Nobody walks into a workshop neutral. Every customer has been overcharged before, sold a service they did not need, or quoted four different prices for the same job at four different places. CIERA's workshop agent is built around that: it knows the car before it knows the customer, it does not upsell, and it never blurs an estimate into a quote. From R799 per month.
See CIERA in actionA returning customer is really a returning vehicle. Owners change, numbers change, but the VIN and the service history do not. So the first thing the agent does on any inbound message is pull the vehicle: last service, last kilometres, flagged items, declined repairs, warranty status.
Which means the reply is not "how can I help" but something a customer notices:
Customer, 07:52 — Morning, can I book the Polo in this week?
CIERA, 07:52 — Morning. Pulled up the Polo — last service was 13 months ago at 62 800 km. You'd usually be around 85 000 by now, which puts you close to the 90k major. Want me to book the major, or just the standard service?
Illustrative. Your own rates, service bands and diary drive what the agent says.
If the brake pads are at 30%, the agent says they are still safe and it will watch them at the next service. It does not say "you should really sort those out soon". A worn-but-safe part is a flag for the next service, not a sales pitch today — and if it does resurface, it resurfaces once, gently, after handling what the customer actually asked, then not again for three months.
On a breakdown or an accident thread it sells nothing at all. No tyres, no battery, no aircon, no "while we have you". One cross-sell on a breakdown thread costs you that customer permanently.
Your reputation is built on the things you did not charge for. The agent is written to protect that.
A workshop lives in two languages and the agent never mixes them. An estimate is a guide from book-rate labour and indicative parts pricing, and it is always labelled as one. A quote is a commitment, it comes only after the car is on the bench, and it arrives broken into part, labour and VAT — never a single mystery number.
It will not quote a firm price from a description alone, it will not authorise work beyond an accepted quote, and if a job runs over by more than 15% it tells you before it tells the customer. OEM and approved aftermarket get offered side by side, with no judgement attached to either choice.
Whether you can do it tomorrow depends on whether the strut is on the shelf or coming from Joburg by overnight courier. The agent does not guess, and it does not say "it should be fine" — because that is not a commitment. It says it would rather give a real answer than a maybe, checks parts, and comes back with a firm date. Missed dates cost more trust than slow ones.
Mike does electrics, Sam does diesels, Pete is in the body shop. A booking on the wrong bay is a wasted morning, so the agent routes by job type into the right technician's diary and refuses a slot that does not suit the work — no aircon regas on the body-shop diary.
Some things do not wait for the next open slot. A red oil-pressure light means stop, switch off, do not restart, arrange a tow — engine damage happens in minutes. Grinding brakes, a brake warning light, pulling sharply under braking, smoke, steam, sudden heavy steering: all of it gets triaged before anything is booked or priced.
And the agent will not leave someone on failing brakes for a week because the diary is full. Bay constraints are not a reason to defer safety-critical work, so it books outside the normal queue and tells you.
If the same fault comes back on work you did, that is a warranty callback: straight to the bench, no call-out fee, no quote dance, no "are you sure it's the same problem". If a customer declined a repair and it has now failed, there is no I-told-you-so in any form, including by implication. Get the car in, have the preventive conversation weeks later in a different thread.
And when a customer says another shop quoted less, the agent does not bad-mouth the other workshop, does not name them, and does not invent a number to beat them. It says it would rather just be transparent on yours, and shows the breakdown.
On an accident the first message asks whether everyone is okay. Not what the damage is, and certainly not how they are paying. Cost and insurance come last. For the claim it collects what the insurer will actually need — the claim number, the SAPS case number where there is one, and photos.
Roadworthy certificates and which jobs need a registered testing station. RMI and MIWA as the customer's recourse. AA-approved repairer status. That a petrol and a diesel trade test are different qualifications. That servicing outside an authorised workshop can void a manufacturer's plan. That tread under 1.6 mm is illegal and under 3 mm is worth raising before winter.
Every vehicle accumulates its own history — services, quotes, declined items, warranty work, invoices and payments — without anyone typing it into a system after hours. Service-interval reminders and major-service flags come off that record rather than off memory. See how the WhatsApp CRM works.
From R799 per month. Every plan is the complete platform — the agent, the CRM, bookings, estimates, invoicing and payment links — and the tier only sets how many WhatsApp conversations are included. It runs on your existing WhatsApp Business number through Meta's official platform. Most workshops are live within about two working days.
Get startedNot a workshop? See plumbers, electricians, veterinary clinics, or all 22 industries. More on how the AI agent works.