AI phone assistant for tyre shops
Half the calls are the same question: do you have my size in stock. Tel-Agent takes the size off the sidewall and answers the rest.
- Tyre size
- How many
- Mobile fitting
Why a tyre shop's phone is mostly one question
A tyre shop takes the same call all day: do you have my size, and what does it cost. Both are lookups, both need a string of numbers off a sidewall, and neither needs a fitter to leave a bay to answer them - but they arrive during exactly the hours the bays are full.
How the AI receptionist handles a tyre enquiry
It answers while the bays stay working.
It asks for the size off the sidewall and reads it back digit by digit.
If the caller cannot find it, it takes the registration instead.
It asks how many, and whether this is winter or summer fitment.
It asks whether they are at the roadside, which turns an enquiry into a call-out.
What the agent is told to ask
Written by you, in your own words, as the assistant’s instructions.
What a tyre phone assistant should and should not do
What it does
- Answers while every bay is occupied
- Takes the size and confirms it back
- Falls back to the registration when the size is unreadable
- Separates a roadside blowout from a booking
- Keeps enquiry records on the shop's own machine
What it never does
- Confirm stock it has not been given
- Recommend a tyre brand or rating
- Say whether a tyre is legal or safe to drive on
- Quote a fitted price that was not supplied
- Send customer data to a third-party server
Questions
Can it check stock?
It takes the size and the quantity and the answer goes back as a callback or a message. Reading live stock needs the shop's system wired in through the HTTP tool, which is possible and is not built yet.
What if the caller cannot read the sidewall?
It takes the registration instead. Most callers are standing next to the car, and one of the two is always available.
Does it handle roadside calls?
Whether they are at the roadside is asked, because a blowout on a hard shoulder is a call-out and a safety matter, not a booking. Those reach a person.
Can it advise which tyre to buy?
No. Rating, brand and load index are a fitter's advice, and a wrong recommendation on a phone is a wrong tyre on a car.
What about the winter tyre season?
Winter or summer is asked, because in Austria it is a legal season rather than a preference, and the whole trade compresses into a few weeks around it.
Does the EU AI Act allow an AI to answer a fitting booking?
Yes, under Article 50 of Regulation 2024/1689, which asks that the caller be told they are speaking to a machine - that line belongs in the greeting you configure. Nothing about this work falls under Annex III, the list of high-risk uses. The distinction the Act draws is between assisting and deciding, and this agent assists: it never quotes a repair or judges whether a car is safe to drive. Austria's KI-Servicestelle at RTR publishes the same reading of the transparency duty.
Who is the data controller for what a caller to a tyre shop says on the phone?
You are. A fitting booking is ordinary personal data and vehicle records, and Tel-Agent is self-hosted with your own model keys, so the recording, the transcript and the record it writes stay on your server and never reach Dpro GmbH. There is no processor agreement to sign with us because we never receive the data, and the source is AGPL-3.0, so you can check that rather than take our word for it.
Can a tyre shop run this in the United States?
There is no single federal AI statute to comply with, but a phone line carries older rules. The TCPA governs automated outbound calls, and consent to record is set state by state. Consent to record is set state by state, and California and Illinois among others want every party to agree. Running the software yourself makes you the caller of record, so the disclosure and the recording switch are yours to set.
Not usable yet. The day it answers a real call will be a release, not a newsletter.
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