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I used to work as a service advisor - or as the article says, receptionist. This system will not work as described for several reasons. 1. Unless you have a re

I used to work as a service advisor - or as the article says, receptionist. This system will not work as described for several reasons. 1. Unless you have a recent job that matches the exact same repair/service, you have incorrectly estimated the cost of the repair. In some states, this matters a lot and will cost the shop money. Unless your LLM only quotes for labor in sane amounts for diagnostic and nothing else, you’re only adding noise. This is a disservice to the client and the shop owner. The client now has an inaccurate quote for work and the shop will get a reputation for being inaccurate in quoting work. 2. Let’s say that you manage to get the exact same job twice. Your machine now needs to source parts. Parts may have been in stock yesterday. The might be out of stock now. If they are in stock, you need to retotal the price since prices are dynamic. Did you teach the agent how to source parts? What rules does it have for sourcing used parts? 3. New jobs can’t be quoted. Even if you taught the machine how to calculate book time and margins, it still has to find the right parts. If your shop does high end work, you know how much of a pain in the ass this is. Also remember that some work requires nonobvious parts - like fluids if you need to remove a part in the way of your goal. 4. The only area I see this being useful in is pickup. The shop can mark a car as done and the LLM can call to inform the client that they can come at a preset, unchanging time to get the vehicle. If the vehicle is staying overnight, the LLM can call with a progress update. Finally, I’d like to note that this sort of dev work goes beyond hubris. It’s dangerous. The more we assume we know without verifying, the greater the risk. In this case, the dev is risking someone else’s livelihood.

kube-system 6mo ago
I share your skepticism but it does seem like the author addressed 1 and 3: > When a caller asks something that isn’t in the knowledge base, the AI doesn’t guess. It tells the caller it doesn’t have that information, asks for their name and a good callback number, and saves that to MongoDB. Dane gets a list of callbacks to return — no lost leads. > The escalation path is not an edge case — it’s a core feature. I haven't been a service advisor before, but if it's anything like working the phones at other retailers, you get a lot of the same questions over and over again, and a bot could certainly answer those things correctly.
- Ntrails 6mo ago
  > The phone rings, he can’t answer, the customer hangs up and calls someone else. That’s a lost job — sometimes a $450 brake service, sometimes a $2,000 engine repair — just gone because no one picked up. Sure, that's a problem, but... > Dane gets a list of callbacks to return — no lost leads. Yeah. So. I'm still going to hang up, phone somewhere else, and you get no business. I'm also doubly annoyed because not only did you waste my time speaking to a computer, it couldn't answer the question so I'm now worse off than if you'd ignored the call.
  - Fomite 6mo ago
    Yeah - this scenario presupposes that if I need my car fixed I'm going to wait for you to give me a call back, rather than continue working down my list.
    - kube-system 6mo ago
      The AI doesn’t have to solve every problem to solve some problems. If it can answer 10% of questions, isn’t that 10% better than having all of them go to voicemail unanswered?
      - ssl-3 6mo ago
        I mean... Maybe? The data the bot has to work with is stated to already be available the website. Therefore, I'd never call on the phone to find those answers -- but those are the only answers the bot has to offer. The only reason I'd ever call is for answers that the website (and therefore, the bot) does not provide. Calling on the phone and getting a bot that insists on giving me data that I already have would only serve to waste my time and frustrate me. It would probably frustrate me enough to hang up and call a different shop immediately, and name-and-shame the place. I know how to Google shit. By the time I start dialing telephone numbers, I've already Googled this shit. When I call a local shop I want to talk to someone at that local shop (or at very least, their voicemail) -- not a regurgitating bot. But, again, that's just me. --- So I'm imagining my dad, who's in his mid-70s and has never Googled a single thing in his entire life. At least superficially, he sounds like an ideal candidate that can be helped with this automated receptionist. Except: When he calls the shop and has to talk to the bot instead of a person or their voicemail, he's also definitely hanging up immediately and calling the next place on his list. This doesn't help him at all, nor does it help the shop. --- For the shop, the cost of frustrated people who vent to their friends about the experience may very well be higher the cost of not always being available to answer the phone.
ericmcer 6mo ago
Couldn't you blast through all of that with some kind of warning like: "All labor and part prices are estimates, for exact pricing leave your name and number and we will get back to you".
- keybored 6mo ago
  [dead]
- throwaboat 6mo ago
  Yes. However, an estimate is not a guess. From the Washington state attorney general’s website: “ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval. The estimate includes, among other things: the odometer reading; a description of the problem or the specific repair requested; choice of alternatives for the customer; the estimated cost; labor and parts necessary for the specific diagnosis/repair requested” So the LLM builds an estimate. Maybe it’s under 10% difference when the customer walks through the door. When it’s not, there’s a big problem. Yes, this is still before work has begun, but now you’ve wasted the customers time. And potentially wasted their money if the vehicle was towed in.
  - keerthiko 6mo ago
    > “ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval. I don't see how "estimates" given over the phone by the LLM and "estimate" as mentioned in this quote refers to the same thing, for the legal purpose of this statement. This would be strictly before repairs have been authorized, and it's obviously not a written estimate. If the client requests a written estimate, it would have to come at a later time after the human mechanic reviews related costs (like specialty parts availability/ship times), or the client bringing the machine in for physical inspection by the mechanic. From my understanding of the article, it doesn't sound like the LLM is built to fully circumvent a customer phone call by the owner/mechanic before approving a job request unmanned: It's simply to not let go of a client lead because there was no one available to answer the phone, without needing to hire a full-time phone receptionist. It seems highly unlikely a customer is towing their vehicle in without talking to the mechanic directly first, who now has some context and the ability to sift nonsense requests from realistic ones from the logs before calling or writing to the customer on their own time with all the expert nuance necessary.
matt_daemon 6mo ago
> Finally, I’d like to note that this sort of dev work goes beyond hubris. It’s dangerous. The more we assume we know without verifying, the greater the risk. In this case, the dev is risking someone else’s livelihood. I think this is a bit of an overstatement. The dev states it’s her brother’s business, and one can assume he’s asked her to help him out. Getting the service to be 100% perfect is of course a near impossible challenge, but that’s most likely not the business owner’s concern — they simply want a way to avoid totally losing business. If the service can convert even 10% of customers with a rough quote and timeline it’s most likely useful.
- throwaboat 6mo ago
  High end shops live off reputation alone. Usually they’re started by a very skilled mechanic who does racing or some other specialty automotive hobby. The exit plan for these guys is usually to sell the shop. Most buyers are usually skilled white collar workers looking for a new hobby. The shop folds after that because they no longer have the same connections to the specialty community. You can get business outside of the specialty auto scene. In fact, it’s required since that’s what actually makes money. Google reviews and word of mouth are king here. So do you remove the owner from the customer experience? I wouldn’t. But if you are going to do that, then, understanding the risk is important.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
JohnMakin 6mo ago
I am certainly not an expert but I agree a lot with your sentiment about the hubris - but the problem as presented in the article makes no sense to me. If you see a value need for a receptionist, and you suspect that it is costing you thousands of dollars, wouldn't a normal response be, "I should think about hiring someone," rather than turning to an unproven, untested solution like this and leaving your business at the hands of how correct it is? I just cannot understand this line of thinking at all, reaching for a tool that would probably do a worse job than a human would do. Is it not wanting to hire? Not wanting to manage? Hype cycle? Where does this urge come from?
- kolinko 6mo ago
  Aside from a cost? It's also managing the actual human being, and making sure they have enough work. If the place has 5-10 calls a day, then it's pointless to hire receptionist that will do nothing for 1 hour, and then get 2 minutes chat. It used to be pointless to build software to do that, but since claude code it's cheap enough to make sense.
  - skeeter2020 6mo ago
    receptionist as a service has been a thing for like... forever. You are never going to solve the problem of accurately estimating and quoting with AI or an answering service, so pay for someone to answer the phone and take down the details; have a mechanic or trained service rep review and estimate. Cheap code that doesn't solve the problem is not cheap.
    - eucyclos 6mo ago
      Couldn't an ai take down the details and pass it to a mechanic or trained service rep?
      - ssl-3 6mo ago
        Yes, of course. The bot can request information and the customer can provide it if they feel like it, and then someone qualified can call them back when they have their hands free. But there's no bot, per se, needed at all. An answering machine from 1993 can do this same information-gathering job. :)
renewiltord 6mo ago
Realistically, every single mechanic has Google reviews that say “they said it would be $C but it was $D” and so on. You’re claiming a level of rigor I don’t think any real mechanic has.
raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
One of my specialties is creating call centers using Amazon Connect. I agree with everything you said. I wouldn’t let an LLM go near doing a quote or ordering parts.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  Where do they shine?
  - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
    Intent recognition and tool calling https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241412 And well grounded RAG.
6510 6mo ago
Honest estimates are probably fine. If you are already drowning in work, make everything expensive enough to cover the errors. You always have some % chance to lose money with each customer. If the estimate is to high one can give a discount afterwards. Could play the call on the speaker and decide if it is worth dropping your tools and walking to the phone. Those 10-20 daily marketeers are definitely not it.
jasondigitized 6mo ago
The solution is to have the quote manually prepared, entered into the system of record, and then automate the outbound phone call to let the customer know, and agree to the work based on the accurate quote. That's the savings.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  That call is really important. “Do I really need to spend all this right now? Can I just get by with x instead of x,y,z?” For now I’m not sure it will be efficient to provide models enough context, for one thing, to do it reliably.
- smogcutter 6mo ago
  It seems to me that calling the customer to get them to agree on a quote is the most important contact? It’s like telling a salesman to just enter data into a CRM and trust their livelihood to an AI closer. See how that goes over.
- uoaei 6mo ago
  So you've saved 30 seconds per customer for a total of 3-10 customers calling per day.
drewbeck 6mo ago
From the post it's clear that the shop has a set schedule of services and prices that the bot is pulling from. All the things you're saying are true for a shop that needs to custom quote each job but do not apply to the situation as presented.
- ssl-3 6mo ago
  It's clear that the author interpreted the data that way, yes. And perhaps the shop actually charges the same for brakes whether it is an Ford F150 or a Toyota Corolla. But that seems very unlikely to me. While they're both very common vehicles, they are also very different and the parts have substantially different costs associated with them.
  - kaybe 6mo ago
    From working in such a place I can also tell you the price depends on who is asking.
vasco 6mo ago
> Finally, I’d like to note that this sort of dev work goes beyond hubris. It’s dangerous. The more we assume we know without verifying, the greater the risk. In this case, the dev is risking someone else’s livelihood. Every single phone call to a business will be having this in the back office within 5 to 10 years.
userbinator 6mo ago
The shop can mark a car as done and the LLM can call to inform the client that they can come at a preset, unchanging time to get the vehicle. If the vehicle is staying overnight, the LLM can call with a progress update. This doesn't need an LLM. It can be and has already been done for many years with a simple TTS.
- idle_zealot 6mo ago
  What, you don't want your notification system to slightly change its phrasing and voice each time it's triggered? It's a steal at only 10x the cost.
lesostep 6mo ago
Right it's almost like the preferred solution – since the guy is the source of knowledge, but is under the hood – would be just installing a phone with a loud speaker in a garage that he could answer without using his hands. He knows the prices and the parts, there isn't enough calls to hire a receptionist, and voice controlled systems are quite easy to make. If you use local voice recognition model, you could even mention neural networks in a write up, it's a win-win And it's quite cheaper too, I'd estimate around 200$-300$ for a room. Most of it for a good microphone.
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  There's a lot of stupid keyboard punching that you need to do to create a proper quote. You can't do that from under a car. Someone comes in for a timing belt on a car that needs timing belts. Ok, you've got the parts and labor on the belt itself, those are easy to just look up from a table. But, do you just replace the belt, replace other things related to it as well, or perhaps even go above and beyond and proactively do a water pump or something while you're in there. That's gonna depend on the relative cost/labor differences of those, the customer's intentions, the value of the car, etc. What you really need is someone to answer the phone, pull all that info and then say "hey Jim there's some guy on the phone who needs X, the options are" and then run down all the reasonable combinations and let the tech exercise judgement. This is basically what the service writer does but ideally they get good and don't need to bother the tech for "minor" judgement stuff. And that's all assuming that this is a cookie cutter job.
Drunkfoowl 6mo ago
[dead]
RataNova 6mo ago
I think the post is implicitly assuming a much narrower scope than "full service advisor" but it doesn't state that clearly
MrRobotics 6mo ago
throwaboat, you clearly get it. I'm building in this space and would love to talk. Email's in my bio.

kube-system 6mo ago

I share your skepticism but it does seem like the author addressed 1 and 3: > When a caller asks something that isn’t in the knowledge base, the AI doesn’t guess. It tells the caller it doesn’t have that information, asks for their name and a good callback number, and saves that to MongoDB. Dane gets a list of callbacks to return — no lost leads. > The escalation path is not an edge case — it’s a core feature. I haven't been a service advisor before, but if it's anything like working the phones at other retailers, you get a lot of the same questions over and over again, and a bot could certainly answer those things correctly.

Ntrails 6mo ago
> The phone rings, he can’t answer, the customer hangs up and calls someone else. That’s a lost job — sometimes a $450 brake service, sometimes a $2,000 engine repair — just gone because no one picked up. Sure, that's a problem, but... > Dane gets a list of callbacks to return — no lost leads. Yeah. So. I'm still going to hang up, phone somewhere else, and you get no business. I'm also doubly annoyed because not only did you waste my time speaking to a computer, it couldn't answer the question so I'm now worse off than if you'd ignored the call.
- Fomite 6mo ago
  Yeah - this scenario presupposes that if I need my car fixed I'm going to wait for you to give me a call back, rather than continue working down my list.
  - kube-system 6mo ago
    The AI doesn’t have to solve every problem to solve some problems. If it can answer 10% of questions, isn’t that 10% better than having all of them go to voicemail unanswered?
    - ssl-3 6mo ago
      I mean... Maybe? The data the bot has to work with is stated to already be available the website. Therefore, I'd never call on the phone to find those answers -- but those are the only answers the bot has to offer. The only reason I'd ever call is for answers that the website (and therefore, the bot) does not provide. Calling on the phone and getting a bot that insists on giving me data that I already have would only serve to waste my time and frustrate me. It would probably frustrate me enough to hang up and call a different shop immediately, and name-and-shame the place. I know how to Google shit. By the time I start dialing telephone numbers, I've already Googled this shit. When I call a local shop I want to talk to someone at that local shop (or at very least, their voicemail) -- not a regurgitating bot. But, again, that's just me. --- So I'm imagining my dad, who's in his mid-70s and has never Googled a single thing in his entire life. At least superficially, he sounds like an ideal candidate that can be helped with this automated receptionist. Except: When he calls the shop and has to talk to the bot instead of a person or their voicemail, he's also definitely hanging up immediately and calling the next place on his list. This doesn't help him at all, nor does it help the shop. --- For the shop, the cost of frustrated people who vent to their friends about the experience may very well be higher the cost of not always being available to answer the phone.

ericmcer 6mo ago

Couldn't you blast through all of that with some kind of warning like: "All labor and part prices are estimates, for exact pricing leave your name and number and we will get back to you".

keybored 6mo ago
[dead]
throwaboat 6mo ago
Yes. However, an estimate is not a guess. From the Washington state attorney general’s website: “ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval. The estimate includes, among other things: the odometer reading; a description of the problem or the specific repair requested; choice of alternatives for the customer; the estimated cost; labor and parts necessary for the specific diagnosis/repair requested” So the LLM builds an estimate. Maybe it’s under 10% difference when the customer walks through the door. When it’s not, there’s a big problem. Yes, this is still before work has begun, but now you’ve wasted the customers time. And potentially wasted their money if the vehicle was towed in.
- keerthiko 6mo ago
  > “ Estimate: You are entitled to a written price estimate for the repairs you have authorized before the work is performed, only if you deal face-to-face with the facility and the work is expected to cost more than $100. Once you receive an estimate, the facility may not charge you more than 10% above the estimated costs without your prior approval. I don't see how "estimates" given over the phone by the LLM and "estimate" as mentioned in this quote refers to the same thing, for the legal purpose of this statement. This would be strictly before repairs have been authorized, and it's obviously not a written estimate. If the client requests a written estimate, it would have to come at a later time after the human mechanic reviews related costs (like specialty parts availability/ship times), or the client bringing the machine in for physical inspection by the mechanic. From my understanding of the article, it doesn't sound like the LLM is built to fully circumvent a customer phone call by the owner/mechanic before approving a job request unmanned: It's simply to not let go of a client lead because there was no one available to answer the phone, without needing to hire a full-time phone receptionist. It seems highly unlikely a customer is towing their vehicle in without talking to the mechanic directly first, who now has some context and the ability to sift nonsense requests from realistic ones from the logs before calling or writing to the customer on their own time with all the expert nuance necessary.

matt_daemon 6mo ago

> Finally, I’d like to note that this sort of dev work goes beyond hubris. It’s dangerous. The more we assume we know without verifying, the greater the risk. In this case, the dev is risking someone else’s livelihood. I think this is a bit of an overstatement. The dev states it’s her brother’s business, and one can assume he’s asked her to help him out. Getting the service to be 100% perfect is of course a near impossible challenge, but that’s most likely not the business owner’s concern — they simply want a way to avoid totally losing business. If the service can convert even 10% of customers with a rough quote and timeline it’s most likely useful.

throwaboat 6mo ago
High end shops live off reputation alone. Usually they’re started by a very skilled mechanic who does racing or some other specialty automotive hobby. The exit plan for these guys is usually to sell the shop. Most buyers are usually skilled white collar workers looking for a new hobby. The shop folds after that because they no longer have the same connections to the specialty community. You can get business outside of the specialty auto scene. In fact, it’s required since that’s what actually makes money. Google reviews and word of mouth are king here. So do you remove the owner from the customer experience? I wouldn’t. But if you are going to do that, then, understanding the risk is important.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]

JohnMakin 6mo ago

I am certainly not an expert but I agree a lot with your sentiment about the hubris - but the problem as presented in the article makes no sense to me. If you see a value need for a receptionist, and you suspect that it is costing you thousands of dollars, wouldn't a normal response be, "I should think about hiring someone," rather than turning to an unproven, untested solution like this and leaving your business at the hands of how correct it is? I just cannot understand this line of thinking at all, reaching for a tool that would probably do a worse job than a human would do. Is it not wanting to hire? Not wanting to manage? Hype cycle? Where does this urge come from?

kolinko 6mo ago
Aside from a cost? It's also managing the actual human being, and making sure they have enough work. If the place has 5-10 calls a day, then it's pointless to hire receptionist that will do nothing for 1 hour, and then get 2 minutes chat. It used to be pointless to build software to do that, but since claude code it's cheap enough to make sense.
- skeeter2020 6mo ago
  receptionist as a service has been a thing for like... forever. You are never going to solve the problem of accurately estimating and quoting with AI or an answering service, so pay for someone to answer the phone and take down the details; have a mechanic or trained service rep review and estimate. Cheap code that doesn't solve the problem is not cheap.
  - eucyclos 6mo ago
    Couldn't an ai take down the details and pass it to a mechanic or trained service rep?
    - ssl-3 6mo ago
      Yes, of course. The bot can request information and the customer can provide it if they feel like it, and then someone qualified can call them back when they have their hands free. But there's no bot, per se, needed at all. An answering machine from 1993 can do this same information-gathering job. :)

renewiltord 6mo ago

Realistically, every single mechanic has Google reviews that say “they said it would be $C but it was $D” and so on. You’re claiming a level of rigor I don’t think any real mechanic has.

raw_anon_1111 6mo ago

One of my specialties is creating call centers using Amazon Connect. I agree with everything you said. I wouldn’t let an LLM go near doing a quote or ordering parts.

Barbing 6mo ago
Where do they shine?
- raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
  Intent recognition and tool calling https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241412 And well grounded RAG.

6510 6mo ago

Honest estimates are probably fine. If you are already drowning in work, make everything expensive enough to cover the errors. You always have some % chance to lose money with each customer. If the estimate is to high one can give a discount afterwards. Could play the call on the speaker and decide if it is worth dropping your tools and walking to the phone. Those 10-20 daily marketeers are definitely not it.

jasondigitized 6mo ago

The solution is to have the quote manually prepared, entered into the system of record, and then automate the outbound phone call to let the customer know, and agree to the work based on the accurate quote. That's the savings.

Barbing 6mo ago
That call is really important. “Do I really need to spend all this right now? Can I just get by with x instead of x,y,z?” For now I’m not sure it will be efficient to provide models enough context, for one thing, to do it reliably.
smogcutter 6mo ago
It seems to me that calling the customer to get them to agree on a quote is the most important contact? It’s like telling a salesman to just enter data into a CRM and trust their livelihood to an AI closer. See how that goes over.
uoaei 6mo ago
So you've saved 30 seconds per customer for a total of 3-10 customers calling per day.

drewbeck 6mo ago

From the post it's clear that the shop has a set schedule of services and prices that the bot is pulling from. All the things you're saying are true for a shop that needs to custom quote each job but do not apply to the situation as presented.

ssl-3 6mo ago
It's clear that the author interpreted the data that way, yes. And perhaps the shop actually charges the same for brakes whether it is an Ford F150 or a Toyota Corolla. But that seems very unlikely to me. While they're both very common vehicles, they are also very different and the parts have substantially different costs associated with them.
- kaybe 6mo ago
  From working in such a place I can also tell you the price depends on who is asking.

vasco 6mo ago

userbinator 6mo ago

The shop can mark a car as done and the LLM can call to inform the client that they can come at a preset, unchanging time to get the vehicle. If the vehicle is staying overnight, the LLM can call with a progress update. This doesn't need an LLM. It can be and has already been done for many years with a simple TTS.

idle_zealot 6mo ago
What, you don't want your notification system to slightly change its phrasing and voice each time it's triggered? It's a steal at only 10x the cost.

lesostep 6mo ago

Right it's almost like the preferred solution – since the guy is the source of knowledge, but is under the hood – would be just installing a phone with a loud speaker in a garage that he could answer without using his hands. He knows the prices and the parts, there isn't enough calls to hire a receptionist, and voice controlled systems are quite easy to make. If you use local voice recognition model, you could even mention neural networks in a write up, it's a win-win And it's quite cheaper too, I'd estimate around 200$-300$ for a room. Most of it for a good microphone.

cucumber3732842 6mo ago
There's a lot of stupid keyboard punching that you need to do to create a proper quote. You can't do that from under a car. Someone comes in for a timing belt on a car that needs timing belts. Ok, you've got the parts and labor on the belt itself, those are easy to just look up from a table. But, do you just replace the belt, replace other things related to it as well, or perhaps even go above and beyond and proactively do a water pump or something while you're in there. That's gonna depend on the relative cost/labor differences of those, the customer's intentions, the value of the car, etc. What you really need is someone to answer the phone, pull all that info and then say "hey Jim there's some guy on the phone who needs X, the options are" and then run down all the reasonable combinations and let the tech exercise judgement. This is basically what the service writer does but ideally they get good and don't need to bother the tech for "minor" judgement stuff. And that's all assuming that this is a cookie cutter job.

Drunkfoowl 6mo ago

[dead]

RataNova 6mo ago

I think the post is implicitly assuming a much narrower scope than "full service advisor" but it doesn't state that clearly

MrRobotics 6mo ago

throwaboat, you clearly get it. I'm building in this space and would love to talk. Email's in my bio.