Coggleby Glossary

31 terms — operational, integration, and compliance vocabulary used throughout Coggleby documentation and blog posts.

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After-hours coverage: Inbound call answering outside posted shop hours. Independent shops often miss tow and emergency-symptom calls overnight; an AI front desk captures the request, triages drivable-vs-tow, and queues the casefile for the morning.
Related: AI front desk, Tow triage
AI front desk: Automated voice agent that answers inbound calls, captures vehicle and symptom data, and writes a structured estimate request into the shop management system. Replaces voicemail and reduces interruptions to the service advisor.
Related: Service advisor, Shop management system
AutoLeap: A cloud-based shop management system widely used by independent auto-repair shops. Coggleby writes estimate requests directly into AutoLeap as customer + vehicle + repair-order records.
Related: Shop management system, Estimate request

Bay utilization: The proportion of available service-bay hours occupied by paying repair orders. Low utilization is usually a scheduling and intake problem, not a marketing problem.
Related: Service advisor, Estimate request
Bilingual coverage: The ability to intake a call in the caller's preferred language without manual routing. Spanish-speaking customers are a meaningful share of inbound calls in many US metros; an AI front desk that auto-detects language preserves the call.
Related: AI front desk, Language detection

CARFAX: Vehicle-history report service. Not directly integrated with intake, but VIN capture during intake makes downstream CARFAX lookups trivial for the service advisor.
Related: VIN, Vehicle history

Drivable vs tow: Triage decision made during intake: can the vehicle safely reach the shop under its own power, or does it need a tow? This single bit of information drives whether the caller needs an estimate slot or an immediate dispatch.
Related: Tow triage, Symptom checklist
DTC code: Diagnostic Trouble Code — a standardized identifier (e.g. P0420) emitted by the vehicle's OBD-II system when a fault is detected. Capturing the code during intake speeds shop-side diagnosis.
Related: OBD-II, Symptom checklist

Estimate request: A structured record containing year/make/model, mileage, symptom description, urgency, drivable status, and contact info — everything the service advisor needs to scope an estimate without a callback.
Related: Service advisor, Symptom checklist

First-call resolution: Closing the loop on a customer request within a single phone interaction. Hard to achieve in auto repair (diagnostic is rarely instant), but capturing complete intake data on the first call is the realistic version of the goal.
Related: Estimate request, Service advisor
Front desk: The role responsible for answering inbound calls, greeting walk-ins, and routing requests to the service advisor or technician. In small shops this is often the owner or a service advisor doing it as a side duty.
Related: Service advisor, AI front desk

Heavy line work: Repairs that occupy a bay for an extended period — engine, transmission, head-gasket. Heavy line work has different scheduling implications than maintenance and should be flagged at intake.
Related: Bay utilization, Symptom checklist

Intake script: The ordered sequence of questions used to capture an estimate request: greet, language preference, vehicle, mileage, symptoms, urgency, drivable status, contact info, consent.
Related: Estimate request, TCPA

Language detection: Automatic identification of the caller's spoken language within the first few seconds of audio, used to switch the intake script to the correct language without asking.
Related: Bilingual coverage, Intake script

Mileage: Odometer reading at the time of intake. Used by the service advisor to scope wear-item repairs and recommend interval-based maintenance.
Related: Estimate request, Symptom checklist

No-show appointment: A scheduled estimate or repair slot where the customer does not arrive. Reminders, deposit collection, and clearer expectations at intake all reduce no-show frequency.
Related: Estimate request, SMS reminder

OBD-II: On-Board Diagnostics version 2 — the standard interface in passenger vehicles since 1996. Source of DTC codes that can be captured at intake if the customer has read them off a scan tool.
Related: DTC code, Symptom checklist

Repair order: The work-order record in the shop management system once a customer commits to a repair. Often referred to as an RO.
Related: Shop management system, Estimate request

Service advisor: The shop staffer responsible for greeting customers, writing estimates, communicating diagnoses, and selling repair work. In small shops often the owner.
Related: Front desk, Estimate request
Shop management system: Software-of-record for an auto-repair shop — customer database, vehicle history, RO scheduling, parts ordering, invoicing. Coggleby integrates with AutoLeap and is adding Tekmetric and Shopmonkey.
Related: AutoLeap, Tekmetric, Shopmonkey
Shopmonkey: A cloud shop management system used by independent and multi-bay shops. On the Coggleby integration roadmap.
Related: Shop management system, AutoLeap
SMS reminder: Text message sent to a customer ahead of an appointment to reduce no-shows. Requires explicit consent at intake under TCPA.
Related: TCPA, No-show appointment
Symptom checklist: Structured set of common complaint categories (noise, vibration, warning light, leak, performance, electrical, body) used at intake to standardize what the customer is reporting.
Related: Intake script, DTC code

TCPA: Telephone Consumer Protection Act — US federal statute governing automated calls and SMS to consumers. Requires prior express consent for marketing texts; intake confirmations are treated more leniently but consent is still best practice.
Related: SMS reminder, Intake script
Tekmetric: A cloud shop management system focused on multi-bay independents. On the Coggleby integration roadmap.
Related: Shop management system, AutoLeap
Tow triage: Sequence of intake questions that determine whether a vehicle is drivable or needs a tow, and if a tow, what the destination, vehicle weight class, and urgency are. Coggleby sends a triggered SMS to the shop's dispatch contact when a tow is required.
Related: Drivable vs tow, SMS reminder
Twilio: Telephony API provider used to receive inbound calls and send outbound SMS. The carrier-layer plumbing under the Coggleby front desk.
Related: SMS reminder, AI front desk

Vapi: Voice AI platform that handles real-time speech-to-text, LLM reasoning, and text-to-speech for the Coggleby agent. Calls hit Twilio first, then Vapi, then Coggleby webhooks for intake persistence.
Related: AI front desk, Twilio
Vehicle history: Record of previous repairs, recalls, and ownership for a specific VIN. Sources include CARFAX, AutoCheck, and the shop's own RO history.
Related: CARFAX, VIN
VIN: Vehicle Identification Number — 17-character unique identifier. Captured at intake when available; enables exact year/make/model/trim decoding and recall lookups.
Related: Vehicle history, CARFAX
Voicemail-only fallback: The legacy alternative to a live or AI front desk. Voicemail loses callers who hang up, callers who never leave a message, and the structured-data advantage of an intake script.
Related: AI front desk, After-hours coverage