The problem
The owner did most of his lead conversion in Instagram DMs. Customers would send a photo of their car asking "how much for a full detail?", and the owner would reply when he was off a job — often 6 to 10 hours later. By then half the leads had moved on to whoever replied first.
He didn't want to hire a sales person. He wanted his phone to stop owning him.
What we built
A custom agent reads new Instagram DMs through Meta's Messenger API for Business. It classifies the vehicle from the photo (sedan / SUV / truck / specialty), identifies the requested service (express / full / paint correction / ceramic), and chooses one of three paths:
- Reply with a quote band and a booking link if the request is in-band.
- Ask one clarifying question (interior condition, schedule preference), then quote.
- Escalate to the owner for high-value jobs above a configurable threshold (defaults to $800).
Instagram DM quote bot
A second workflow handles booking and deposit capture: when the customer taps the link, they pick a bay slot and pay a $50 deposit through Stripe. The agent confirms by SMS with the address and what to bring.
The numbers
"I don't open Instagram on the job anymore. The bot books, the customer pays, and I just show up." — owner, month 2