Talkify / Integrations / Workshop Software
Early access · Workshop Software

A workshop answering service that reads your real diary.

It offers a day your diary can actually take the job, not just a day you happen to be open. Talkify is a workshop answering service for businesses running Workshop Software in Australia and New Zealand: it answers your phone in a real voice, reads your booking diary live, and offers the days that are genuinely open once your roster, your holidays, what is already booked, how long the job takes and how full you let a day get have all been taken off. Then it asks what time of day suits, gets the rego and what the car is doing in the customer's own words, and sends the booking through for you to accept.

Get early access → Hear it answer · 03 242 1262 Text our agent · 027 204 8827
Connection
Booking API keys
Your services
Its exact wording
Your diary
Read live
You accept
Every booking

The Workshop Software connector is in early access. It is built and tested against Workshop Software's published booking API, and we are switching it on one workshop at a time so we sit with you while it goes live rather than leaving you to it. The day it offers is real; the time is the one your customer asked for, and what it sends is still a request you accept, the same as one off your own website booking form.

Thursday Workshop diary Live
Bay
  1. 7:30 Corolla, WOF Booked Tuesday 1
  2. 8:15 Hilux, brake noise Taken on the phone 2
  3. 9:00 Ranger, 90,000km service Booked Tuesday 1
  4. 10:00 Swift, warrant recheck Taken on the phone 3
  5. 11:15 Outlander, cambelt Booked Monday 2
  6. 1:00 Navara, clutch inspect Taken after hours 1
  7. 2:15 Demio, battery and alt Booked Wednesday 3
  8. 3:30 Triton, tow-in, no start Taken on the phone 2
  9. 4:15 Yaris, tyres and align Booked Wednesday 1
Booked while you worked4
Offered an open dayEvery one
Calls to voicemailNone

A service adviser who never puts the phone down.

Everything it does, on the days when three people ring while you are torquing a wheel and the parts van is at the roller door.

From the phone ringing to a job in your diary.

Six things happen while your hands are dirty. You do none of them.

01

It answers, properly

On the first ring, in a genuine New Zealand voice, using your workshop name and your greeting. No hold music, no menu, no "press one for parts". Five people can ring at once and all five get answered.

02

It works out the job

Customers say warrant, cambelt, regas and full service. Your appointment types say WOF, timing belt, air conditioning and something more specific. The agent matches everyday words to your wording, and asks which one you mean rather than guessing between your major and your minor.

03

It reads your real diary

Not a list of days you are open. The days that can actually take the job, with your roster, your holidays, the bookings already in, how long that particular job takes and how full you let a day get all worked out first. A half-hour warrant and a four-hour cambelt do not get offered the same day.

04

It offers two or three days

Never the whole list, and never a day it was not given. The caller picks one and says what time of day suits, and that is what gets sent.

05

It gets the vehicle and the symptom

The rego first, read back to check, because Workshop Software will not take a booking without it. Then make, model and year where they know them, and the fault: what it sounds like, when it started, whether it does it cold, what light came on. In their words, because that is what saves you a diagnostic phone call.

06

It sends the booking

After one last check that the day is still open. It lands in Workshop Software as an online booking request for you to accept, and the caller is told you will confirm the time. You get the whole call as a text and an email within seconds.

What it does with your Workshop Software.

Your appointment types and your booking diary, working the phone at the hours a workshop cannot.

Your services, your wording

The agent already knows your appointment types before the phone rings, in your exact wording and with the hours you allow for each, so it offers work you actually do instead of inventing a menu. It is kept current for you rather than retyped whenever you change something.

Your diary, read live

This is the part most phone answering cannot do. Availability comes out of your own booking diary on the call, already netted against what is booked, your company holidays, the length of the chosen job and how full you are willing to let a day get. Workshop Software answers that by the day rather than by the hour, so the agent offers the day and asks your customer what time suits.

Your customers, recognised

Workshop Software cannot be asked who a phone number belongs to, so instead we copy your customer list into your own Talkify address book and keep it in step. A regular is then recognised the moment they ring and greeted by name, and the agent can tell them what they are booked in for, what your team has written on the job card and what is still owing. Copy the vehicles across as well and "I am ringing about ABC123" works from any phone, which is how people really ring: from work, from a partner's mobile, opening with the rego rather than their name. Both are optional, both are off until you ask, and they need a second set of Workshop Software API credentials because the booking keys do not reach the customer side.

The booking, sent for you

The day, the time they asked for, the rego, the caller, the vehicle and the fault in their own words, sitting in your online booking requests when you come off the tools. Nothing to re-key at five o'clock, and the note says it came in by phone.

You still accept it

Workshop Software online booking runs on requests, so the agent sends one and says you will confirm shortly. It is told never to say a caller is confirmed and never to invent a booking reference, because there is not one to give.

No prices over the phone

It does not quote. Pricing a job on a noise the customer has described is how workshops end up eating the difference, so it takes the detail and leaves the number to you.

The rest reaches a human fast

"Is my car ready", "can you move me to Friday", "how much was that bill". Those are not on the booking connection, so the agent takes a proper message with the name, the rego and what they wanted, and the urgent ones are warm-transferred to whoever is free.

What it will not do yet.

Worth reading before you decide, because we would rather you knew now than found out on a call.

It cannot say the car is ready.

It can tell a customer what they are booked in for, what your team wrote on the job card and what is still owing. What it will not do is tell them the vehicle is finished. Workshop Software marks that with a status code it has never published the meaning of, and we are not prepared to guess at one and send somebody across town to a car still on the hoist. So the agent says it can see the job but not whether it is done, and offers to have you ring straight back. The day their code list arrives, this stops being a limit.

It cannot move a booking or quote a price.

Changing or cancelling an existing booking is not something Workshop Software's booking connection can do, so those come to you as a message with the name, the rego and what they wanted, as a text and an email within seconds. Pricing it will not do on purpose rather than by accident: a number said on the phone is a number you are held to, and the agent does not know what the car needs until somebody has looked at it.

Live line · Answering right now

Do not take our word for how it sounds.

Ring our agent and put it through its paces. Book a fake WOF, describe a noise badly, try to catch it out, ask it something it will not know. Most people ring expecting a robot and hang up having had a conversation. No sign-up, no card, answering around the clock.

Call the demo line 03 242 1262 Or leave your number in the form below and it will ring you instead.

The calls you are losing are during the day.

Everyone thinks about the answering machine at night. That is not where the work goes missing.

Half past eight, and everybody rings at once.

Drop-offs are queued at the counter, the parts rep is waiting, two cars are on hoists and the phone has gone four times. One service adviser cannot absorb that, and the overflow used to be a busy tone or a voicemail nobody listens to until lunchtime. The agent answers all four at the same moment, in your name.

A missed call is the workshop up the road.

Somebody whose warrant expires on Friday rings three workshops and books the one that picks up. That is a job, plus the tyres, plus the brake pads it turns into, decided by who answered rather than by who was better. Work out what yours are worth on the missed call calculator.

And it does rather more than answer the phone.

The same agent, the same knowledge of your workshop, pointed in the other direction. Every one of these is live today.

It rings people back →

Service reminders when a WOF or a logbook interval is due. "Your car is ready" calls. Win-backs to the customers you have not seen since the last warrant. You load the list, it makes the calls.

It chases your money →

Connected to your Xero, the agent rings the invoices that have gone past due, in your name and your wording, and writes the outcome and any promise to pay onto the invoice. No commission, no collection agency.

It answers your website →

The same brain in a chat widget on your site, in text or voice, from $49 a month. It knows the same services and the same free times as the one on the phone.

It asks the questions →

Phone surveys that ring your customer list after a service, ask how the car has been and report the answers back, without anyone at the counter sitting on hold.

It scales on the big days →

The Monday after a long weekend, or the week the cold snap kills every battery in town. Call centre plans answer five, ten or fifteen callers at the same moment, with no queue and no hold music.

It can answer your own mobile →

The Personal Assistant answers one person's own line rather than the workshop number, screens the rubbish and texts you what mattered. From $89 a month.

Frequently asked.

The questions we hear most. If yours isn't here, ring our live demo agent on 03 242 1262, it'll either answer or queue a callback from a human.

What is a workshop answering service?
It is a service that picks up the workshop phone when the people who could answer it are all on the tools. A booking taken badly is worse than a missed call, so the part that matters is what happens after "hello": whether the day offered is one you can actually take the job on, whether the rego and the fault get written down properly, and whether it reaches your diary without anybody re-keying it. Talkify does all three by reading your Workshop Software diary on the call.
Does it work in Australia as well as New Zealand?
Yes. Workshop Software is Australian built and sells across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Australian workshops are answered on +61 numbers held in Australian data centres and New Zealand ones on +64 numbers here. The services offered on the call are the ones in your own diary, so it books a rego inspection in Australia and a WOF in New Zealand.
Do I have to change my phone number?
No. Talkify works by call forwarding from the number your customers already have. You choose when it picks up: always, only when you are already on a call, only when nobody answers within a few rings, or only outside your hours. It takes a few minutes to set up with your phone provider and you can turn it off just as fast. Nothing is ported and no hardware is installed.
How does it connect to Workshop Software?
Workshop Software issues a public booking API key, a secret and a company id for online booking. You paste those three into Talkify and you are connected. Worth knowing: those are not the same as the main Workshop API credentials, so if you already have a set for something else, ask for the public booking ones specifically. There is no developer work and no password to hand over.
Does it know who is ringing?
It can, if you switch it on. Workshop Software cannot be asked who a phone number belongs to, so instead we copy your customer list into your own Talkify address book and keep it in step. After that the agent recognises a regular the moment they ring and greets them by name, and it can tell them what they are booked in for, what your team has written on the job card and what is still owing. It is optional, it is off until you ask for it, and it needs a second set of API credentials from Workshop Software that are different from the booking ones.
Can it handle "I am ringing about ABC123"?
Yes, once your vehicles are copied across too. That matters more than it sounds, because people ring from their partner's phone, from work, from a number you have never seen, and they open with the rego rather than their name. With the vehicles in, the agent turns that registration into the customer, their booking and their balance without anybody spelling a surname. Workshop Software itself cannot be asked to find a vehicle by its plate, so this only works because the list is sitting in your Talkify account.
Can it really offer a day, or does it just guess?
It offers real days. Your booking diary is read live before the agent opens its mouth, and Workshop Software has already taken your roster and knocked out what is booked, what is a company holiday, how long the chosen job actually takes and how full you are willing to let a day get. What comes back is the days that can genuinely take the job. The agent offers two or three of those, never a day you did not give it, and never one it remembers from an earlier call. Times are a different matter: Workshop Software does not publish them, so the agent asks the caller what time of day suits and sends that through for you to settle when you accept the booking. It is told never to promise a particular time.
Who confirms the booking, us or the agent?
You do. The day is real, but what the agent sends is an online booking request, and it lands in Workshop Software for someone at the workshop to accept, the same as a request off your own website. The agent tells the caller you will confirm the time with them shortly and it is told never to say they are confirmed. It will not invent a booking reference either, because Workshop Software does not give one back for an online request.
What actually lands in Workshop Software after a call?
A booking request carrying the day and the time the caller asked for, the registration, the caller's name, a contact number, their email if they gave one, the make, model and year where they knew them, the services matched to your own appointment types, and a note describing the fault in the customer's own words. The note is the part that saves you a phone call: symptoms, noises, when it started, any warning lights, rather than one word like "service". It also says the booking was taken by phone, because there is no field on the request marking where it came from.
Will it offer a service we do not do?
No. The list it offers comes from your own appointment types, in your exact wording, and it is refreshed for you rather than typed in by hand. Callers do not talk in trade titles, so the agent translates: a warrant is a WOF, a certificate of fitness is a COF, a regas is air conditioning, a cambelt is a timing belt. If what they describe is a fault rather than a service, a noise or a warning light, it does not force it onto the list. It books the vehicle in and puts the fault in the note.
What if the caller describes something that is not on our list at all?
You decide in advance. Workshop Software will not take a booking without a service on it, so either you nominate one of your own appointment types as the catch-all, usually a general or diagnostic slot, and the agent books that with the caller's own words written into the note, or you leave that blank and the agent takes a message instead. It never guesses at a service, because a wrong job on your diary is worse than a message you read in five minutes.
Do we have to give it the registration?
Workshop Software does, so yes. A booking request will not go through without a plate number, which is why the agent asks for it early and reads it back to check it has heard it right rather than leaving it to the end of the call.
What happens if the day fills up while we are on the phone?
The agent checks it again at the moment it books. If the day has filled in the meantime it does not send the booking, it apologises and offers what is left, so nobody is put into a day you have already given away. And if the diary itself cannot be read for a moment, it sends the booking anyway rather than losing you a real job over a hiccup.
Can it tell someone when their car will be ready, or what it will cost?
Not yet, and it says so rather than guessing. That is a limit of the online booking connection rather than a choice: it can offer times and send bookings, and it cannot look a customer up, read a job's status or price anything. The caller gets a straight answer that someone will ring them back, and you get their name, their number and what they wanted as a text and an email within seconds. Caller recognition and "is my car ready" are what we are building next.
Does it know who is ringing?
From our side, yes. Talkify keeps its own phonebook, built from the calls it has already taken, so someone who rang you in March is greeted by name in July and does not have to spell their street or their surname again, or repeat what they drive. That is Talkify's own record rather than a read of your Workshop Software customer list.
Can we watch it before it starts booking?
Yes, and you should. Connecting Workshop Software gives you the connection and the test buttons straight away, and the booking tools stay off until you switch them on. Connect it, look at the services and the open days it reads back, then let it start sending bookings once you like what you see.
Does it only answer after hours?
That is the assumption most workshops start with, and the call reports say otherwise. The majority of calls an agent answers arrive inside ordinary business hours, because the phone rings while the person who would pick it up is under a car, on the parts line or out on a test drive. It covers both: the overflow at half past eight in the morning when everybody rings at once, and the ones that used to hit voicemail at seven at night.
What does it cost?
Talkify business agents are $129/month at the founding rate for your first 3 months, then $199, including 200 minutes of calls, with extra minutes from 10c each. There is no setup fee, no per-call charge and no lock-in, so a flat-out week costs the same as a quiet one. That sits alongside whatever you already pay for Workshop Software; we do not touch your subscription.
Where does my call data live?
Audio, transcripts and call details are stored in New Zealand data centres and encrypted at rest with AES-256, in line with the Privacy Act. Those recordings contain your customers' personal information, which makes you responsible for them, so it is a fair question to ask any supplier and get the answer in writing.
We are in Australia, not New Zealand.
That is fine. New Zealand and Australian workshops both run on the same Workshop Software instance, which is why the booking request carries a warrant of fitness date. Australian numbers are answered in Australian data centres and New Zealand numbers in New Zealand ones.
We do not use Workshop Software.
Then none of this is a reason to switch. Talkify answers your workshop phone, books into Google Calendar or Outlook, and texts you the summary regardless of what you run the workshop on, or whether you run anything at all. The Workshop Software connection just removes the retyping for the workshops that do use it.

Have a look around.

For automotive →

How the agent handles a workshop day, from the eight thirty rush to the after-hours breakdown.

Running MechanicDesk instead? →

There is a connector for that too. It offers the days you are open, where Workshop Software can tell us which days can actually take the job once what is booked and how long it takes are counted, because that is as far as the MechanicDesk booking API goes.

Every integration →

What Talkify connects to today, and what your agent can do once it is connected.

TALKIFY FOR WORKSHOP SOFTWARE · AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND · 2026

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