It is 7:40 on a Saturday evening. You have locked up, the kettle is on, and a buyer has just sent an enquiry about the Golf on your forecourt. Is it still available? Can they see it this week? They have a Fiesta to part-exchange. Without AI lead replies, here is what usually happens.
You see it on Monday morning. You write a decent reply. By then they have already booked a test drive somewhere else.
Nobody did anything wrong. The enquiry arrived when the business was closed, and the reply went out when the business was open. That is how most dealerships work, and it is exactly how most online leads go cold.
Car buyers rarely enquire with just one dealer. They send three or four messages on the same evening and talk to whoever comes back first with a helpful answer. Industry research has long found that leads contacted within five minutes are far more likely to convert than leads left for an hour or more. A reply the next working day is not in that race.
AI lead replies are how we close that gap.
What it does
When a new enquiry lands in your dealer management system, Vehiso drafts a personalised reply to it in seconds.
Not a "thanks for your enquiry, someone will be in touch" acknowledgement. A proper answer. The draft reads the customer's message, looks up the real details of the car they asked about, and writes back with what they actually wanted to know, plus a sensible next step such as a test drive or a part-exchange valuation.
Your team checks it, then sends it by email or SMS in one click.
Here is the Saturday evening enquiry again, with a draft reply:
Hi James, thanks for your interest in the 2019 Volkswagen Golf 1.5 TSI Match. Good news: it's still available, at £13,495 with 41,000 miles. We'd be happy to book you a test drive this week, and we can value your 2015 Ford Fiesta while you're here. Just reply with a day and time that suits you.
That is an illustrative example, but it is the shape of what you get: it answers the question, confirms the facts, picks up the part-exchange, and asks for a time.
Where the enquiries come from
Drafted automatically. New enquiries from your Vehiso website, CarGurus and Motors.co.uk get a draft reply without anyone asking for one. It is sitting on the enquiry by the time you open it.
One click for everything else. If an enquiry was added by hand, say from Auto Trader or a phone call you logged, your team can generate a reply with one click on the enquiry.
So every lead can get the same quality of answer, wherever it started. The only difference is whether the draft is waiting for you or one click away.
It uses your stock, and it does not make things up
This is the bit dealers ask about first, and rightly so. A fast reply that gets the price wrong is worse than a slow one.
The draft is written from your real stock data: the price, the mileage, the spec and the availability of the car in question. It never invents prices, finance figures or availability. If a detail is not in your stock record, it is not going into the reply as if it were.
That also means your stock records matter. A car with the right price and a proper spec on it gets a better reply than one with half the fields empty. If you have been meaning to tidy up your listings, our guide to vehicle stock pages that convert is a good place to start.
You stay in charge of what goes out
Every draft appears on the enquiry, and your team decides what to do with it.
Edit it. Change a line, add a detail only you know, soften the tone for a regular.
Regenerate it. If the first draft is not quite right, ask for another.
Send it as it is. If it says what you would have said, send it by email or SMS and move on to the next one.
You set the tone of voice that suits your dealership, such as friendly or professional, and the sign-off your customers see. A family-run forecourt and a prestige showroom should not sound the same, and they will not.
Every reply is logged on the enquiry and on the customer's timeline, so whoever picks up the lead next can see exactly what was said. It sits alongside your other messages in SMS and email communication, not in a separate inbox.
Out of hours: the optional auto-send
Back to Saturday evening.
With drafts alone, the reply is ready and waiting on Monday. That is better than writing from scratch, but it does not fix the timing.
That is what out-of-hours auto-send is for. Switch it on, and replies to enquiries that arrive outside your opening hours go out automatically. The 7:40pm enquiry gets a personalised answer straight away, confirming the car is available and offering a test drive on Monday.
The buyer hears from you while they are still sat on the sofa comparing dealers. You pick up the conversation in the morning, already in the lead.
Auto-send is off by default. We think that is the right starting point: use the drafts during opening hours for a week or two, see how they read, and switch auto-send on once you trust them. You can switch it back off whenever you like.
Where it fits
Lead replies handle the first answer. That is the one that matters most, but it is rarely the whole sale.
Plenty of buyers read a good reply and then go quiet. They are waiting for payday, or talking it over at home, or looking at two other cars. For those, the AI follow-up agent picks up where the first reply leaves off, with a short, spaced sequence of messages that stops the moment your salesperson should take over.
And for the buyer who has not enquired yet, the one browsing your website late at night with a question, the AI website assistant answers from your stock in a chat and passes call back requests to you as enquiries.
Reply fast, keep quiet leads warm, answer people on the site. Three different jobs, one place to manage them.
A few honest limits
It drafts, it does not sell. A good first reply gets you the conversation. Closing the deal, handling the part-exchange negotiation and getting the buyer on the forecourt is still your team's work.
It is only as good as your stock data. It will not invent a price or a spec, which also means it cannot fill in details you have not recorded. Missing data makes for a thinner reply.
Automatic drafts cover website, CarGurus and Motors.co.uk enquiries. Enquiries from other sources, including Auto Trader leads you add by hand, need one click to generate a reply.
Check before you trust auto-send. Out-of-hours sending is off until you switch it on, and it is worth reading a good number of drafts first. It is your name at the bottom of every message.
Which plan it is on
AI lead replies are included on every paid plan, from £49 a month, with nothing extra to buy. They are not on the Free plan. You switch them on or off from the AI features page in your Vehiso settings.
You can try any paid plan free for 7 days with no credit card required, and the full comparison is on the pricing page.
If you have ever opened your enquiries on a Monday and wondered how many of them were already lost, this is the fix. Have a look at AI lead replies and see how it would handle your next Saturday evening enquiry.
