Guides for running a workshop · Customers
Answering customers on WhatsApp without losing the bay
Your customers already message you on WhatsApp, at lunch, at 11 pm, from the car park. Answering fast wins jobs. Answering everything by hand takes your service advisor away from the counter. Here's how to keep both.
· 5 min read
Use one number, the workshop's
When customers have the owner's personal number, the advisor's and the old manager's, the conversation is split three ways and lost when someone leaves. Put one WhatsApp Business number on the sign, the invoices and Google, and have everyone answer from it.
Answer the five questions before they're asked
Most messages are one of five: *Is my car ready? How much do I owe? Can you look at it today? Where are you? What time do you close?* Each one you answer without being asked is a message you don't have to read.
- Send a short message when the car moves stage: inspected, waiting for parts, ready.
- Send the estimate as a link they can approve, not a photo of a screen.
- Send the invoice as a PDF with the balance on it when the car is ready.
- Put your location and opening hours in the WhatsApp Business profile.
Keep ready replies short and human
Quick replies save typing, but customers can tell a template. Keep them short, use the customer's name, and add one personal line: "Ahmed, the car's ready. We also topped up the coolant, no charge."
Decide what the night shift does
A message at 11 pm doesn't need a price, but it does need an answer: "Thanks, we've noted it. We open at 8 and will call you by 9." Taking down the car, the problem and a good time to call is most of the job. The rest is for the morning team.
What an assistant should and shouldn't do
An automatic assistant is useful for greeting, asking the right questions (which car, what's wrong, when it suits them) and recording the answers. It should never promise a price or a booking it can't keep, and it should go quiet the moment a person on your team replies. Customers forgive a bot that takes their details. They don't forgive one that quoted 300 when the job is 900.
How WrenchDesk does this
Link your workshop's own WhatsApp number once. The assistant greets customers in their language and dialect, at any hour, records the customer, the car and what they need as an inquiry for your team, answers "is my car ready?" and "what do I owe?" from the job, and steps aside as soon as anyone on your team replies. It never quotes prices or confirms bookings. Estimates go out as links the customer approves, and invoices as PDFs. Start the trial and link your number.