WhatsApp for automotive
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Read moreCustomer story · Automotive
How Regal Motors booked 5× more service visits on WhatsApp
Service bays sat under-booked while the call centre missed four in ten inbound calls. Regal Motors moved reminders, bookings and advisor conversations to WhatsApp — and the bays filled.
Automotive retail~120 staffPune + 4 citiesWhatsApp Business APIChatbots & automationBroadcast campaignsShared team inbox
Executive summary
Regal Motors, a multi-city two-wheeler and car dealership group, replaced reminder calls and SMS blasts with WhatsApp booking flows connected to its dealer management system. Within a quarter, monthly service bookings through the channel grew to five times the phone-era baseline — much of it outside call-centre hours.
5×
increase in monthly service bookings via WhatsApp
68%
of started booking flows completed
41%
of bookings made outside call-centre hours
4 min
median advisor response time in the shared inbox
The challenge
Where the numbers leaked
Regal Motors runs two-wheeler and car dealerships across Pune and four neighbouring cities, and service is where the margin lives. The trouble was reach: the call centre that booked those services missed roughly 40% of inbound calls at peak, and the service-due reminders that went out by SMS drew single-digit responses. Customers were not declining a service — they simply never had a usable way to say yes.
The cost compounded quietly. Bays sat under-booked while local garages picked up the lapsed services, advisors spent their first hour each morning working through a dial list, and a customer who wanted to book at 9 pm — after the call centre closed — had nowhere to go.
Before the rollout
- 40% of inbound service calls went unanswered at peak hours
- SMS service reminders drew single-digit response rates
- No way to book after the call centre closed at 7 pm
- Advisors started each day on a dial list, not the service floor
Implementation
Kickoff to live campaigns in three weeks
- 1
Week 0
Kickoff and number migration
Business verification completed and the group's service number migrated to the WhatsApp Business API, so reminders came from a number customers already recognised.
- 2
Week 1
Templates and booking flows
Service-due reminder templates approved, the dealer management system connected over the REST API, and the one-tap slot-picker flow built and tested against live DMS data.
- 3
Week 2
Team onboarding
Service advisors across all five cities onboarded to the shared inbox, with routing by location and an escalation path for warranty and complaint conversations.
- 4
Week 3+
Campaigns live
Service-due broadcasts switched on for opted-in customers at 30, 14 and 3 days out, with read rates, flow completion and bookings tracked daily in the dashboard.
Architecture
How the pieces connect
Dealer management system
Service-due dates & slot writeback
WhatsApp Business API
Verified business number
Broadcast campaigns
Service-due reminders
Chatbots & automation
Slot-picker booking flow
Shared team inbox
Advisors in 5 cities
Integrations touched: DMS via REST API · Booking webhooks · Advisor rosters
Automation
The workflows doing the work
Service-due reminder to booked slot
Service due in 14 days (DMS)WhatsApp reminder with vehicle detailsOne-tap slot pickerBooking written back to the DMS
Day-before confirmation
Appointment tomorrowConfirmation with reschedule buttonReschedule frees the slot instantlyAdvisor sheet final by 6 pm
In the conversation
What customers actually see
The core flow: a service-due reminder lands, the customer books in three taps, and the slot writes back to the dealer management system.
Your Alto VXi (MH12 AB 4321) is due for its 20,000 km service. Slots are open at Regal Motors Baner this week.
Book a slot
Remind me later
Book a slot
Pick a time that works — a service advisor will confirm pickup options.
Tue 9:30 am
Tue 4:00 pm
Wed 10:00 am
Tue 9:30 am
Confirmed — Tuesday, 9:30 am at Regal Motors Baner. Reply PICKUP if you would like us to collect the car from your home.
Before vs after
The same metrics, one quarter apart
Monthly service bookings from reminders
Before
240 · calls & SMS
After
1,200 · WhatsApp
Reminder response rate
Before
6% · SMS
After
68% · booking flow
Median advisor response time
Lower is better
Before
42 min · phone queue
After
4 min · shared inbox
ROI analysis
The math, kept honest
The arithmetic in this scenario is straightforward: reminders and booking flows run on utility messages, and the recovered work is service revenue on bays that were already staffed and lit.
Monthly cost
Plan + messages
One Growth plan covering all locations, plus Meta's message charges billed per delivered message — your live rate card in the dashboard shows exact prices.
Recovered value
~960 extra services / month
In this scenario the channel adds roughly 960 services a month over the phone-era baseline. At even a modest average invoice, that is a large multiple of the messaging spend.
Payback framing
First week of the month
Framed conservatively, the first few dozen recovered bookings each month cover the channel in this scenario — everything after is margin on bays that used to sit idle.
We stopped measuring the service desk by calls made and started measuring it by bays filled. Reminders, confirmations and reschedules run themselves now — advisors only handle the conversations that need a human.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How long did it take to go live?
About three weeks from kickoff to live campaigns in this scenario: number migration in week 0, template approval and the booking flow in week 1, advisor onboarding in week 2, and service-due broadcasts from week 3.
What does a deployment like this cost?
Platform plans are listed on /pricing. Meta's message charges are billed per delivered message; your live rate card in the dashboard shows exact prices. The 7-day free trial (Lite plan, no card required) lets you try the basics, but the chatbot booking flow and DMS webhooks shown here are on the Growth plan and above — the full reminder flow runs on a paid Growth plan.
Did it need IT work from the dealership?
One integration: the dealer management system pushes service-due dates and receives bookings back over the REST API and webhooks. Most groups complete it with one developer in a few days, with InfiQ's onboarding team pairing on the mapping.
Can advisors still call customers?
Yes. The shared inbox shows the full conversation history, so an advisor can pick up the phone for anything complex — the point is that routine bookings no longer require it.
About this story
This case study is a composite scenario prepared by the InfiQ team to illustrate a typical automotive deployment on the platform. Metrics represent modeled outcomes for this scenario rather than the reported results of a single named customer.
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