Your best lead called at 8:40pm. You closed at eight.
Your best lead called at 8:40pm and the showroom closed at eight. A dealership answering service that answers after hours and books the test drive.
Car shoppers browse at night. They finish work, look at inventory online, and call — and a dealership's phone after eight is a voicemail box. By the time anyone listens to it the next morning, the shopper has called two other dealers and booked with one of them. A single unit is thousands of dollars of gross.
The showroom closes at eight and the website does not. Evening and Sunday enquiries are the most motivated of the week — somebody who has already looked at the inventory and picked up the phone — and they land in the only hours nobody is there.
A call it takes without you.
Thanks for calling — are you looking at a particular vehicle?
Yes, the silver Tacoma you've got listed.
Good choice. Would you be trading anything in, and are you looking to finance?
I've got a 2016 Civic to trade, and yes, financing.
Noted. I can book you a test drive first thing tomorrow — would 9am work?
- ✓After-hours enquiries answered, not lost to voicemail
- ✓New, used, trade-in and finance intent qualified
- ✓Test drives booked for the morning
- ✓Service department calls routed separately
Less than by a voicemail box at 8:40pm. The caller wants to know the vehicle is still available and to get on the calendar, and the agent does both in under a minute. A salesperson then picks up a booked appointment in the morning rather than a cold message.
Auto Dealerships answering service — questions
Can it tell whether a vehicle is still available?+
Only if it is connected to a live feed of your inventory. Otherwise it takes the stock number or description and books the appointment, leaving availability for your team to confirm.
Does it route service calls separately?+
Yes. Someone booking an oil change is a different conversation from a sales enquiry, and routing them correctly keeps both departments clean.
Will it discuss pricing or payments?+
Only what you authorise. Most dealers keep numbers for the desk, so the agent qualifies intent and books rather than quoting a payment it cannot stand behind.
How long before it's live?+
Two to four business days, built around your departments, your hours and how you want sales leads qualified.
How does an answering service work?+
Your business line is forwarded to the service, either all the time or only when you don't pick up. From the caller's side nothing changes — they dial your number and somebody answers. Ours answers, asks the questions you've set, and books the appointment into your calendar, then the details reach you.
What is an answering service?+
A service that answers your business phone when you can't. Traditionally that meant an off-site operator taking a message for you to return later. An AI answering service handles the call to a finished outcome instead — qualifying the caller and booking the job rather than passing you a message slip.
How much does an answering service cost?+
Most small businesses pay between $200 and $1,500 a month depending on volume and whether calls are handled by people or AI. Per-minute plans typically run $1.00–$2.00 a minute, per-call plans $1.50–$3.50 a call. Ours are flat: $249/mo with 500 included minutes, or $995/mo with 2,000.
What are the advantages of an answering service?+
Three that matter. Every call is answered, so enquiries stop going to voicemail. Several calls are answered at once, so nobody gets a busy signal on your busiest day. And it covers the hours you can't — nights, weekends and holidays — which is when the most urgent calls tend to arrive.
How do I choose an answering service?+
Call it before you buy it. Published pricing, no long-term contract, and a service built around your trade rather than a generic script all matter — but the only reliable test is hearing how it handles a call. Our demo line is a real number that answers at any hour.
What should I look for in a call answering service?+
Whether it books or only takes messages; what it costs when you exceed the plan; whether hold time and robocalls are billable; how quickly it goes live; and whether it can be briefed on what counts as an emergency in your trade. Ask for the overage rate specifically — it is the number most often left out of a quote.
Stop losing the calls you never hear.
Plans start at $249 a month. Live in two to four business days.