For smash repairers
Nobody in a spray booth is answering the phone.
A driver who has just been in an accident rings three shops in the same ten minutes. The first one that answers usually gets the car.
- Price
- $50 a month, no contract.
- Your number
- Stays exactly as it is.
- Setup
- Two minutes. We do it.
- Reply time
- Seconds, not this evening.
01 The moment
Why smash repairers miss calls
Not because you are careless with the phone. Because of where your hands are.
Everyone is on the floor. One in the booth, one masking up, one on the hoist, and the front counter is unattended because the person who usually mans it is out the back finding a part. The phone rings six times before lunch and nobody gets to any of them.
02 What they get
The text that goes out
Within seconds of the call dropping, in your words, with your name on it.
Your business
It’s [BUSINESS] — we’re on the floor and couldn’t grab the phone. Text us the make and model, what’s damaged, and whether you’re going through insurance, and we’ll come back to you today.
The caller, a minute later
Hyundai i30, rear quarter and bumper, someone went into me in a car park. Going through insurance. Can I get it looked at this week?
That reply is the job written down. You ring back knowing what it is, where it is and whether it is worth stopping for.
03 What changes
What it changes for smash repairers
- 01
Insurance or private, before you ring back
That one answer changes the whole conversation — who you talk to, what you can quote, and how fast it moves. Getting it in the first reply means your callback starts where it should.
- 02
Photos of the damage from the roadside
Drivers are usually still standing at the car when they ring. They can send you three photos in the time it takes to describe the damage badly on the phone, and you can tell them what is involved without a look-in.
- 03
The counter stops being a bottleneck
Nobody has to leave a repair to answer a phone, and the enquiry does not depend on whoever happens to be walking past the front desk.
04 Questions
What smash repairers ask
The questions that come up on the phone, answered the way we'd answer them there.
Most of our work comes through insurers.
Then the calls you miss from assessors and claims staff are worth more than any walk-in. They are managing a queue and will not chase you — a text that reaches them in seconds keeps you on the list rather than skipped over.
Can it tell people whether we’re on their insurer’s panel?
You can say whatever you want in the message. Putting your panel arrangements in it saves the question that opens roughly half the calls you take.
We have someone on the front counter.
Then it covers the times they are away from it — out the back, on another call, at lunch, or off for a fortnight. It only fires when nobody answered, so it never cuts across a call they took.
Do people really text a repair shop?
They text photos, which is the part that matters here. A driver with a damaged panel would far rather show you than describe it, and neither of you has to be free at the same moment.
See what you’re missing before you pay anything.
The audit counts the calls to your business that went unanswered last month, from your own records. It costs nothing and nothing changes on your line.
05 Read next
Related
- Trade Car detailers Stopping to answer the phone means stopping the machine, taking the gloves off, and losing the panel you were halfway through.
- Trade Used car dealers A buyer ringing about a car on your website is the warmest lead you will get all week, and they are ringing three yards about three cars.
- Trade Mobile mechanics Your callers are usually stuck. Stuck people ring the next number within about a minute.
- Explainer How missed-call text-back works The mechanism, plainly, including what it does not do.