Your best technician shouldn't be your receptionist
Every call your shop takes is somebody putting down a tool. Vandial answers instead, captures year, make, model and symptom, asks whether it's safe to drive, and books the bay — so the interruption never reaches the floor.
From $99 a month · Robocalls are never billed
Incoming callJoel Barnes“Something's grinding when I brake — is it safe to drive?”
Booked — Thu 8am drop-off, brake inspection
- Ring, not book
- is how a car problem arrives. The form comes after the call, if at all
- Year, make, model
- and the symptom, captured before the car arrives
- $0
- billed for robocalls and sales calls, on every plan
This is what your callers hear
The same receptionist a repair shop gets, answering as the trades we already run. Yours is in the middle — press play.
One auto repair call, and what it left behind
Answered on the second ring. Every field below was captured during the call — nobody typed it in afterwards.
“Something's grinding when I brake — is it safe to drive?”
Classified0:16
- new job
- brakes
- safety-relevant
Captured0:33
- 2018 VW Golf TDI
- front left
- spongy pedal
Booked1:01
- Google Calendar
- Thu 8am
- Bay 3
Booked — Thu 8am drop-off, brake inspection
Read the whole auto repair call, line by line
- 0:02Joel Barnes: Something's grinding when I brake — is it safe to drive?
- 0:05Vandial: I can't tell you that safely over the phone, and grinding brakes I'd want looked at soon. What are you driving?
- 0:14Joel Barnes: 2018 Golf, the diesel one.
- 0:16Classified — new job · brakes · safety-relevant
- 0:22Vandial: Is the grinding on the front or the back, and does the pedal feel different?
- 0:30Joel Barnes: Front left, and it's a bit spongy.
- 0:33Captured — 2018 VW Golf TDI · front left · spongy pedal
- 0:44Vandial: We can look at it Thursday. Can you drop it before 8, and would you rather wait or leave it with us?
- 0:56Vandial: Booked. Given the pedal, please go easy on it until Thursday.
- 1:01Booked — Google Calendar · Thu 8am · Bay 3
Answered, understood, booked
One number, picked up on the second ring — at 2am, on a Sunday, while you're already working. By the time the caller hangs up, it is in your calendar.
It answers
Answered on the second ring while every technician stays on the floor. The phone stops being an interruption that costs you billable time.
- 0:00Incoming call
- 0:02Answered by Vandial2 rings
- 0:05“Hello, Marlow Plumbing.”
It understands
Year, make, model, symptom, drivable or not — captured in the caller's own words and written into the job before anyone looks at it.
- Job
- Water heater — leaking
- Where
- 14 Marlow Street
- Access
- Side gate, dog in yard
- Urgency
- Today if possible
- Still on
It books
A bay booked at a realistic length, with the drop-off or wait decision already made and a confirmation text sent.
Text to Dave · 13:01
You’re booked for today, 1–2pm. Reply R to move it.
It asks what you would ask
These are the questions the agent runs for auto repair shops, and the operational reason each one exists. Change them, add your own, or take them out — they are configuration, not code.
Year, make and model — and the engine if they know it?
Decides whether you can even take it, what the labour time is, and whether the parts are on the shelf.
What exactly is it doing, and when?
Cold-start only, under braking, at speed — the qualifier that turns a vague complaint into a diagnostic path.
Is it drivable, or does it need recovery?
The difference between a booked drop-off and a tow, which is a different call entirely.
Is there a warning light on, and what color?
Red means stop driving. Amber means book it. Callers describe both as “a light came on”.
Drop off and leave, or wait?
Waiters need a different slot length and a different bay. Getting it wrong costs you the afternoon.
Is it under warranty, on a plan, or a fleet vehicle?
Fleet and warranty work bill differently and sometimes go to a different person entirely.
More than a automotive answering service
An answering service takes a message and charges you for it. Vandial knows your prices, your patch and your diary — so it books the job, or puts a real emergency straight through to you.
It picks up out of hours, and while your line is busy
Every phone call in a shop costs a technician their concentration and you the billable minutes around it. Vandial takes them all — including the ones that arrive while the office is on the other line, which is where most bookings quietly die.
It knows your prices, your patch and your hours
Tell it your diagnostic fee, your hourly rate, the makes you work on, whether you do diesel, MOT or bodywork, and your loan-car policy. It answers the qualifying questions that currently get answered eleven times a day by whoever is nearest the phone.
What it knows
Diagnostic
$120
Labour rate
$145/hr
Loan cars
2, book ahead
Makes we take
Gas and diesel, no EV
What matters reaches you. The rest waits
A car that is unsafe to drive reaches you now. A service due next month books itself into a Tuesday. You decide where the line is, and the rest never interrupts the floor.
Your rule: if they say gas, flood or no heat — ring Sam, then me.
Every call written up, tagged and searchable
Every call written up with the vehicle, the symptom and the customer's own words attached to the job. Your service advisor starts from notes rather than from a name on a sticky pad.
Dave Whitfield · Sunday, 4m 12s
Water heater, leaking
Leaking from the base. Booked for Tuesday 1–2pm. Side gate open, dog in the yard. Asked whether the service call fee applies — told $99, waived on repair.
What it will never do
You are handing your phone to something that talks to your customers when you are not there. These are the lines it does not cross in auto repair, and the words it uses instead.
It will not tell anyone their car is safe to drive
Grinding brakes, a spongy pedal, a red warning light or a steering vibration — the agent captures it, advises caution and books the visit. It does not say the car will be fine until Thursday, because if it is wrong about that the consequence is not a lost job.
What it actually says
“I can't safely tell you that over the phone. Given what you're describing I'd drive it as little as possible until we've had it in.”
Brake failure and smoke are transfers
A pedal going to the floor, smoke from under the bonnet, or a caller describing a fire risk — those are not appointments. The caller is told to stop driving and the call reaches a human immediately.
What it actually says
“If the pedal's going to the floor, please stop driving it and pull over somewhere safe. Let me get one of the technicians on the phone with you now.”
It quotes labour rates, not repairs
It states your diagnostic charge and your hourly rate, because those are fixed and you gave them to us. It will not price a clutch or a head gasket from a description — the estimate is what your technician produces after the inspection, and a phone number the customer anchors on makes that conversation worse.
What it actually says
“The diagnostic's $120 and the hourly's $145. What the repair comes to really depends on what we find — we'll ring you with a proper estimate before we touch anything.”
The job lands where you already work
Google, Outlook, Apple, Exchange, CalDAV — whichever calendar you already keep. Then your payments, your CRM, and whatever you automate with.
…and a lot more besides
- Warm transfersWarm transfersAnnounced — who is calling and why, before you take the line.
- Spam never billedSpam never billedRobocalls are spotted, zero-rated, and never become a customer.
- A number per sourceA number per sourceVan, yard sign, Google listing — see which line brings the work.
- Team & on-callTeam & on-callTries you, then a second number, then whoever is on call.
- Run it by textRun it by textReply to a text to move a job, block a morning, clear a day.
- Clear a day, everyone toldClear a day, everyone toldCall off a wet Tuesday; every customer is told and re-offered.
- Never invents an answerNever invents an answerNo price or slot it was not given. It takes a message instead.
- Any trade, no codeAny trade, no codeGoal, questions and guardrails are settings, not a rebuild.
What auto repair shops say before they say yes
Three objections, in the words they are usually put in. Where the objection is right, it says so.
“Every call pulls a technician off a car anyway.”
That is the cost nobody puts a number on. The phone rings all day and each one costs a technician their concentration and you the billable minutes either side. It takes all of them — including the ones arriving while the office is already on the other line, which is where most bookings quietly die.
“It'll tell someone their brakes are fine.”
It will not tell anyone their car is safe to drive, and it says so plainly before booking the visit. A pedal going to the floor or smoke from under the bonnet reaches a person immediately rather than getting an appointment, because being wrong about that is not a lost job.
“Most of our calls are just ‘is my car ready'.”
And none of them should reach a service advisor. Those are answered from the job record with a straight answer instead of a hold — most of your inbound volume, and none of its value.
Auto repair questions, answered
What auto repair shops ask before handing over their phone number — and what a automotive answering service can and cannot do for you.
Will it tell a customer whether their car is safe to drive?
No, and it says so plainly. It captures the symptom, advises caution where the description warrants it, and books the visit. A brake pedal going to the floor or smoke from under the bonnet is escalated to a human immediately rather than booked.
Can it give estimates?
It gives your diagnostic charge and your hourly labour rate, because those are fixed numbers you gave it. It will not price a repair from a description. Anchoring a customer on a phone number your technician then has to revise upward is the fastest way to lose the job at the counter.
Does it know which vehicles we take?
Yes. You give it the makes you work on, whether you do diesel, hybrids, EVs, commercial vans or classics, and it declines what you cannot take rather than filling a bay with a car nobody can work on.
Can it book different job types into different slot lengths?
It books against your real calendar with the slot length you set per job type — an oil change is not a diagnostic, and a waiter is not a drop-off. It also asks whether they are waiting, which is the question that decides whether the afternoon works.
What about the parts and status calls?
“Is my car ready?” is most of a shop's inbound volume and none of its value. Those are answered from the job record and never put on your desk, and the customer gets a straight answer instead of a hold.
Does it handle fleet and warranty work differently?
Yes. It asks whether the vehicle is a fleet vehicle, under warranty or on a service plan, and routes those to whoever handles them — those bill differently and often need authorisation before anything is booked.
What does it cost?
Three paid rungs — Starter, Professional and Business — differing only in how many unique customers you answer for in a month. Call flows, technicians and full call history are unlimited on all of them. Robocalls are identified and never billed.
Already decided you want AI to answer it?
Then the question is which one, and that is a different page: what a generic AI receptionist gets wrong on a auto repair call, and what is configurable about this one.
Not your trade?
The agent's questions, urgency rules, escalations and vocabulary are all configuration. Nothing about a trade is hard-coded, which is why there are 31 of these and not one.