When a ransomware attack knocked out CDK Global, the software backbone for over 15,000 car dealerships, Toyota of Orlando and Clermont were among those left in the dark. Their CRM went offline without warning, cutting off access to customer records and incoming leads. Instead of waiting for a fix, Spencer Siviglia, Director of Operations for both Toyota dealerships, moved quickly.
With more than 500 employees and thousands of leads per month, the stakes were high. Spencer needed a fast, flexible way to keep internet sales moving, even without a CRM. Within hours, he stood up a stopgap system using Zapier.
“We get over 200 leads a day. The CDK outage was a disaster, but with Zapier, we never missed a step,” Spencer says.
What started as a quick workaround, routing lead emails to a catch-all inbox and pushing them into Asana, became the foundation for a much broader automation strategy that now powers nearly every department.
Toyota of Orlando’s results, by the numbers
4,000–5,000 leads per month routed cleanly across stores
30,000+ lead records tracked and maintained in Zapier Tables
2x time savings across marketing, sales, and service teams
Zero downtime during multiple CRM outages
Keeping sales running during a crisis
When a ransomware attack hit CDK Global, it knocked out critical systems for over 15,000 car dealerships across the U.S., including the Toyota dealership Spencer oversees.
When CDK’s CRM system went down, Spencer quickly stood up a temporary CRM inside Asana and paired it with Zapier to keep the internet sales team operating without disruption.
"We couldn’t see or respond to leads. Our CRM was down for almost a month, and our system receives around 4,000 to 5,000 customer leads each month. We didn't have time to wait around. That’s when I had to find something, and fast."
With a sales-driven business model and customers expecting quick responses, every lead lost was potential revenue gone. Spencer needed a solution to help him route and act on those leads instantly, without relying on his primary CRM. "We get over 200 leads a day. The CDK outage was a disaster, but with Zapier, we never missed a step."
Within hours of the outage, Spencer spun up a catch-all email inbox and began routing incoming leads into Asana using Zaps, an automated workflow built in Zapier. It wasn’t just a stopgap. It became the foundation for a complete transformation in the dealerships' operations.
Here’s how the Zap worked:
Leads sent to a backup Gmail inbox triggered the Zap
A custom Python step extracted structured data like name, contact info, car model, and zip code
The extracted data was added to Asana as tasks and assigned to the correct internet sales rep
“This kept our internet Sales Department running when everything else was down. Without Zapier, we would’ve been stuck manually inputting every lead or missed them entirely,” Spencer said.
Later, once the CRM was restored, Spencer evolved the workflow, storing lead data in Zapier Tables and syncing it with Google Sheets to create a real-time lead dashboard his team still uses today.
Using Interfaces to log phone leads during the outage
Spencer turned to Interfaces to close the gap when their primary lead source went dark for a week. He built a simple form for the internet sales team to log incoming phone leads while the CRM was down.
Here's how it works:
Vendors were asked to route lead emails to two inboxes during the CDK outage
When phone leads came in, reps filled out a custom Zapier Interface form
Each submission was routed to Asana and assigned to the proper team member
“We had no way of logging phone-ups without Zapier,” Spencer said. “That form saved us. It let the BDC keep operating even when everything else was offline.”
Automating complex lead intake with Zapier Tables and AI
One of the dealership’s most pressing challenges is managing the volume and variability of incoming leads. Between both stores, they receive hundreds of daily inquiries from different vendors, platforms, and forms. Formats vary, from structured ADF XML to plain text, making consistent routing a nightmare.
To handle the volume and variability, Spencer built a 38-step Zap that automatically cleans, routes, and verifies leads.
Here's how it works:
A catch-all Gmail address collects all inbound online shopper leads in various formats (plain text, ADF XML), which is live and constantly updated
Formatter by Zapier extracts key fields like name, email, vehicle make, model, VIN, zip code, and more—over 15 data points in total
AI by Zapier analyzes and returns the data
Paths by Zapier determine whether the lead is for a new or used vehicle, and additional filters route the flow accordingly
ChatGPT checks if the zip code is valid, then directs valid or invalid entries to the appropriate path
Finalized data lives in Zapier Tables, and another Zap syncs the information between this Table and a view-only Google Sheet so the BDC team can view leads in real time
With more than 200 leads arriving daily from dozens of sources, Spencer needed a fast, reliable way to clean, verify, and route data. By streamlining this process with Zapier Tables, the team eliminated manual steps and significantly reduced errors.
Today, Spencer’s Table holds over 30,000 records, serving as the single source of truth for lead data, powering visibility, analysis, and automation across the company.
“This Zap doesn’t just move data, it transforms it into something our team can act on right away. It’s clean, scalable, and way faster than anything we did before.”
Parsing multi-source dealership leads with AI
Once the core lead intake system ran smoothly, Spencer turned his attention to the other leads flooding in, especially those from DealerOn. These leads came in from multiple forms and subtypes, each with slightly different formatting. That variability made them hard to automate, but too important to ignore.
To scale beyond one lead type, Spencer expanded the workflow for DealerOn leads, which arrive in inconsistent formats from various sub-sources.
How the automation works:
A Gmail label triggers the workflow for new DealerOn leads
AI by Zapier extracts core contact and vehicle info, plus metadata like campaign source and CTA name
A second AI step parses marketing attribution fields like campaign, term, medium, and referrer
Based on email content, Paths separate “Unlock Price,” “Signal,” and “Trade Appraisal” leads
Zapier Table logs the information for downstream actions
“These leads come in inconsistently, so instead of building a long and complicated Zap, I use AI to handle the variation. It’s one of the fastest setups I’ve done, and it works," said Spencer.
Using Agents to catch trends and eliminate blind spots
As lead volume scaled, Spencer wanted a better way to track trends without wading through spreadsheets or fighting compatibility issues between tools. With tens of thousands of entries in his Zapier Tables database, finding patterns was tedious. He needed a faster way to answer questions and catch issues. So he built a Zapier Agent, Timmy the Table Bot, which he uses to monitor lead trends and spot anomalies.
Here's how Timmy works:
Users ask natural language questions like “How many leads did Toyota of Orlando get yesterday?”
Timmy pulls data directly from Zapier Tables, summarizing totals by lead source and dealership.
The agent returns results as in a message thread, highlighting patterns or outliers.
With Agents, I’m not just automating tasks, I’m getting insights I didn’t even know to look for. They flag when something’s off, answer questions in plain language, and save me hours every week.
Spencer Siviglia, Director of Operations
Managing customer complaints with structured escalation in Asana
Spencer didn’t stop with sales. He realized he could use automation to help make sure complaints and negative Google reviews don’t fall through the cracks. Before automation, his team was manually triaging emails and trying to loop in the right departments, often too late, so he turned to Zapier to create a more structured response system.
Here’s how the Zap works:
It starts by polling Google Business Profile for new reviews every 15 minutes
Filter by Zapier checks if the review meets specific criteria (for example, negative sentiment or low star rating)
If it does, the Zap creates a task in Asana and routes it to the customer service team
“Everyone’s in one place now,” Spencer says. “Nobody’s hunting for an email or bouncing between tools. It’s all right there.”
This workflow ensures accountability and timely follow-up, especially during periods of high volume or system outages, and saves the team over 20 hours each week by streamlining lead tracking and centralizing Google review triage and communication in Asana.
Supporting dealership events and marketing with Interfaces
Beyond leads and complaints, Spencer spent too much time managing vendor logistics for dealership events like weekend food trucks. His digital team was overwhelmed trying to coordinate with vendors across emails, calls, and spreadsheets. So, Spencer simplified the process with Interfaces.
Here’s the workflow:
Vendors fill out a Zapier Interfaces form
Zapier Tables records the submissions
Zapier sends this information to Asana and assigns it to the appropriate staff
The team tracks all upcoming vendors in one shared board
“Without Zapier, we probably wouldn’t even bother with the food trucks anymore, it was too much work,” Spencer says. “Now it’s just easy.”
A future-proof foundation
Zapier may have started as a quick fix during a system outage, but today it powers nearly every department at Toyota of Orlando and Clermont. What began with routing leads has scaled into a resilient automation strategy that spans service, sales, marketing, and more.
With over 500 employees and a constant influx of leads, the dealership needs fast and adaptable systems. Zapier and AI help Spencer deliver workflows that support scale while improving department visibility.
With Zapier and AI working in tandem, Spencer has built a future-ready foundation that scales with the business and adapts to whatever comes next.
