A dealer principal wants to capture more of the enquiries that arrive when the showroom is closed. The workshop manager wants fewer calls asking whether a car is ready. Both have heard about website assistants, and both have questions: will it know our stock, will it confuse sales and service, will it say something we would not?
This guide covers what to look for.
1. Answers from your own pages
The assistant should answer from your website: vehicle pages, finance information, part exchange, servicing, opening hours and location. It should not rely on general knowledge. Ask how it learns your site and how quickly it updates when you add new pages. SpideyChat crawls up to 150 pages and answers from them. For dealers with large inventories, it is worth checking which pages matter most and making sure they are included.
2. Honest handling of stock
Stock changes by the hour. A good assistant says what the website shows and makes clear that staff will confirm availability. It should never promise a car is available. How buyers ask about stock, and why it matters, is covered in car buyers asking questions on the forecourt website.
3. Sales and workshop separation
Dealers with workshops get two kinds of enquiry. Buyers asking about cars, and customers asking about servicing and repairs. They need different details and different teams. Look for an assistant that captures each type properly and routes them to the right place. Workshop bookings are covered in how car dealers and garages book more service work.
4. Lead capture
For sales, the assistant should capture the buyer's name, contact details, the vehicle they are interested in, any part exchange details and when they would like to visit. For service, it should capture the vehicle, the work needed and preferred dates. The value of each captured sales lead is shown in what a missed car sales enquiry costs a dealer.
5. Passing conversations to the showroom or workshop
A buyer unhappy with a recent purchase, a fleet manager with a trade question or a customer disputing a repair bill all need a person. Check that these become tickets with the full conversation, so a salesperson or service adviser picks them up without asking the customer to start again. The demo shows this in action.
6. What it will not say
The assistant should not give financial advice, value a car without seeing it, diagnose a fault or promise prices beyond what you publish. Test these boundaries before launch.
7. Multilingual replies
Many dealers serve buyers who speak other languages. An assistant that replies in the buyer's language widens your reach without extra staff.
8. Integration and limits
Ask what it connects to. SpideyChat works on your website only; it does not answer phones or work over messaging apps. It does not connect directly to dealer management systems. It captures enquiries for your team, and on the Pro plan, webhooks can pass them on to other tools you use.
9. Cost against one extra sale
A single additional car sale or a few extra services a month usually outweighs the subscription many times over. SpideyChat starts with a free plan, then Starter at $9.99 a month and Pro at $29.99 a month, listed on the pricing page.
What to put to any vendor
- If a car sells at noon, when does the assistant stop mentioning it?
- How does it tell a buyer from a service customer?
- What does it say to a question your pages do not cover?
- Where do captured enquiries end up, and in what format?
- How does the price change when the group adds another site?
Lessons from other sectors
Hotels go through a similar decision, covered in choosing a website assistant for a boutique hotel. The same principles apply: accuracy, capture, handover and honesty about limits.
A fortnight on the forecourt
Run it for two weeks across one busy weekend and one quiet week. Each morning, the sales manager and service adviser check the overnight enquiries: was the registration captured, was the car of interest named, was the part exchange described? Where an answer fell short, the fix is usually a vehicle or service page. SpideyChat for automotive dealers and repair shops can be tested this way on the free plan.