How booking works
What happens when a shopper asks to come in
"Booked appointment" and "lead" get used as if they meant the same thing. They do not. This page goes stage by stage through what Railen does when a shopper asks to visit, and what your team or a connected system does instead.
Last checked against the product on September 24, 2026
Sales visits: test drives, sales meetings, pickups and financing
| Stage | Who does it | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Requested | Railen | The shopper picks a day and a time window (morning, afternoon or evening) in the conversation. Railen verifies their phone number with a one-time code before anything is recorded. |
| Availability checked | Your team | Railen does not read your calendar or your DMS for sales visits. The windows it offers are not checked against who is on the floor. |
| Slot held | Nobody | Nothing is held in a calendar. A visit request stays a request until your team confirms it. |
| Recorded and delivered | Railen | The request goes to your CRM as a tagged ADF/XML lead with the conversation attached, or to your inbox by email. Your team gets an alert. |
| Confirmed | Your team | Someone at the store sets the exact time and confirms it with the shopper, in your CRM, the way you do today. |
| Follow-up | Railen, if you turn it on | Email and text follow-up with the shopper's consent, set up per store. |
| Rescheduled or cancelled | Railen | The shopper can move or cancel the request in the conversation after verifying their phone number again. |
| Showed or no-show | Your team | Staff mark attendance in the Railen dashboard. An unmarked visit stays "unknown". If the store has turned on a no-show sequence, an unmarked visit can be treated as missed after a grace period, and the shopper gets a re-engagement follow-up. |
Service appointments are a separate path
Service booking does not work like the sales visits above. Where a store connects XTime or DealerFX, service appointments are booked against that scheduler's real openings, at an exact time. That is the only place Railen writes to a calendar. Ask us whether it applies to your store.
The words we use
| Word | What it means on this site |
|---|---|
| Visit request | What Railen creates for a sales visit: a verified day and time window, delivered to your team. |
| Confirmed | Your team set the exact time and told the shopper. |
| Appointment | An exact time in a real calendar. For sales visits, that happens when your team confirms. |