-Specific Work Visible

A vendor roadmap may combine product improvements with work that only the dealership can approve or fund. Separate platform changes, configuration, integration work, data cleanup, training, and custom development. For each path, show owner, estimate, dependency, risk, and acceptance criteria. A request is not complete when a vendor ships code; the dealer needs to test the relevant customer journey and confirm that reporting, permissions, and fallback behavior work as expected.

Review the Queue on a Set Cadence

Review open requests during a regular account or operations meeting, with decisions and next dates recorded. Close duplicates by linking them, update requests when evidence changes, and retire work that no longer reflects the store’s priorities. Share the status with affected staff so they do not keep escalating the same item through different channels. If a vendor declines a request, ask for the reason and an alternative workaround where one exists. The point is a reliable decision record, not endless status meetings.

A disciplined intake gives dealer teams a voice without turning every request into an emergency. Vendors get better product evidence, and dealerships get clearer decisions about what will change, what will not, and what to do next.