Full CRM & Automation System Build for Go Waka Car Finance

Client Overview

Go Waka is a New Zealand vehicle finance company helping everyday Kiwis, including those with challenged credit, get into quality vehicles with zero deposit and flexible weekly repayments. Despite a strong product and growing ad spend, the business was running entirely on manual processes with no structured follow-up, no document tracking, and zero visibility into pipeline health.

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The Problem

When UNITZERO engaged with Go Waka, the business had eight critical operational gaps:

1. No Centralised Lead Management, Leads from Facebook and the website arrived in separate places. Sales reps manually checked Facebook Business Manager and email inboxes. Leads regularly slipped through without follow-up.

2. Zero Automated Follow-Up, No immediate SMS or email response to new leads. Average first-contact time was measured in hours, sometimes days. In consumer finance, this directly kills conversion.

3. No Admin Visibility, Management had no real-time alert when a new lead entered the system.

4. Manual Document Collection, The finance team chased documents via WhatsApp and phone calls with no system to track what was sent, what was missing, or how long a file had been waiting.

5. No Multi-Lender Submission Tracking, Go Waka submits to up to 8 lenders in sequence. There was no pipeline, no task system, and no escalation logic.

6. No Lender Decision Automation, When a lender approved or declined, nothing happened automatically. The team manually notified contacts, updated records, and decided next steps, inconsistently.

7. No Performance Visibility, No live view of lead volume, source breakdown, pipeline stage distribution, or team task load.

8. Disconnected Marketing, Email campaigns were not segmented, tracked, or connected to the CRM.

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The Solution

UNITZERO designed and deployed a complete, end-to-end GoHighLevel system, 12 published workflows, 2 custom pipelines, native Facebook Lead Ads integration, multi-lender routing, automated document collection, broadcast email campaigns, and a live operations dashboard. 100% native GHL. No ManyChat. No Zapier. No external bots.

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Dual-Pipeline Architecture

Two custom pipelines were built to separate the lead journey from the lender journey.

Pipeline 1, Go Waka Leads (Sales & Finance View)

Pipeline 2, Go Waka Lenders (Finance Team View)

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The 12-Workflow Automation System

All 12 workflows are published and live.

Workflow 1, Facebook Lead Automation

The primary entry point for all Facebook/Meta Lead Ad submissions. On each submission: tags the contact, creates a pipeline opportunity, assigns a sales rep, sends a welcome SMS within seconds, sends a branded welcome email, and creates a call task due within 1 hour.

Workflow 2, Lead Intake WorkFlow

Handles non-Facebook sources, website inquiry forms and manually created contacts. Mirrors the Facebook workflow with source-specific tagging.

Workflow 3, New Lead Admin Notification

Real-time alert system. Sends internal email and SMS to the admin the moment a lead enters the CRM, regardless of time of day. 325 notifications sent means management had visibility on every single lead.

Workflow 4, Document Alert & Form Confirmation

The most strategically significant workflow. When a sales rep moves a lead to Documents Requested, the workflow:

1. Sends a professional document request email listing all required items with a smart confirmation form link (contact ID pre-filled via URL variable)
2. Sends a simultaneous SMS nudge
3. After 2 days with no confirmation: sends reminder SMS + email
4. After 4 days: creates an urgent task and sends internal escalation email

When the lead confirms YES on the form, the system automatically moves them to Documents Received, notifies the finance team, and creates a document review task, with zero manual input.

141 contacts are still being automatically followed up inside this workflow right now.

Workflow 5, Document Submitted

Handles cases where leads send documents directly via email or in person rather than through the form. Sends confirmation SMS and creates the finance team review task.

Workflow 6, Extra Document Submitted

Edge case handler for lender-requested additional documents. Notifies the finance team and sends acknowledgement to the lead.

Workflow 7, Q/A Form Submission

Quality assurance layer before lender submission. Checks contact completeness, flags missing data, and logs QA completion.

Workflow 8, Bank Assignment

Routes each application to the correct lender using a tag-based conditional system across all 8 lenders: Finance Now · Max Money · CTS Finance · Heart Land · Link Finance · Better Finance · Avanti · HTF

The finance team adds one tag, the workflow moves the opportunity, creates the lender pipeline entry, creates the submission task, and sends internal notification. Adding a 9th lender takes minutes.

Workflow 9, Lenders Update

Tracks lender application status over time. Sends escalation alerts at 3-day and 20-day marks per lender, preventing deals from going stale. 35 live applications are being automatically tracked against lender deadlines right now.

Workflow 10, Bank Approval & Rejection

Final decision handler. On rejection: removes lender tag and triggers Bank Assignment for the next lender automatically. On approval: moves to Approved in both pipelines, sends congratulations SMS and email to the lead with next steps, and creates an appointment task for the sales rep.

Workflow 11, Referral Email

Automated referral campaign ($1,000 fuel voucher offer). Sends the referral sequence, waits 3 days for engagement, and creates a personal follow-up task for the sales team.

Workflow 12, Follow Up Workflow

Re-engagement sequence for leads that went cold. Sends re-engagement SMS, follow-up email 2 days later, a final call task after 5 days, and automatically moves unresponsive leads to Lost / Dead.

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Email Marketing Campaigns

Campaign 1, Referral Email: $1,000 Fuel Go Waka

Above-industry open rate demonstrates list quality and subject line effectiveness. Zero manual sending, fully scheduled inside GHL.

Campaign 2, Vehicle Promotion: 2016 Ford Ranger

Visual-first email design with vehicle hero image, $150/week payment callout, eligibility checklist, and dual CTAs. Brand-consistent Go Waka red/black/white palette. Mobile-responsive across all devices.

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Live Operations Dashboard

A custom Go Waka Operations Dashboard was built inside GHL Reporting as the default view for all team members.

Before this build, reporting required a manager to manually compile numbers. Now the team opens GHL and sees the full operation in real time.

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Results & Impact

Lead Volume (Last 30 Days vs Previous Period)

Workflow Performance

Operational Impact

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Technology Stack

Core philosophy: No ManyChat. No Zapier. No external AI bots. Every component runs natively inside GHL, zero additional monthly tool costs, zero API failure points.

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Key Design Decisions

12 separate workflows instead of fewer larger ones, Each workflow has a single, clear trigger and purpose. Modular design means one workflow can be updated or paused without affecting the rest of the system.

Separate lender pipeline, Mixing lender tracking inside the lead pipeline creates noise for the sales team. Separating the two means each team sees exactly the information relevant to their role.

Tag-based lender routing, The finance team adds a single tag and the system handles everything. Adding a 9th lender takes minutes, not hours.

Form for document confirmation, not a tag, A form submitted by the lead creates an auditable, timestamped record and fires automation reliably. No staff input needed, and the lead feels ownership of their own application.

3-day and 20-day escalation alerts, NZ finance lenders typically acknowledge within 3 business days. The 20-day mark represents an application going stale. Targeted escalations at meaningful thresholds drive action; daily alerts desensitise the team.