WhatsApp for garages

Answer the phone while you are under a car

A garage cannot take a call with its hands full, and the customer ringing round for an MOT slot books with whoever answers. Most of what they ask is already known.

What they actually ask

Can you do an MOT this week?
Do you have a courtesy car?
How much for a full service on a diesel?
Can I wait while it's done?
My engine light is on — is it safe to drive?

What makes this different from any other business

Whoever answers first gets the MOT

An MOT is a commodity with a legal deadline. The customer is ringing three garages and booking with the one that picks up. This is a trade where reply speed converts more directly than anything you could say about quality, and a garage in a ramp cannot pick up.

Courtesy car availability decides bookings for bigger jobs

For anything beyond an hour, whether the customer is left without a vehicle determines whether they book at all. It is a question almost every garage answers dozens of times a week, and almost none has written down: how many you have, whether there is a charge, what the age or licence requirements are.

Pricing splits by fuel, engine size and age

A full service is not one price. Diesel and petrol differ, engine size moves it, and older vehicles need more. Customers ask for 'a price' without giving any of that, so the agent establishes the vehicle first — and the registration it collects is exactly what the booking needs anyway.

Setting it up

1
Write your price list by fuel and engine sizeNot one figure. The agent asks for the vehicle before quoting, which also collects the registration you need for the booking.
2
Write down the courtesy car policyHow many, any charge, age and licence requirements, how far ahead to request.
3
Set safety questions to escalateWarning lights, brakes, steering, anything about whether a vehicle is drivable. These go to a person.

What it does not do

It cannot check a live diary, so it answers from your stated turnaround rather than real slots
It should not advise on whether a vehicle is safe to drive — set that to escalate
It does not look up MOT history or DVLA records without a custom action

Questions

Can it tell someone what slots are free?: Only what you have written down, such as typical turnaround or which days you run MOTs. It does not read a live diary. The booking request arrives with the registration and the work needed, ready to slot in.
What about someone asking if their car is safe to drive?: That escalates to a person. It is the one category where a confident wrong answer has real consequences, so the setup should refuse it outright.

Where the rules come from

WhatsApp Cloud API documentationMeta's own reference for how business messaging and the 24-hour window work.

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