How Vicinity works for dealer and franchise networks
A walkthrough of Vicinity: bulk listing edits, store pages, review replies, call tracking, local and AI search, dealer ads and a lead CRM.
Vicinity is a hyperlocal marketing platform with a CRM built in, for brands that sell through dealer, franchise or multi-location networks. Head office sees every location on one screen. Each dealer sees their own showroom. Here is how it works, from local search to sale.
One view of every location
The home screen lists every showroom with its listing status, rating, reviews to reply to, calls, rescued calls, leads, local rank and cost per lead. Filters such as "needs attention" or "new dealers" show where to act first.
Listings: update every location at once
Vicinity manages Google Business Profile listings in bulk. Head office edits hours, posts, products and photos once and pushes them to many locations together. Festival hours for every showroom become one edit.
It also:
- Builds a store page for every showroom.
- Flags listing errors early, such as wrong hours or a phone number that differs, with a fix ready.
Reviews: AI drafts, a person approves
Every review lands in a queue, tagged by location. Vicinity drafts a reply in the showroom's voice, and a person edits or approves it before it posts. Unhappy customers can be flagged for a callback, and ratings are shown by location so head office can see which branch is slipping.
Calls: never lose a missed call
Vicinity tracks calls by showroom and source, such as Google, a store page or a Meta ad. Calls are recorded and transcribed, with the outcome noted. When a call is missed, the caller gets a WhatsApp message, so the conversation continues instead of going to a competitor.
Local and AI search
Vicinity tracks local search with:
- Geo-grid rank for the searches buyers make, such as "bathroom fittings near me".
- Competitor benchmarks against rivals nearby.
- AI answer scans that check how ChatGPT and Perplexity describe each location when people ask local questions: whether a showroom is mentioned, where it ranks and what is wrong, such as old hours, so the team can fix the source.
Dealer ads
Vicinity connects dealer Meta ad accounts and shows cost per lead for each dealer, so head office can see where spend is working and where it is high.
Leads: one pipeline with dealer and source
Every lead sits in one pipeline, from new to contacted, showroom visit, quotation and order won. Each lead carries its dealer and source, so you can track a lead from a Google call to a sale. Leads that go without contact are visible.
The dealer app
Dealers do not need to learn new software. They get a simple WhatsApp-style app to see new leads, call buyers, mark visits and send quotes.
Getting started
A Thinkiyo team sets Vicinity up and stays on:
- Connect every location. Profiles claimed, call tracking wired.
- Onboard the dealers. Each showroom gets the app.
- Run it from head office. One screen for everything.
Built for large networks
Vicinity runs in your cloud or self-hosted, on your own database, with approvals on every review reply. Head office sees everything, and each dealer sees their own showroom.
It suits bath fittings and building materials, automotive dealerships, retail chains, franchise networks, clinic and diagnostics chains, consumer durables, paints and home improvement, and bank branch networks.
Works with other Thinkiyo products
- Momentum, AI agents that answer every lead, day and night.
- Relay, reputation and social listening beyond Google reviews.
- Cadence, to post local updates to Instagram and Facebook.
What it replaces
Most networks run a listings tool, plus separate tools for lead tracking, call tracking and rank tracking, plus spreadsheets from each dealer. Vicinity covers listings and adds a lead CRM, call tracking, geo-grid rank tracking and AI answer scans on the same screen, so head office runs local marketing and dealer leads as one system.