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Honda Lead Management System

Honda Dealer Lead Management Experience

ROLE

UX UI Designer | Researcher

Team

Cross-functional team including:
 
  • UX UI Designer & Research (Myself)
    Business Analyst
    Developers
    Product/Strategy Consultant
    Dealer Principles
    Sales Managers

TIMELINE

6 Months

Year

2025
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Project Overview

Improving Honda’s Dealer Lead Management System Expereince
Honda’s dealerships receive customer enquiries through multiple channels including website forms, marketing campaigns, test drive requests, and walk-In enquires.
These enquires are managed through Honda’s lead management portal within the Dealer Management Systems (DMS).
The platform is indented to dealerships:
  • Capture customer enquires
  • Track follow-ups
  • Manage test rides
  • Monitor sales pipeline
  • Convert leads into opportunities
  • However, feedback from dealers indicated that the system did not align with real dealership workflows, resulting in low adoption and inconsistent reporting.

Discovery & Research

Research Approach
To understand the current challenges faced by Sales consultants, dealership teams, the project involved:

• Internal discovery sessions with Honda sales teams

• Interviews with Dealership managers, Dealer principles, and Sales Reps
• Analysis of the current lead management workflow
• Dealership visits to observe real operational practices

These activities helped identify gaps between the system design and actual dealership sales processes.

Problem

The existing Dealer Management System did not effectively support dealership sales workflows. Lead management relied heavily on manual updates, making it difficult to track lead progress, manage follow-ups, and monitor pipeline activity.
The system also lacked clear visibility into daily tasks, lead status, and overdue activities. As a result, many dealerships relied on external tools or manual tracking, leading to inconsistent lead management and unreliable reporting.

Design Goals

The redesign focused on transforming the portal into a tool that actively supports dealership operations.
 
The key goals were to:

• Improve lead visibility and prioritisation
• Simplify lead triage and processing
• Provide better activity and follow-up management
• Support sales managers with pipeline insights
• Reduce manual administrative work

Homepage Redesign

The homepage was redesigned to provide an operational overview of dealership activity.
Instead of displaying limited information, the new dashboard highlights key sales metrics and actions.

This allows consultants and managers to quickly understand the status of their leads and prioritise daily tasks.
HomePage 01 2.png

New Features Introduced

  • In progress leads
  • Overdue Activities
  • Pending Approvals
  • Opportunity Tracking
  • E-Diary
Leads 2.png

Sales Team Discovery Insights

During discussions with Honda’s sales teams, several systemic challenges were identified.
Lead assignment and management relied heavily on manual updates, which caused inconsistencies in the system.

Activity tracking within the lead object was unreliable, and many follow-ups were managed outside the platform.

Sales consultants also reported that the homepage provided very little operational information, making it difficult to identify which leads required immediate attention.
As a result, many dealerships maintained separate tracking systems outside the Honda portal.

Dealership’s Team Discovery

To validate insights from the internal workshop, we did multiple dealership visits across Victoria and NSW .
Participants included:

• Dealer Principal

• Sales Consultants
• Honda Sales Representatives
• Persistent team

The visit focused on understanding how dealership teams manage leads in their daily operations and how the current portal supports—or fails to support—their workflow.

Inefficiencies in Lead Management and System Integration

The current lead management system is hindered by inefficiencies across lead capture, processing, customer context, and system integration. Customers often submit multiple enquiries for different models, leading to duplicate entries that require manual handling, while the absence of key qualification fields—such as trade-in details, finance interest, purchase timeline, and preferred contact time—forces sales consultants to manually assess each lead, slowing down the workflow. Once captured, leads are difficult to manage due to the lack of bulk update options and prioritisation indicators like hot, warm, or cold, making it challenging to focus on high-intent customers. Additionally, the system offers limited customer context, as it does not display prior interactions, purchase history, or previous enquiries, restricting consultants from understanding the customer’s overall journey. These challenges are further amplified by poor integration with dealership systems, where manual data transfers, unsynchronised updates, and mismatched sales information create inconsistencies in reporting and reduce overall pipeline visibility.Several challenges were identified with the lead capture process.

Customers often submit multiple enquiries for different models, resulting in duplicate leads that require manual updates.
The lead form also lacks key qualification fields such as trade-in information, finance interest, purchase timeline, and preferred contact time.
Without this information, sales consultants must manually qualify each lead, which slows down the sales process.

Problem Statement

The existing lead management system falls short in supporting dealership sales workflows, with critical activities such as lead prioritisation, follow-ups, and pipeline tracking largely dependent on manual effort. Limited visibility into lead status, customer interactions, and overall context forces sales teams to rely on external tools to manage their day-to-day operations. This fragmented approach not only increases administrative workload but also leads to inconsistent reporting and reduced platform adoption among dealerships.

Lead Management Workflow

The redesigned system supports the complete lead lifecycle.
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Prototype & User Testing

The redesigned interface has been developed as a second-stage prototype.
The redesigned interface has been developed as a second-stage prototype.

These screens are currently undergoing user testing with:

• Sales consultants
• Dealership managers
• Dealer principals
• Sales administrators

The testing phase focuses on validating usability, improving workflows, and identifying opportunities for further system improvements.

Prototype

Outcome

The redesigned system provides dealership teams with improved visibility into lead activity, follow-ups, and pipeline performance.
The new dashboard transforms the homepage into an operational control centre that helps consultants prioritise tasks and track customer interactions more effectively.
Early feedback from dealership users indicates improved usability and better alignment with real sales workflows.

Reflection

This project highlighted the importance of designing enterprise systems that reflect real operational practices.
By working directly with dealership teams and observing their workflows, the redesign focused on reducing administrative complexity and improving system usability.
The project demonstrates how thoughtful UX design can help bridge the gap between system capabilities and real business processes.
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