The CRM for shops that never call back on declined work
Every red and yellow item a customer said no to becomes a dated follow-up instead of a line on a closed repair order.
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- Unlimited seats
- Your own database
- AI waits for your approval
Your shop management system owns the repair order, the parts matrix and the technician's clock. The call three months later about the brakes they declined in March is a different job. SalesCrew sits beside Tekmetric, Shopmonkey or AutoLeap and owns declined work, reminders and the customers who stopped coming.
A week in a three-bay shop
Three patterns any service advisor recognises, and what gets configured for each.
The digital inspection produces a list of nos
A technician photographs the worn belt, marks it yellow, and the customer approves the oil change and declines the rest. That declined line is money the shop already earned the right to ask about. Configure it as a declined-service segment with the item, the date and the vehicle, worked by a cadence timed to when the work actually becomes urgent.
The phone rings while every bay is full
Auto repair is a phone business with nobody free to answer it. The advisor is under a car or on the parts line, and a caller wanting a quote for a water pump rings the next shop. Configure the website form and booking link into the inbound endpoint so the enquiry that does arrive in writing never waits until closing.
Reminders go out by postcard or not at all
Oil change intervals, state inspection dates and mileage-based services are all knowable in advance and mostly ignored. Configure a segment on last visit date and vehicle, and a cadence that arrives before the customer starts thinking about where to go.
Who is buying, and who is typing
In an independent shop these are usually the same person, which changes everything about how the software has to work. The owner is also the service advisor, and the advisor is the only person who knows why a customer declined a repair.
That means adoption fails at the first extra step. Nothing here asks a technician to log anything. The tablet-based inspection stays where it is, the repair order stays in the shop management system, and what SalesCrew holds is the customer relationship around them: the declined items, the due dates and the conversations.
Seats are unlimited on every tier, which matters when a shop has one advisor and a part-time bookkeeper. There is no cost argument for keeping anybody out of the record.
What we configure for you
A working setup for an independent shop, inside the 14-day trial.
- 1
Pipelines
A quote pipeline for the estimates that need a decision, and a declined-work pipeline where every yellow item from an inspection waits with the date it was declined.
- 2
Segments
Declined work by item and by age, vehicles due for a service by mileage or date, and customers with no visit in eighteen months.
- 3
Cadences
A declined-service cadence timed to when the item becomes urgent rather than to the day it was declined, a reminder cadence ahead of the due date, and a win-back for lapsed customers.
- 4
Channels
The shop mailbox over IMAP, the website quote form pointed at the inbound endpoint, and the online booking link landing as a meeting with its source.
- 5
Knowledge base
Your labour rate policy, warranty terms, which makes you specialise in and what you refuse, so drafts do not promise a transmission rebuild you do not do.
Your stack, and what sits beside it
SalesCrew sits beside the shop management system and works what it leaves behind.
| What you run | What it keeps | What SalesCrew adds |
|---|---|---|
| Tekmetric | Repair orders, digital vehicle inspections, parts matrix, technician time | Declined items as a worked segment with dated follow-up, plus a reminder cadence |
| Shopmonkey | Estimates, workflow board, invoicing, inventory | Multi-step follow-up on unapproved estimates and a lapsed-customer win-back |
| AutoLeap | Scheduling, inspections, payments | The enquiry before the RO exists, and the conversation after it closes |
| Mitchell 1 or Identifix | Labour times, repair procedures, diagnostics | Stays with your diagnostic subscription |
| QuickBooks | Books and payroll | Stays with your bookkeeper |
| Your parts suppliers | Ordering and availability | Stays on the supplier portal |
Connections run through webhooks, CSV import and the API. A declined-work export from the shop system lands as a segment the advisor can work.
What each system is built for
A configurable CRM (SalesCrew)
- Declined work becomes a dated, worked list instead of a closed repair order
- Segments on last visit and vehicle, so reminders go out before the customer decides
- Unlimited seats, so the advisor and the bookkeeper both have logins
- One Postgres database per shop, exportable whenever you want it
The shop management system
- Repair orders, inspections, parts and labour in the tool your advisor already knows
- Technician workflow and time tracking built for a bay
- Texting the customer a photo of the worn part
- Payments and integration with the parts suppliers you actually use
The phone, and the customer who rings three shops
Auto repair runs on the telephone more than most trades on this site. A customer with a check engine light does not fill in a form. They ring three shops and book with whoever answers, and the advisor who could answer is under a car.
SalesCrew captures forms and online bookings around the clock, answers on shop phone numbers with routing, and texts back a missed call. A web enquiry at 7pm gets a drafted reply in the queue, ready for the advisor to approve before the first car goes up.
The AI receptionist is set up with this trade's triage in mind. A tow-in and a request for a quote on tyres are not the same call, and a customer saying their brakes are grinding gets transferred to a person rather than a booking script.
One constraint to plan around now. Customer mobile numbers are consumer numbers, so the TCPA applies to marketing texts and calls. A declined-work follow-up sent months later is not obviously a response to an enquiry, which is exactly the case where consent has to have been recorded rather than assumed. SalesCrew enforces suppression and opt-out; the consent is yours to collect, and this is not legal advice.
Where this gets used
Three jobs a shop does every week, described as mechanism.
Working the declined list
Every yellow item from an inspection enters a segment with its date and its vehicle. The cadence fires when the item becomes urgent, not the week it was declined, and it stops the moment the customer replies.
Reminders before the interval
A segment on last visit date and vehicle drives a cadence that goes out ahead of the due date. Suppression is applied when the audience freezes, so anyone who opted out never receives it.
Winning back a lapsed customer
Eighteen months with no visit puts a customer in a win-back segment. Three touches over a fortnight, stopping on any reply, with the reply landing in the same inbox as everything else.
What shop owners ask first
- We already have Tekmetric. Why add anything?
- Keep it. Tekmetric owns the repair order, the inspection and the parts matrix. SalesCrew works each declined item as a dated follow-up over the next six months. It is where declined work and lapsed customers turn back into booked bays.
- Our advisors will not use another screen.
- They open one list: the declined items and reminders due this week. Technicians open nothing at all. It runs in the browser, and access is scoped so a person sees their own area.
- How does the declined-work cadence reach customers?
- By email, on a schedule you set, with the advisor's calls logged against the same record. The cadence stops the moment a customer replies or books. Every external send starts in review, with a person approving it.
- What does it cost and how many logins do we get?
- Core is $299 a month, Outbound is $699 and Agency is $1,200, with unlimited seats on every one. AI usage is the meter, with an allowance and a hard stop at the cap that never stops manual work.
- Can we import our customer and vehicle history?
- Customers and their history import through the data bank, which is a staging area, so a bad import is a table you delete. The declined-work list from the shop system imports the same way.
- How long before it is set up?
- The 14-day trial is the setup window. Day one the mailbox and booking link, day two the customer import, day three the declined-work segment, day seven the first cadence running in review, day fourteen you continue or you export everything and leave.
Which tier fits a repair shop
Core works the declined list. Outbound adds the phone pack.
Core at $299 a month covers the pipelines, the segments, email cadences, the shared inbox and the data bank, with unlimited seats. Outbound at $699 adds shop phone numbers, two-way SMS and service reminders that send by text and email.
Start the trial with last quarter's declined work
Import the list on day two and watch the first cadence line up in review.
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