WhatsApp for car dealers: sales enquiries, test drives and service
Endelir gives a car dealership one WhatsApp number for sales and service: every enquiry lands in a shared inbox, a chat flow asks what the customer needs and routes it to sales or the service desk, and approved templates send service reminders and job updates. A buyer asking about a variant and an owner asking when the car will be ready arrive on the same number, hours apart, and both expect someone who knows what was said last time. Endelir puts every enquiry, test drive request and service conversation into one shared inbox, asks the qualifying questions before a salesperson is involved, and gives each chat a named owner on the sales floor or the service desk.
A showroom number, a workshop number, and nothing joining them
Enquiries arrive from three ads at once and say "price?". A salesperson then works out which model, which variant, what budget, whether there is a car to exchange, and how soon they mean to buy — from the start, on every one of them. Repeat that through the week and the team spends its days sorting rather than selling, while the enquiries that came in after seven in the evening wait until morning.
The service side is worse, because the customer is already yours. They ask where the car has got to; the advisor is under a bonnet and the reception phone rings out. The estimate goes out as a photograph from somebody's handset, the approval comes back as a voice note, and none of it is anywhere the next shift can find. Two years later the same owner is due a service and nobody has a conversation left to pick up.
One number for the showroom and the workshop, with a named owner on each chat
Endelir connects your business number to the WhatsApp Business Platform and puts every conversation into a shared inbox that your sales team, your service advisors and your reception all sign into, each with their own login. A chat flow asks the qualifying questions first and writes each answer onto the contact record as a field, so the requirement outlives the chat.
The same flow hands the conversation to the right team based on what was answered — new car sales, used cars, service — and the assignment shows in the inbox before anyone starts typing. A service question never lands in a salesperson's lap, and the person who opens the chat can already see the model, the budget, the ad it came from and everything said so far.
How it works
- 1 The enquiry starts at your ad Someone taps the message button on a model ad or a service offer. Endelir records the click id, the kind of source, which ad it was, the link it came from and the headline they tapped, against that conversation.
- 2 Sales and service arrive on the same number Ads, the number on the service invoice, a QR code at the reception desk and the button on your website all feed one shared inbox.
- 3 A flow asks the qualifying questions For a buyer: model, variant, budget, whether there is a car to exchange, and how soon. For an owner: registration number, what is wrong, and whether they want pickup.
- 4 The answers are saved, not just said Each answer is written onto the contact record as a field, so a vehicle and a requirement stay attached to the customer rather than sitting in a chat history.
- 5 It goes to a person The flow hands the conversation to the sales team or the service desk, and the inbox shows who owns it so two people do not both reply.
- 6 Brochures, photos and video go out from the same chat A specification sheet, photographs of a used car, a walkthrough video, an estimate or a job card are sent and received in the same conversation.
- 7 Follow-up happens without a reminder note A flow can wait a set time and check back. Inside the service window that is an ordinary message; after it has closed, it is a message template approved in advance.
What this looks like in practice
A car dealership runs one showroom and one workshop on two different numbers. The sales enquiries land on a handset at the front desk, the service calls go to a landline nobody answers between eleven and two, and the customer who bought a car last year has no idea which number to use for what.
Now both are one number and one inbox. A flow asks whether the message is about buying, an existing booking or service. Buyers are asked the model, budget, exchange and timing, and go to a salesperson with the answers attached. Owners are asked the registration number and what is wrong, and go to a service advisor. The manager can see which conversations still have no owner at four in the afternoon, and the estimate for a repair goes out as a document in the same chat the owner started.
What happens when the customer replies
Across the motor trade
What to know before you set it up
Business-initiated messaging on WhatsApp is permission-based. Answering an owner or a buyer who wrote to you first needs no template — there is a service window in which your team replies freely. Starting a conversation, or picking one up after that window has closed, uses a message template Meta has approved in advance, and Endelir keeps track of which of the two you are in. A service-due reminder is one thing and a discount offer on accessories is another; they belong in different templates, and campaigns go only to contacts whose consent is on record. The software refuses to send without it, so an old customer list bought or scraped from somewhere is not something this product will message.
Endelir collects a request; it does not run the workshop diary. There is no bay availability, no slot list and no double-booking check — the flow captures the day and time a customer asks for, and one of your people confirms it. In the same way, Endelir sends the estimate, job card or invoice your system produced rather than creating any of them, and a payment link in a message is your own payment provider's link — the money never passes through Endelir. Vehicle status updates are real, but they work one way round: your dealer management system calls the Endelir API when a job changes stage. Endelir does not read your system by itself.
One practical point about the number. Once it is connected to the WhatsApp Business Platform it can no longer be used in the ordinary WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business app on a handset, so many dealerships take a fresh number for the customer line and leave the old one to staff. How many people can sign in, and how many contacts and messages each plan covers, is on the pricing page, and the software enforces it exactly.
What to watch
- Enquiries received, split by the ad or source that produced them
- How many finished the qualifying questions rather than dropping out
- How many conversations are sitting without a named owner
- Time to first reply on a new enquiry, in and out of showroom hours
- Test drive requests collected, and how many were confirmed
- Service reminders sent, and how many led to a booking request
- Estimates sent, and how long approval took to come back
- Feedback answers collected after collection of the vehicle
Related
Questions people ask
Can customers book a test drive through WhatsApp?
They can ask for one, and a person confirms it. A chat flow asks which model, which day and time suit them and which branch, then saves those answers onto the contact record so the salesperson has them in front of them. What Endelir does not do is run a diary: there is no list of available cars, no slots and no check that stops two buyers being offered the same demonstrator at eleven o'clock on Saturday. If your showroom already keeps that calendar, it stays where it is — and a flow step can call your own URL, so the request can reach the system that does hold it.
Can the showroom and the service desk share one number?
Yes, and that is usually the reason to do this. Every message arrives in one shared inbox, and a flow asks at the start whether the person is buying, following up an existing booking, or bringing a car in. Based on the answer the conversation is handed to the sales team or the service desk, and the assignment is visible before anyone starts typing. A service complaint never lands in a salesperson's lap, and because the chat already shows an owner, a second person does not start a reply of their own. If a conversation turns out to be the other kind, it is reassigned and the history moves with it.
Can we send service due reminders?
Yes, with two conditions that matter. The reminder goes to contacts whose consent is on record — Endelir refuses a campaign send without it — and because a service reminder almost always falls outside the service window, it goes as a message template Meta has approved in advance rather than as free text. Keep the reminder itself factual: the vehicle, the service that is due, and how to reply to arrange it. A discount on accessories is a different message with a different purpose, and mixing the two into one template is how templates get rejected and numbers get reported.
Can we send estimates, job cards and invoices?
Yes. Documents, images and video are sent and received in the same conversation, so a repair estimate, a job card, a photograph of the worn part or the final invoice goes out on the number the owner already used, and whatever they send back stays with that contact. Two limits are worth being plain about. Endelir sends the document your system produced; it does not create invoices or calculate anything. And a payment link in a message is your own payment provider's link — the customer pays your provider, and the money does not pass through Endelir at any point.
Can a customer check what stage their vehicle is at?
Two ways, and they are different. An advisor can simply answer in the shared inbox, where the whole history of that job is visible to whoever is on shift. Or your dealer management system can call the Endelir API when a job moves stage — received, estimate sent, work approved, ready for collection — and the update goes out without anyone typing it, as an approved template if the owner's service window has already closed. That direction matters: your system calls Endelir. Endelir does not read your dealer management system by itself, so this needs someone on your side to make that call from wherever the job status already changes.
Can we tell which advertisement an enquiry came from?
Yes. When someone starts a chat from a click-to-message ad, Endelir stores the click id Meta sends with it, the kind of source, which ad it was, the link it came from and the headline the person tapped, all against that conversation. So a month of spend is not one undifferentiated pile of enquiries: you can count what each ad produced, and how many of those enquiries finished the qualifying questions or asked for a test drive, and decide the next month on that rather than on impressions.
Can we message our old customer database?
Only the part of it that has consented, and the software enforces that rather than trusting the intention. Campaigns go to contacts whose consent is on record, and a send without it is refused instead of quietly attempted. An owner who bought a car from you four years ago has not, by that fact alone, agreed to receive marketing on WhatsApp. Build the permission properly — a reply to a service message, a tick on the job card, a QR code at the reception desk — and the list you end up with is one you can use for years. A list you cannot evidence is how a business number gets reported and restricted.
Connect the sales floor and the service desk to the customer conversation
Put every ad, every service reminder and every enquiry on one business number. We set the number up with you on a call and build the first flow around the questions your salespeople and service advisors already ask.
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