The repair order you miss goes to the shop two lights down
You're under a Silverado with a seized caliper, and the phone's ringing for the fourth time this hour.
Every one of those calls is a repair order — a quote, a tow on the way, a customer deciding between you and the shop two lights down. The ones that hit voicemail mostly don't call back.
A quick typed preview — no phone needed. It's a taste, not the finished product.
What your missed calls are costing you
Drag these to match your shop. It's rough math, on purpose — nobody trusts a calculator that pretends to know your business better than you do.
7
40%
$450
Estimated revenue lost per month
$5,456
vs. Dialkeep at $199/mo
+$5,257
net, if it recovers every one of those jobs (it won't catch all of them — no one does)
Dialkeep vs. budget answering apps
| Feature | Dialkeep | budget answering apps |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $199/mo flat, unlimited calls | Cheap until the minutes cap — then metered or dropped |
| Knows YOUR shop | Your services, hours, bays, and what you don't work on | Generic script with your name pasted in |
| Quotes | Never invents a price — quotes only what you've configured, and captures vehicle + symptom on the call | Improvises or deflects |
| Captures the job | Gets the vehicle, the symptom, and the customer's timeline during the call | Takes a message you still have to return |
| English + Spanish | English only today — Spanish isn't live on the line yet | Usually English-only |
Why auto repair shops trust it on the phone
No auto-repair profile is built yet — plumbing is the trade line running today, and I'm not going to dress this page up like a repair-shop line is already answering when it isn't. The plan, once there is one, is a call that quotes nothing it can't stand behind and pulls the vehicle, the symptom, and the timeline straight out of the conversation. Today there's nothing running that would take a call about a seized caliper or a check-engine light — that's still the plan, not the line.
You decide what it shouldn't take on — a warranty argument, an angry customer, a commercial account. It captures the details and doesn't try to settle it on the phone.
Spanish isn't live on the line yet — it answers in English. I'd rather you heard that from me now than find out after you've forwarded your phones.
The details come out of the conversation itself — vehicle, symptom, how soon they need it — not out of a voicemail beep the customer hangs up on.
Questions auto repair shops ask
Is this a robot answering my phone?+
It's an AI, and we won't pretend otherwise — that's exactly why it's built for the 7am call while you're flagging hours and the 6pm one after the counter's closed. If a caller asks, it says what it is and gets on with the call — the vehicle, the symptom, how urgent it is. Judge it the way your customers will — see the demo at dialkeep.ai/demo.
How is this different from the $29 answering apps?+
Those run a generic script with your shop name dropped in. This one knows your services, your hours, and what you won't touch — set up on your actual shop, not guessed at. And when it gets something wrong ('we don't do transmission rebuilds'), you tell us and we change its setup. The cheap apps also meter your minutes; this is flat and unlimited.
Can it give repair quotes over the phone?+
It quotes exactly what you've told it to quote — an oil change price, a diagnostic fee — and nothing else. For anything that needs eyes on the car, it says so honestly and captures what the job is. It will never make up a number that you then have to argue about at the counter.
What happens when it can't answer something?+
It says so and takes the details, following the rules you set. It never bluffs. When it gets something wrong, you tell us and we change its setup — a person updating your configuration, not the software teaching itself.
We're slammed at lunch and after 5 — does it only work after hours?+
It answers whenever you point your number at it: after hours, mid-day when the counter's tied up, or all day. Most shops start with nights and hand it more as it earns trust.
What does setup look like?+
About ten minutes: your services, hours, and the prices you want quotable. No new phone system — your number forwards to it when you want it answering.
Notes for auto repair shops, from the shop floor
AI receptionist cost for auto repair shops
AI receptionist cost for an auto repair shop: published pricing from four vendors, run against assumed call volume, for per-call, per-minute, and flat billing.
Read the breakdown →Answering service for auto repair shop, explained
An answering service for an auto repair shop takes three shapes: live-human, budget-AI, or flat-rate AI. What each one is, and what it costs.
Read the breakdown →See it built from your shop, then decide.
$199/mo flat once you're in — no contract, no per-minute meter.