Texting for auto repair
Every missed call is a car that went to the shop down the street.
You are under a lift. The phone rings out. That driver calls the next shop on Google. We text them back from your number before they get the chance.
Auto repair: most calls come in while you are under somebody else's car.
- 10:42 AMMissed call from a new customer
- 10:42 AMYour number texts them back, automatically
- 10:44 AM“Check engine light’s on. Can you look at it this week?”
- 10:52 AMRepair order booked$625
One caller, start to finish. An example, except the green figure: that one comes from the published averages in 02, with their sources.
No trap here
- No contract
- Prices on the site
- Set up for you by a real person
- Texts from your own number
Where the money goes
Four leaks in an auto repair shop.
Missed calls during the workday
Most calls come in while you are working on someone else’s car. If nobody answers, a good share of those callers never try again.
Declined brakes, tires, and fluids
You wrote it on the ticket. The customer said next time. Nobody followed up, and next time happened somewhere else.
Oil changes that drift to the quick lube
Without a reminder, customers wait until the light comes on, and then they go wherever is closest that day.
Good work, no reviews
Happy customers rarely leave a review on their own. The shop with 300 reviews gets the call, even if yours is better.
What a job is worth
What a repair order is worth, from shops that counted.
Independent shops told PartsTech what an average ticket comes to. The hero figure above is the midpoint of the most common answer, so the first number on this page is one that 752 shops reported, not one we made up.
- $500 to $749
most common average repair order at independent shops
- 2.2
vehicles serviced per bay per day at the average shop
What one caller adds up to
The midpoint of the most common average repair order, $500 to $749. One job is one job in this trade; the number does not need help.
A month of missed calls, at the average
$6,771
10 missed calls a week, one in 4 of them ready to book, at $625 each. Those are the calculator’s defaults, not your shop’s numbers.
A week in an auto repair shop
Five days, one phone
nobody could answer.
Every rust line is a call you could not take. Every teal line is your number answering for you. Every green line is the job it became, priced near the averages above.
One week, one shop
ExampleMonday
- 7:35 AMMissed call, you are pulling the first car onto the lift
- 7:35 AMText-back goes out from your number
- 7:48 AM“Car won’t start, think it’s the battery.” Towed in, booked$625
Tuesday
- 9:00 AMMarcus’s declined brake job from the 3rd gets its follow-up
- 12:40 PM“Yeah they’re squealing now. Friday?” Pads and rotors booked$389
- 5:30 PMTwo pickups today. Both get the review request
Wednesday
- 2:14 PMMissed call, both bays full, phone on the bench
- 2:14 PMText-back goes out
- 2:17 PM“Check engine light, 2016 Civic.” Scan booked for tomorrow$625
Thursday
- 8:00 AMNine oil change reminders go out, by date
- 10:10 AMThree reply with a morning. Three oil changes on the book$285
Friday
- 11:50 AMMissed call during a test drive
- 11:50 AMText-back goes out
- 12:20 PM“Inspection’s up this month. Can you do it Monday?” Booked$120
Booked that week, from texts
$2,044
Made up, like every ledger on this site, and priced at the published averages in 02 so it is a week you would recognise. Your dashboard shows the real one.
What your customer sees
In your words, from your own number.
We write every message with you during setup, in auto repair language. You approve all of them before a single one goes out.
Missed call while you are in the bay
ExampleThe text goes out within seconds of the missed call. You reply when your hands are free.
New caller- Missed call, 2:14 PM
- This is Pat at Ridge Road Auto. Sorry we missed you, we’re under a car. What’s going on with yours? Text here and we’ll get back fast.2:14 PM
- Check engine light came on. 2016 Civic. Can I bring it by?2:17 PM
- Sure. Drop it tomorrow before 9 and we’ll scan it first thing.2:26 PM
- Job booked
Declined brake job, two weeks later
ExamplePulls the actual quote from the ticket so it reads like you wrote it.
Marcus T.- Hi Marcus, Pat at Ridge Road Auto. When your Silverado was in on the 3rd the front pads were at 2mm. Still good to do those? Your $389 quote stands through the end of the month.9:00 AM
- Yeah they’re squealing now. Friday?12:40 PM
- Friday 8am, we’ll have the parts here.12:52 PM
- $389 recovered
Oil change reminder by date
ExampleReminders can go by date, or by mileage if your shop software tracks it.
Lena K.- Lena, it’s Ridge Road Auto. Your Outback is coming up on its oil change. We’ve got openings Tuesday and Thursday morning. Want one?8:00 AM
- Thursday please8:31 AM
- Oil change booked
Every text, explained
Seven messages. Here is each one,
and why it is written that way.
When it goes, what it says, why it works in auto repair, and the one thing it will never do. You approve every word of every one before it goes live.
01
Missed-call text-back
When. Within seconds of a call you did not answer, during shop hours.
The driver with a check engine light has three shops open on their phone and calls them in order. The one that answers in the same minute, even by text, is the one that gets the car. Asking for the year and model means your reply can be a real answer, not a question.
Never. It never goes out when you picked up, and never after you close. A Saturday night call waits for Monday morning, worded for a call that came in over the weekend.
What they read
ExampleThis is Pat at Ridge Road Auto. Sorry we missed you, we’re under a car. What’s going on with yours? Text here with the year and model and we’ll get back fast. Reply STOP to opt out.
181 characters · 2 segments02
Declined work follow-up
When. Two weeks after a visit where something was written on the ticket and declined, then once more at six weeks. Two texts, never a third.
More than half of what a tech finds gets declined on the day, and almost none of it is ever followed up. The customer said “next time” because they meant it. A text with the actual measurement and the actual quote is the shop keeping its word, and it is the single biggest number on this page.
Never. It never invents urgency. “Pads at 2mm” is true or we do not say it. No “your safety is at risk”, no countdown.
What they read
ExampleHi Marcus, Pat at Ridge Road Auto. When your Silverado was in on the 3rd the front pads were at 2mm. Still good to do those? Your $389 quote stands through the end of the month. Reply STOP to opt out.
200 characters · 2 segments03
Oil change reminder
When. By date, at your interval, or by mileage if your shop software tracks it. Once per interval.
Without a reminder, people wait for the light and then go to whichever quick lube is on the way to work. The quick lube does not check the brakes. A reminder from the shop that did the last one brings the car back to the shop that knows it, and every oil change is a look at the whole car.
Never. Never to a customer who had an oil change anywhere you know about in the last interval, and never twice in one interval.
What they read
ExampleLena, it’s Ridge Road Auto. Your Outback is coming up on its oil change. We’ve got openings Tuesday and Thursday morning. Want one? Reply STOP to opt out.
154 characters · 1 segment04
State inspection reminder
When. Thirty days before the sticker expires, in states that have one.
An inspection is a small ticket that brings a car in on a day you chose. Half of the brake and tire work on your schedule started as “while it’s here”.
Never. It never claims the car will fail. It is a date, not a diagnosis.
What they read
ExamplePat here from Ridge Road Auto. Your Civic’s inspection is due by the end of the month. Takes about 20 minutes, no appointment needed before 10 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
169 characters · 2 segments05
Seasonal tire reminder
When. Early April and early October, to customers whose last visit mentioned tires or a swap.
Spring and fall are the two rushes of the year, and they are driven by tire changeovers. The shop that books its swaps in the first week of the season has the bays for the brake jobs those swaps turn up. The shop that waits is turning people away in week three.
Never. Never to a customer who has not had tires through you. It is a reminder, not an ad.
What they read
ExampleRidge Road Auto here. Winter tire swaps are booking up through the second week of April. Reply with a day and we’ll hold it. Storage customers, your set is ready. Reply STOP to opt out.
185 characters · 2 segments06
Google review request
When. The evening of pickup, to customers whose ticket closed without a comeback or a dispute.
The shop with 300 reviews gets the call before the shop with 30, even when the 30 are better. Most happy customers never think to leave one. One request, the same evening, from the shop’s own number, is how the count grows without anyone asking twice.
Never. Never to a job that had a comeback, a warranty claim or an argument about the bill. One request, ever, per visit.
What they read
ExampleThanks for bringing the Civic in today, Dan. If we did right by you, a quick Google review helps a small shop more than you’d think: g.page/r/ridge-road-auto. Reply STOP to opt out.
181 characters · 2 segments07
Win-back
When. Fourteen months after a customer’s last visit, once.
A customer who has not been back in over a year did not leave. They moved, or the quick lube got them, or they forgot which shop they liked. A plain text from a name they remember is enough for the ones who just forgot.
Never. It is one text, not a campaign. If they do not reply, they are left alone.
What they read
ExampleDan, it’s Pat at Ridge Road Auto. Haven’t seen the Civic in a while. If it’s due for anything, reply here and we’ll find a morning. Reply STOP to opt out.
154 characters · 1 segment
The year, already written
Twelve months in auto repair,
and what goes out in each.
Set once during setup around your seasons, not ours. Change any month by texting us. The quiet months stay quiet on purpose.
January
Text-backs on every missed call. Declined-work follow-ups on December’s tickets.
The slow month after the holidays. The declined work from the pre-winter rush is the only pile of money on the bench.
February
Oil change reminders by date. Win-backs to anyone quiet for fourteen months.
People are paying off December. A reminder for the cheapest service you do is the one they will say yes to.
March
Tire swap reminders go out in the last week. Inspection reminders for April stickers.
The spring rush starts the first warm week. The shop that books swaps before it starts has the bays for what the swaps find.
April
Swap bookings, review requests after each. Declined-work follow-ups on everything the swaps turned up.
The busiest month of the first half. A swap is a look at the brakes, and the brakes are a $400 to $700 ticket if somebody follows up.
May
Declined-work follow-ups at six weeks. AC service reminders where you offer it.
The second follow-up on April’s declines lands before summer road trips, which is when people decide to fix things.
June
Text-backs. Review requests. Oil change reminders by mileage, where your software tracks it.
Road trip month. Cars come in for the long drive and leave with a list; the list is next month’s follow-ups.
July
Text-backs. Declined-work follow-ups on June’s road-trip inspections.
A quiet month on the phone. The follow-ups keep the bays full.
August
Back-to-school oil change reminders. Inspection reminders for September stickers.
The family car gets handed to the student. A reminder now is a safer car in the dorm parking lot and a customer kept.
September
Tire swap reminders in the last week. Declined-work follow-ups.
The fall rush starts in October. Same play as March.
October
Swap bookings, review requests. Battery and brake follow-ups from the swaps.
The busiest month of the year. Every text-back matters most now, because you cannot reach the phone.
November
Declined-work follow-ups at two weeks on October’s tickets. Nothing promotional around the holiday.
The most declined work of the year was written down in October. November is when it comes back, if anyone asks.
December
Text-backs only. Holiday closed dates set so the text-back says you are closed when you are.
A reminder on the 23rd is noise. The text-back that says “we’re closed until the 2nd, text here and we’ll book you first” is service.
The standing reminders
The rules behind the calendar, each one a date the customer would otherwise have to remember.
- Oil change
- By date or mileage, your interval
- Declined work follow-up
- 1 to 3 weeks after the visit
- State inspection
- 30 days before it expires
- Tire rotation and seasonal swap
- Spring and fall
- Review request
- Same day as pickup
An example month
What a month of this looks like.
Every line is a booked job that started with a text, priced near the averages above. Your dashboard shows yours, not this one.
Auto repair
Example- 4 jobsMissed-call text-backs$2,500
- 3 jobsDeclined brake and tire work$1,680
- 6 jobsOil change reminders$720
Recovered this month
$4,900
Made up figures for an auto repair shop of average size. Not a promise, and not another shop’s results.
The first week
Set up for an auto repair shop, by a person.
About an hour of your time, once. We do the carrier paperwork, the number, the list and the writing. Here is what that week looks like for your trade.
Day 0
Kickoff call, 30 minutes
We ask how many bays and techs, who answers the phone and when nobody can, your oil change interval, whether your state has an inspection, whether you store tires, and what your shop management system is. We ask for your customer list, from the system or a spreadsheet, and whether it has last-visit dates and declined items in it.
Days 1 to 3
Your number, made text-capable
We register your shop’s number with the carriers under your legal business name. Calls do not change. If the number on your sign is a landline, it stays a landline for calls and gains texting.
Days 2 to 4
Your texts, in your words
We draft the seven messages above with your shop name, your service writer’s first name, your actual interval and your review link. You read every one on your phone, change what you want and approve. Most shops rewrite the declined-work text to sound more like how they talk at the counter, and that is the right instinct.
Days 4 to 7
Go live, and the inbox on your phone
We turn on the text-back first and watch a day of it with you. Reminders and the declined-work follow-ups start the following week, so you see what a reply looks like before thirty of them land on a Tuesday. A 20-minute call shows you and whoever runs the front counter the inbox.
Every month after
The dashboard, together
Before each tire season we look at what went out and what came back, move the reminder windows if your calendar moved, and add a seasonal text if it makes sense. If the number is not comfortably above what you pay us, we say so.
What it costs
Three plans. Which one
is yours, by the size of the shop.
Every price is on this site and there is no contract. Here is how the three plans map onto the way this trade is usually run.
Starter
$249 /month
One or two bays, you are the tech and the phone
The text-back alone covers the calls you miss under the lift. Add the follow-ups when you have a year of tickets to chase.
Pro
$449 /month
Most auto repair shops
Three to six bays, a service writer, a drawer full of declined estimates
Declined-work follow-ups are where an independent shop’s money is, and the oil change reminders keep the cars from drifting to the quick lube. This is the plan most shops run.
Full
$649 /month
Running Tekmetric or Shop-Ware, two writers, DVI photos on every car
Declined items, quotes and last-visit dates are read from your system, so nothing is typed twice, and the follow-up carries the actual measurement from the inspection.
Software we commonly connect
On the Full plan. Names only; what we can read depends on what your software allows, and we confirm yours on the call.
- Tekmetric
- Customers, repair orders, declined items and their quotes.
- Shop-Ware
- Customers, repair orders and the inspection findings the customer declined.
- Mitchell 1
- Customers and repair orders. Reminders key off the last closed ticket.
- AutoLeap
- Customers, repair orders and inspection items.
- Shopmonkey
- Customers, orders and declined work.
Why not just…
The other ways an auto repair shop handles a missed call.
Each one is a real option, and some are the right one at a certain size. Here is what each costs and where it falls down, as plainly as we can put it.
Keep letting it go to voicemail
Nothing on paper.
Nobody leaves one. The 2:14 PM caller is at the next shop by 2:17, and that car never shows up on any report, so it never gets added up.
An answering service
Roughly $200 to $500 a month, more if the calls are long.
Someone reading a script who cannot see your bays, cannot tell a customer whether Tuesday is open, and puts a driver with a dead car on hold. They take a message. The message does not book the car.
A front-counter hire
A salary, and a person who also needs a lunch break.
The right answer at a certain size. The texts still help them: the text-back covers the two calls that ring at once, and the reminders are a day of calls they do not have to make.
The texting built into your shop software
Usually included, or a small add-on.
Good at “your car is ready” from inside a ticket. It does not catch a call you missed, it does not chase a declined brake job two weeks later on its own, and it does not put a dollar figure on what came back.
A big texting and reviews platform
Typically $300 to $600 a month, on an annual contract, from a number that is not yours.
You set it up yourself, the account manager goes quiet after the sale, and cancelling takes ninety days’ notice. The texts come from a number your customers have never seen on your sign.
Questions auto repair owners ask
The ones specific to your trade.
The contract, the number and the cancel-by-text answers are on the FAQ page. These are the ones that only come up on a call with an auto repair shop.
Either. On the Full plan we read declined items and their quotes straight from Tekmetric, Shop-Ware, Mitchell 1, AutoLeap or Shopmonkey. On Pro, your service writer forwards the ticket or texts us the line, and we send the follow-up with the real measurement and the real number. Most shops start by typing and move to the integration once they see what comes back.
Yes, if your shop software records mileage at each visit. We read the last mileage and your average driver’s miles per month and send the reminder when the car is likely due. If you do not track mileage, we go by date at the interval you tell us, and you can change it any time.
No. An automated text never names a price, because it cannot see the car. The text-back asks what is going on and for the year and model, so when you reply from your phone, the quote is yours and it is right.
That is your shop software’s job and it does it well: the “here’s what we found, approve or decline” text from inside the ticket. This picks up where that ends, with the items they declined, two weeks later, and with the calls you missed while you were writing that estimate.
They get the text-back, because a fleet manager is judged on how fast a truck comes back. They do not get reminders or review requests unless you want them to. Tell us which accounts are commercial on the kickoff call and we keep them on their own list.
Yes. The inbox runs on the counter computer and on as many phones as you want, and every reply shows who sent it. The tech who texts a customer from under the lift and the writer who texts from the counter are in the same thread.
If your software records the inspection date, we read it. If not, we ask the customer once, on the review request, which month their sticker expires, and keep it. The reminder goes thirty days before. A state with no inspection simply does not get the text.
Yes. Storage customers get one line added to the seasonal text that says their set is ready, and it goes out the week you tell us the sets are pulled. It is the easiest booked week of the year.
Sometimes. A text at two weeks and six weeks with the actual finding and the standing quote brings back a share of the big declines, and the ones it does not bring back cost you nothing. What it reliably brings back is the $300 to $700 brake, tire and fluid work that was declined because it was Tuesday and the customer was late for work.
Lines we do not cross
Six rules, written for auto repair.
They are not settings. They are how it is built, and no plan or request turns them off.
Nothing goes out between 8 PM and 8 AM, the customer’s time.
A shop that texts at 10 PM once is the shop that texts at 10 PM forever.
One follow-up pair per declined ticket. One reminder per interval. One win-back, ever.
The point is to be the shop that reached out, not the shop that keeps reaching out.
STOP means stop, in English or Spanish, instantly, on every message type.
It is the law, and it is also just what you would do if someone said it to your face at the counter.
No price, no diagnosis and no promise ever appears in an automated text.
A text cannot see the car. The only number in a follow-up is the one you already wrote on the ticket.
Review requests go only to tickets that closed clean, once.
Asking a customer with a comeback for a review is how a shop earns its first one-star.
Imported lists get no marketing texts until the customer has heard from you another way.
An oil change reminder to someone who last came in during 2019 is, to them, spam from a number they forgot.
Book a demo
Fifteen minutes, about
your shop.
A phone call with the person who would set it up. We look at how many calls you miss, what auto repair jobs are worth to you, and whether this fits. If it does not, we will say so.
- No contract
- Prices on the site
- Set up for you by a real person
- Texts from your own number