Communications
The conversation is spread across four devices
Part of it is on the shop phone, part on somebody's personal cell, part in an inbox nobody else can open. When a customer disputes what was agreed, none of it can be produced. MecanoPro keeps every text and email on the customer's own record, whoever sent it and from whichever device.
- Is my Outback ready yet?
- Yes, it is ready. We are open until 6. You can follow it here: mecanopro.example/s/4f2a
- Customer told it is ready: Marc, by text
- Merci! I will be there at 5.
- Missed call, 4:12 p.m.: text sent automatically
What it is costing you
Every "is it ready yet?" call is a job you are doing twice
Someone stops what they are doing, walks to the bay, looks, walks back, and calls the customer. Then add the customer you missed because the phone rang while everyone was under a hood. There is no statistic on this page. Ask your team.
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How many times a day does someone walk to the bay to answer a customer?
Stops, looks, walks back, and calls: the job is done twice.
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Whose phone holds the last thing the customer was told?
If it is a personal cell, the shop does not have it.
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What happens to the call nobody picked up?
Usually the caller tries the next shop on the list.
One customer, from "ready" to the call nobody took
Seven moments where the conversation scatters, and what MecanoPro keeps together at each.
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2:05 p.m.
The vehicle is ready
On a work order that is Ready, one tap sends a Vehicle Ready text or email with the message already written, in the customer's own language, with a link to their status page. The record shows who sent it, when, and how.
- It is a person's tap, so nobody is told a vehicle is ready before it is. Nothing is sent when a work order merely reaches Ready.
- A text needs text messaging connected and a mobile number on the contact.
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All day
"Is it done yet?" without interrupting anyone
Each customer can have a private status page that needs no sign-in. It shows where the vehicle is, from Checked in to Being worked on, Quality check, Ready and Picked up, with the expected time, the jobs with their amounts, your photos, and a quote waiting for their signature.
- Anyone who holds the link can open it, so it is a link you send to the customer, not one you post. It expires 90 days after the work order closes unless you change it.
- The page ends on Questions? Call us, so the one call left is the one worth taking.
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A message
Written once, kept on the record
From any client, contact or lead, Send Message opens a window with the mode (email or text), the sender, the subject, a template and the message. View Communications shows the whole conversation with that person, with a search box, sent and received together.
- Save any message as a template, one set for email and one for text, visible only to you or to all administrators, with fields for the first name, the last name, the sender and the business.
- Messages are queued rather than instant, and sent and received messages are both logged on the activity timeline. Received texts show as Read or Unread.
- An email can carry up to ten attachments. A text carries one picture and nothing else.
- Email can go out from a team member's own Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Zoho Mail address, with the replies logged on the record. See Email integrations.
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A Facebook message
The customer wrote to your Page instead
Connect your shop's Facebook Page once and every Messenger conversation with it lands in the same thread as the texts and emails, with an unread count and an alert to your team. Nobody has to open Facebook to find out who wrote.
- Facebook gives the Page no phone number and no email address, so a new sender becomes a new lead named from their Facebook profile. Linking one to a client already on file is a decision for a person, never automatic.
- Connecting the Page is for an administrator, and the person needs a role on the Page that allows messaging.
- Messages are received here. Replying is still done in Facebook.
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The quote, the invoice
What was sent, and whether it was opened
Every quote and invoice has its own Send Communication button and an Email & Text History panel: when, Sent, Failed or waiting, who it went to, who pressed send, the subject, and for an email, Opened once or Opened a number of times.
- An invoice sent by text goes as a link to an online copy that needs no sign-in, not as a PDF, and it opens in the system's default language.
- When a customer says they never got it, the history says who sent it, when, and whether it failed.
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French and English
Each customer in their own language
A client has a preferred language, and what MecanoPro sends on its own follows it: appointment reminders, payment reminders, review requests, the missed-call reply and tire changeover reminders. Each member of your team chooses their own language on the screen.
- The work order prints as a PDF in English or in French, and a customer who has switched off email or texts does not get that kind of reminder.
- Quote and invoice PDFs are printed in the language the person sending them chooses from the menu, which is not always the customer's.
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4:12 p.m.
The phone rings and everyone is under a hood Elite and up
With the Phone system, every call is one more line in the customer's history beside the emails and texts. A missed call from a mobile number gets an automatic text back in the caller's language, so the job does not go down the road.
- Answered calls and voicemails are recorded, anyone with View can play them, and downloading needs Admin. A call is logged on the person's timeline, for example 4:12 - recorded.
- Transcripts and AI summaries are switched on in settings. A summary is only made for a call with more than a couple of exchanges.
- The automatic text is sent once per call, only for a caller on file, and only if you wrote the message.
Where it stops and you start
A record of every message is only worth what was sent through it. Here is what it leaves to you.
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A thread is a conversation, not a shared inbox
Messages are kept per person and per client. A customer's emailed reply is logged only if the mailbox it reached is connected (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Zoho Mail) and mailbox reading is switched on, which it is not by default, and an inbound text needs the text-receiving key set up.
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Nothing goes on its own
The ready message, a signature request and a review invite are each a tap by a person. A text needs text messaging connected and a mobile number on the contact, and every text feature is hidden without it.
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Opt-outs live where MecanoPro sends by itself
A review request carries its own Stop asking me link, and a client can switch email or text reminders off in their portal. A message your team writes by hand has no unsubscribe on it: that one is your judgment.
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The phone is its own project
It connects to a phone server through an installer, transcripts need the AI module and a speech-to-text key and cost a little per call, and who can listen is set by permission. The rest of this page works without it.
Your customers already want to hear from you without calling
In the demo we send a real text to your own phone, from a real work order, and you see exactly what your customer would see.
See it running on your own work orders
Thirty minutes, at a time that suits the shop. We load a few of your real jobs in and you tell us where it would break.