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Solution · Operations & qualityThe customer knows what is happening to his car before he gets round to calling
Vehicle check-in and repair status by text
A robot runs the job from check-in to pickup: a photo report at intake, a text at every status change, an estimate approved with one click, and a reminder when the finished car waits in the yard. The workshop phone finally goes quiet.
Executive summary
Customers call because they do not know: how the diagnosis went, what it will cost, when to collect; every call tears a mechanic away, and a paper check-in offers no protection in a dispute over a scratch.
Check-in is a phone report with photos; every job status change texts the customer; the estimate goes out as a link approved with one click; a finished car reminds the customer by itself.
“What about my car” calls all but vanish, mechanics work without interruptions, estimate approvals come back faster, and repaired cars stop clogging the yard.
the job register in SharePoint; photo reports from a phone; texts to customers; the workshop queue in Microsoft Teams
Business problem
A workshop where the phone rules the lift
In a small workshop nobody’s job is informing customers, so the informing happens by itself: the customer calls. He calls after a day, because he does not know whether the car is on the lift yet; he calls about the estimate, because he does not know the figure; he calls on Friday, because maybe it is ready. Every one of those calls is rational from his side, and every one shatters the work on the other.
The mechanic or the owner answers, because there is nobody else. Answering is not a minute: you walk to the car or the notebook, establish the state, walk back, call back. Time studies in service shops show what every workshop knows from life: an hour at a car can contain three interruptions, and after each one the work resumes slower.
An estimate stuck at “I’ll try to reach the customer” means a lift occupied by a car nobody may touch. Half a day of waiting for approval can wreck the whole day’s plan. And at the end there is the yard: cars repaired and uncollected, because nobody had a moment to call and say they are ready, and space runs out for the next ones.
Paper check-in adds risk: without photos of the vehicle’s condition, every scratch discovered at pickup is word against word, and bumper disputes are exactly the kind of online review a workshop does not want.
How it works today
Below is what the work looks like before anything is automated.
- PersonThe car checked in on paper, no photos; condition described as “signs of use”
- Risk of errorThe customer knows nothing from the moment he hands over the keys, so he calls
- WaitingThe mechanic leaves the lift, establishes the state, calls back; three interruptions an hour
- WaitingThe estimate waits half a day for phone approval; the lift stands occupied
- Risk of errorThe finished car sits in the yard, because nobody called to say it can be collected
- Risk of errorA scratch at pickup is word against word, and a review online
Why the current process costs more than it appears
The bill that never shows up in a budget.
- Forty calls a week, several minutes each including the walk to the car, is genuinely hours of work taken out of the shop.
- Every interruption costs a mechanic twice: the conversation, and the slower return to the job.
- A lift occupied by a car awaiting estimate approval earns nothing; it is the most expensive parking in town.
- A scratch dispute with no intake photos ends in a concession or a review; both exits cost.
Cost of inaction
The first row is easy to verify at home: count tally marks by the phone for one week. The second is less obvious and more painful: lift hours in which no work is allowed, because the estimate waits for phone approval.
The model does not price scratch disputes or online reviews; it prices only time. The photo intake report is a separate value every workshop prices for itself after its first dispute.
A model organisation with realistic proportions – the numbers exist so you can run the same maths on your own data; they are not a client result.
A mechanical workshop: four bays, five mechanics, the owner on intake and the phone, around 170 jobs a month, Microsoft 365.
Paper check-in, statuses in a notebook and in heads; around 40 status calls a week.
Estimates approved by phone; unreachable customers block bays for half a day.
Finished cars wait in the yard for two days on average, because the pickup call loses to the daily rush.
Check-in happens on a phone: photos, condition, signature; the job gets a status, and the customer a text at every change: received, diagnosis, estimate to approve (a link), parts ordered, ready for pickup; no approval within four hours triggers a reminder; no pickup within two days likewise.
In the modelled case status calls fall by four fifths, estimate approvals come back in an hour on average, and the yard clears. Model numbers, not the workshop’s records.
Proposed solution
We start with your job path: which statuses a repair has at your shop, what the customer should know at each one, and in what tone. Statuses are usually six steps from intake to pickup; you approve their names and the text wording, and both can change at any time.
Vehicle check-in takes three minutes on a phone: photos from four sides plus the interior, the mileage, the customer’s remarks, a finger signature. The job creates itself, with a number, and from that moment every status change, flipped by a mechanic with one tap, texts the customer. The estimate goes out as a link: the customer sees the items and the total, approves with one click, and the robot makes sure silence does not hang: it reminds, then raises a case with the owner.
The workshop queue hangs in Teams: what is at which stage, what waits for parts, what for approval, what for pickup. A finished car reminds the customer by itself after two days. The owner stops being a switchboard, and in the evening sees the day in numbers: jobs taken in, closed, and the average time from intake to pickup.
UiPath Orchestrator: the job queue, status triggers, reminders, retries and an audit trail; UiPath Integration Service connectors for Microsoft Teams, Outlook 365 and SharePoint; the SMS gateway you already use
The status path with text wording in your tone, phone-based intake reports, estimates approved by link, approval and pickup reminders, and the workshop queue in Teams
The job register and reports in SharePoint; the intake form on a phone; the workshop program via export or API where one already runs
How the automated process works
- PersonCheck-in on a phone: photos, mileage, remarks, signature; the job creates itself
- AutomationEvery status change texts the customer: diagnosis, estimate, parts, ready
- SystemThe estimate goes as a link; the customer approves with one click, items and total recorded
- AutomationNo approval within four hours triggers a reminder and a case with the owner
- AutomationA finished car uncollected for two days reminds the customer by itself
- PersonThe workshop queue in Teams: stages, blockers, times; the day in numbers each evening
Human-in-the-loop model
Automation handles
- Status texts, approval and pickup reminders, the job register with history
- Estimates approved by link with the customer’s decision recorded
- The workshop queue and the owner’s daily numbers
People decide
- The diagnosis, the estimate and the repair itself; the automation informs, it does not fix
- Customer conversations in disputed and atypical cases
- Text wording, status names and decisions on exceptions
Before and after
Systems and integrations
The stack is short on purpose: one engine, one execution layer, one place where a person decides.
Inputs
- intake reports from a phone
- job statuses from mechanics
- estimates with line items
- path rules and text wording
Automation layer
- UiPath Orchestrator
- UiPath Robots
- UiPath Integration Service
- UiPath Action Center
Target systems
- status texts to customers with history
- estimate approvals with the decision recorded
- the workshop queue and daily numbers in Microsoft Teams
Human touchpoints: the workshop queue in Microsoft Teams; exception cases with the owner; daily numbers in the evening
Technologies used
the job queue, status triggers, reminders, a record of every message
Athe workshop queue, cases, register writes
Athe job and report register with photos, permissions and history
Astatuses and reminders; we work with the gateway you already use
Bthe job source where a system already runs; scope depends on its interface
BIllustrative economic model
Numbers you can check against your own data.
The model prices the call time and the bay standstills; it does not price scratch disputes closed by a photo, or the calm of an owner who stopped being a switchboard. Volumes and rates belong to the scenario; your own numbers go into the calculator alongside.
Run the maths on your data
An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models freed capacity, not promised savings.
Business benefits
- Mechanics work without being pulled from under the lift; the phone goes quiet
- The customer knows everything as it happens and feels the shop is in control of his car
- Estimates come back approved within the hour, so bays do not stand idle
- The photo report closes scratch disputes before they start
- Repaired cars leave the yard, because they remind their owners by themselves
The management view
- Customer communication stops depending on whether anyone had a moment to call back
- Every job has a history: photos, statuses, the estimate, the approval, the pickup
- More jobs do not mean more calls; the information scales by itself
Board-level KPIs
status calls per week · time from estimate to approval · time from ready to pickup · jobs with a complete intake report · mechanic work interruptions
Security and governance
The automation has exactly the permissions it needs. Not one more.
- The robot works on job data: vehicle, contact, statuses, amounts; no unnecessary customer data
- Photo reports have restricted access and an agreed retention period
- Every text and every approval has a record: what, when, to whom, with which decision
- You approve the message wording; an authorised person makes changes
- Data stays in your Microsoft 365 tenant and your SMS gateway; the robots run in the EU region of UiPath Automation Cloud
Why now
Chain garages and dealerships have sent statuses for years; the customer compares you with them, not with the shop next door.
A mechanic’s hour costs more every year and mechanics are harder to find; spending that hour on calls stopped adding up.
Vehicle condition disputes are settled by online reviews these days; a photo report is an insurance policy that costs three minutes.
Relevant executive roles
Stops being a switchboard; sees the day in numbers each evening
Flips a status with one tap and works uninterrupted
Knows what is happening, what he will pay and when to collect, without a single call
Common questions and objections
Some always will, and nothing is taken from them: the phone works as it did. But even among the phone’s most loyal fans, the “your car is ready for pickup” text works without fail. In practice, everyone who just needs to know stops calling; what remains are the conversations that truly need a conversation.
A status is one tap on a tablet hanging by the bay, shorter than answering one “what about my car” call. A week is usually enough for the team to notice the trade: six taps a day in exchange for forty calls a week. That is a swap workshops make gladly.
And it stays: if it runs the jobs, the robot reads statuses from it and adds what the program lacks, the texts, link approvals, reminders and the photo report. If the program has none of that, it does not need replacing; the automation works alongside.
When this is not the right solution
- A one-man shop with a few jobs a week: a phone and keeping one’s word suffice
- No team commitment to flipping statuses: without it the texts have nothing to send
- Expecting the automation to produce the estimate: diagnosis and pricing remain a human craft
A question for the next management meeting
How many times a day does someone here stop working to tell a customer what a system could have sent by itself?
Implementation approach
Scope without ambiguity, before anything is signed.
We deliver
- The status path with text wording in your tone
- Phone-based vehicle check-in with photos and a signature
- Estimates approved by link, with reminders
- Pickup reminders and the workshop queue in Microsoft Teams
- Daily owner numbers and two weeks of parallel running
We need from you
- Your job path and what the customer should hear at each stage
- An SMS gateway and a phone or tablet at the intake desk
- Access to the workshop program, if one runs the jobs
Stages
Discovery
The job path today, call volumes, the standstill points
Rules
Statuses, text wording, reminder thresholds, the estimate approval path
Build
The intake report, statuses, texts, approvals, the queue, the numbers
Parallel run
Two weeks: the system runs, paper alongside, we count the calls
Go-live
Full traffic with a numbers review after the first month
A quick win. Everything runs on Microsoft 365 and your SMS gateway; workshop program integration depends on its interface and is optional.
Wednesday, 11:20: the third call from the same customer. The mechanic crawls out from under the lift. The estimate is still unapproved, because there was no moment to call.
Count tally marks by the phone for a week and send us the result with your job count. We return the arithmetic of the hours and a status path drafted for your workshop.
Count the “what about my car” callsThe neighbouring process usually has the same problem
Taken in on Monday, promised for Wednesday, found on a shelf on Thursday.
See the solution Customer serviceMissed calls called backHe called three times during opening hours. He booked where someone picked up.
See the solution Finance & accountingInvoices chased before they turn difficultThe client pays after 40 days because nobody reminded after 14. The cash sits with others.
See the solutionIndustries where we deploy this most oftenSmall business & services