Ryan,
To me, this really comes down to having a manager, typically the internet manager/director, who is paid a base and commission and can be trusted as well as an accountability process for both sales and internet.
If a credit app comes in after the process is underway, the lead should default to a duplicate as the salesperson has the active opportunity in the CRM where they've been working the deal (if not, that's a CRM setup issue). If the app comes in under another name, the customers are connected once communicated to the sales manager and the duplicate is marked. If that falls to the internet manager/director, there needs to be a base pay to account for the anti-commission work to avoid larger issues. If the salesperson has completely abandoned the process and the customer isn't in the CRM, that's a different conversation.
Sadly, the sales team doesn't often get valid information on how/why/which site got the customer in the door so there's a margin of error inherent in all sales attribution. We've seen lots of ways dealers try to get that information over the years, and just as many ways they use (or don't) the data to inform their marketing strategies. Way back in the day when this was my job, I would also search out the data points from a showroom visit to insure an internet lead wasn't being subverted.
All of this to say, proper CRM setup, especially understanding of how the CRM functions with different steps in the process, would be my step 1, regardless of credit app input tech, and that should cover your step 1 & 2. My step 2 would be to have a CRM process that everyone from top to bottom understands and follows. Given that some customers really do start their communication with a dealer via credit app (typically those questioning their ability to buy), I would still count them in reporting.
