Custom Dealer Apps for Columbus auto dealerships and service groups
Columbus is a retail-testing ground, insurance, logistics market. Your automotive dealer stack should reflect that. We design and ship custom apps tuned to how your customers, staff, and operation actually behave.
The automotive dealer problem in Columbus
What's really happening with auto dealerships and service groups here.
The pattern we see
Here's what we hear from Columbus auto dealerships and service groups: "service and sales customer data live in two different DMS silos." We've heard it in the Short North, we've heard it in German Village, and we hear it in every Franklin County intake call. The tools your team uses weren't built for Columbus, weren't built for automotive dealer, and weren't built for how your operation actually runs.
How we build for Columbus
Not a template. A custom stack, assembled for your operation.
We build the custom software layer your Columbus automotive dealer operation actually needs. That means branded inventory search with saved alerts, in-app service scheduling and reminders, and trade-in estimator with photo capture — wired into CDK and Reynolds & Reynolds so your existing stack keeps working. The outcome: unify sales + service customer and pull deals through faster. The benchmark: dealers compress retail delivery time by 30–50%.
Columbus's retail-testing ground, insurance, logistics business community has specific expectations. We design to them. That means a level of polish matched to the Short North benchmarks, an operational fit tuned to Franklin County workflows, and integrations that respect the tools Columbus auto dealerships and service groups already depend on — CDK, Reynolds & Reynolds, Tekion to name a few.
What we build
Five services. One retainer. Pick what fits, or stack them.
Branded Mobile App
A native iOS + Android app branded as Columbus's automotive dealer leader. Published under your developer accounts, with push notifications tuned to unify sales + service customer and pull deals through faster.
- native iOS and Android from a single codebase
- App Store and Play Store submission under your developer accounts
- push notifications, deep linking, and offline support
Web Application
A production-grade web app your team in Franklin County uses daily, and your customers reach from any browser. Optimized for the ET cadence your auto dealerships and service groups actually run on.
- production-grade React/Next.js front end
- custom domain, SSL, and CDN delivery
- role-based access and admin dashboards
Custom Internal Software
The internal tool CDK and Reynolds & Reynolds couldn't build for your Columbus operation. digital retailing — credit app, deposit, and delivery scheduling, role-based access, and full audit trails.
- back-office operations dashboard
- workflow automation and approval chains
- data import/export and reporting exports
Systems Integration
Make CDK, Reynolds & Reynolds, Tekion — the stack your Columbus automotive dealer team already depends on — finally behave as one system. Two-way sync, queue-backed retries, monitoring.
- two-way sync across CRM, billing, and ops systems
- webhooks, API proxies, and queue-backed retries
- monitoring, alerting, and error remediation
Ongoing Product Team
A product + engineering team on retainer. Weekly feature releases, uptime monitoring, and a monthly roadmap built around the Columbus automotive dealer market's changing demands — not a fixed-bid handoff.
- monthly product roadmap with your leadership
- feature releases every 2 weeks
- uptime monitoring, patching, and incident response
How we build automotive dealer apps in Columbus
Three phases. No surprises.
Design Review
We ship a clickable prototype in week 2 and walk through it with your team — in person when you're in Columbus, on video when scheduling won't allow. You approve, we build.
Ship & Iterate
Your app ships within 6–10 weeks. Weekly release cadence after launch, with product-engineering retainer that treats your automotive dealer business like a product, not a project.
Integrate & Migrate
We migrate your existing data from CDK (and whatever else your Columbus team already uses) so day-one launch doesn't lose a single customer or record.
Integrations we plug into
Keep the tools your Columbus team already knows. We build around them, not over them.
Compliance, architected in
Requirements drive architecture, not retrofits. We scope compliance into the build from day one.
Frequently asked questions
Specific to auto dealerships and service groups in Columbus.
Do you work with auto dealerships and service groups outside Columbus?
Yes. We serve the full Franklin County service area within roughly 25 miles of Columbus, and we work remotely across the US. Most Columbus projects get same-week on-site kickoffs when requested.
What does a automotive dealer app cost for a Columbus business?
$850/month, all-in. That covers design, development, hosting, support, and ongoing iteration. No per-seat fees, no per-transaction cuts, no surprise invoices. Most auto dealerships and service groups we work with in Franklin County recover the monthly cost within the first quarter through unify sales + service customer and pull deals through faster.
How does service-drive scheduling work?
Customers book online with real advisor/bay availability. RO's auto-create in the DMS with the right service codes. Customers get live status updates — cuts BDC call volume meaningfully.
What about FTC Safeguards compliance?
Every credit-app data flow is built to the FTC Safeguards Rule — encryption, access controls, audit logging, and written information security policies covered.
Do we own the code and the data?
Yes. Your codebase, your App Store and Play Store listings, your customer data. If you ever decide to leave, we hand over a clean repo and a documented deployment. No lock-in, no exit fee.
Keep exploring
Browse related automotive dealer pages and nearby markets.