Brad runs a mobile vehicle repair business, which means most of his working day is spent out on the road rather than in a workshop. On any given day he might be servicing a car on someone's driveway, diagnosing a warning light in an office car park, or helping a stranded driver get back on the road.
Like many small trade businesses, the phone number customers call goes straight to him.
As the business grew busier, that simple setup started to create a familiar problem. Calls would come in throughout the day while Brad was already working on another vehicle, and deciding whether to answer them was rarely straightforward. Sometimes he could pick up quickly, but often he was halfway through a repair or running diagnostics and couldn't break away without losing his place.
By the time he finished a job and checked his phone, several missed calls might be waiting.
Working out what each one was about took time. Some callers genuinely needed help, while others were simply asking for rough prices or comparing options. Without speaking to them, it was difficult to know which enquiries were worth prioritising.
““You'd finish a job, check your phone and see a handful of missed calls,” Brad explains. “Then you're trying to remember who said what and which job is worth calling back.”
Brad didn't want a traditional call centre, and he was clear that he didn't want anything pretending to diagnose vehicles or hand out quotes on his behalf. What he needed was a way for every call to be answered and the key details captured so he could decide how to respond once he had finished the job in front of him.
After trying Clara, the phone line stopped feeling like a constant interruption.
When someone calls the business now, Clara answers immediately and asks a few straightforward questions about the vehicle and the problem the customer is experiencing. Those details are recorded and summarised so Brad can see who called, where they're located, and what they need.
When he finishes the repair he's working on, he can quickly review which enquiries are worth calling back first.
““It's taken away that feeling that I need to pick up every call. Now I can see what's come in and deal with the ones that actually matter.”
For a business that operates almost entirely from a van and a mobile phone, that shift has made the working day feel much more manageable.
