A WhatsApp AI agent for your auto repair workshop: what it does and where it stops

Start with what customers ask. Customers ask for a service slot, an estimate for a repair, whether their car is ready, and whether pickup and drop is available. An agent answers all of that from your own information. Then give it the work auto repair workshops repeat every day:

1. Service due reminder sent automatically — Based on last service date (3/6/12 months), WhatsApp reminder with one-tap booking option.
2. Job card updates during service — Work started, finding found, approval needed, work completed — each status update via WhatsApp.
3. Upsell approvals via WhatsApp mid-service — Additional repair found → WhatsApp with photo + cost + YES/NO button. Approval instant.
4. Next service reminder set — Post-service, the next service date is scheduled and a reminder is queued against the vehicle.

The agent runs these on WhatsApp in the customer's language, day and night, and writes what it did back to the contact record so staff see the full history.

1. Services and fixed prices by make and model, with what each service includes.
2. Workshop details — address, timings, holidays, brands you specialise in.
3. Pickup and drop — areas, charges, and how the handover works.
4. Policies — estimates before work, warranty on parts and labour, genuine versus aftermarket parts, payment methods.
5. Insurance — which insurers you work with and what a customer should bring for a claim.

An AI agent is only as accurate as what you give it. On Reputoo it answers from your knowledge base — pages crawled from your website, documents and price lists you upload, and policies you write down — rather than from general knowledge. Two rules keep it right:

• If it is not in the knowledge base, the agent says it will check and hands over, rather than guessing.
• Prices, timings and policies live in one place. Update the source and the agent's answers change with it.

It also needs to see the records your auto repair workshop already keeps — what to connect: A workshop job-card system; each job card has the customer, the vehicle and the status updates need.

Some messages are not customer-service questions at all. "Brakes feel soft", "steering is pulling", "oil light came on", "smoke from the bonnet" — the agent's only job is to say plainly that the car should not be driven, offer pickup or towing, and hand the conversation to a person immediately. Put this rule in its instructions in exactly these terms; it is the one place where the agent must never try to be helpful with an explanation.

A good intake saves a diagnostic hour. The agent asks, in plain words: when does it happen (cold start, braking, turning, at speed)? Is there a warning light — can you send a photo of the dashboard? Any recent work on the car? Can you record the sound? It writes the answers into the booking, so the technician reads them before the car is on the lift.

These are the moments customers remember, and they are worth a human:

• Service reminder calls go to voicemail. Your service team calls for upcoming service due. Most go to voicemail, no callback. WhatsApp messages get near-universal read.
• Customers call for service status updates constantly. "Is my car ready?" — you get this 20 times a day. WhatsApp job card updates end these calls completely.
• Previous service customers don't return. Customer had great service. 6 months later, needs next service. Didn't remember you. Went to the nearest garage.

The agent can open each of these conversations and collect the details; a person should close anything involving a complaint, an exception to policy, or money that has not been agreed. Handover goes to the shared inbox with the full conversation attached.

The same agent that answers on WhatsApp can answer your auto repair workshop's phone line as Vajra, Reputoo's voice agent, so a customer who calls gets the same answers as one who messages. It speaks 36 languages and switches to the caller's.

Customers often reply to an estimate with "what is a CV joint?" or "is this really needed now?". The agent can explain what a part does in general terms from your knowledge base, and whether the workshop classed the item as urgent or as able to wait — because the advisor marked it so on the job card. It does not add its own opinion about whether the repair is necessary; that stays with the advisor who saw the car.

1. Load prices, policies and the pickup rules; turn the agent on after hours first.
2. Each morning, read what it handed over and what it said it would "check".
3. Add each missing fact the same day — a model you service, a price, a holiday.
4. Move to all-day once handovers are about judgement rather than missing information.

The agent books from free text: "can you take my car on Saturday morning for a service and check the AC?" becomes a periodic service plus an AC inspection, in a Saturday slot long enough for both, with a note for the technician. For returning customers it recognises the number, confirms the vehicle, and offers pickup if they used it before. It confirms everything in one message and adds it to the job schedule.

"Do you use genuine parts?" and "is this covered under warranty?" are fair questions with answers that depend on your policy and the car's history. The agent explains your general policy from the knowledge base — which parts you use, how long your own work is guaranteed — and, for a specific claim, collects the job card number and the problem and hands over to the advisor, who can check what was fitted and when.

When the job is done, the agent can send the bill and a payment link, answer "how can I pay?", and confirm when a payment arrives. It should hand over any dispute about the amount with the approved estimate and the final bill attached, so the advisor can compare them line by line. It never asks for card numbers, PINs or OTPs, and says so if a customer offers them.

Car problems are stressful and often expensive. Instruct the agent to be calm, plain and specific: no jargon without an explanation, no "don't worry!" when the customer has a real reason to worry, and a clear next step in every reply. Read a day of its conversations as a customer would, and adjust until it sounds like your best advisor on a good day.

When an estimate is waiting, customers often reply with a question rather than a tap: "can it wait till next month?", "is there a cheaper option?". The agent answers from what the advisor recorded — which items are urgent, which can wait, whether an aftermarket option exists — and records the approval when the customer gives it. Anything the advisor has not recorded, it passes back with the question attached, rather than inventing an opinion about the customer's car.

A month of the agent's conversations tells a workshop what its customers actually worry about: the models they own, the services they ask prices for, the hours they message, the reasons they hesitate over estimates. Those patterns are worth more than any survey — they show which prices to publish, which services to promote and which explanations to add to the estimate template.

Handover rules for a workshop are simple to write down: anything safety-related, any dispute about a bill or a repair, any insurance question beyond the paperwork list, and any customer who asks for a person. The agent passes the chat with the vehicle, the job card, the customer's words and its reason for handing over, and tells the customer who will reply and when. Advisors should never start with "which car is this?".