Dylan Parfitt could not answer every single call his shop received — and he had no idea how many of them might have evolved into legitimate customers.
His shop, Parfitt Truck Repair, grew out of a side business he ran while working as a truck driver, and later at a Mack and Volvo dealership. By the end of 2022, Dylan was on his own full-time. He eventually added another truck, an employee, and, in 2025, a brick-and-mortar shop.
Today, Parfitt Truck Repair primarily serves commercial vehicles and RVs, from Class 8 trucks and trailers to pickups, vans, box trucks, and step vans. It’s a four-person operation, with a full-time tech, a part-time shop helper, and a part-time office manager in addition to Dylan. Dylan himself splits his time between being an owner, tech, service advisor, diagnostician, and occasionally office manager — in other words, hats a lot of shop owners end up juggling.
“We don’t always have enough staff to grab every call.”
Pain Point: Missed Calls Are Missed Opportunities
When the phone rings, Dylan said, he’s often the one answering it. That can mean stepping away from work he’s already doing — and an increasing number of those calls are spam or otherwise irrelevant. But every ring could still be a customer, so just ignoring the phone isn’t really an option.
Dylan also pointed out something other shop owners can probably relate to: A quick conversation might only take one or two minutes, but the interruption lasts longer than the call. Once he hangs up, he has to shift gears and mentally return to what he was doing before.
Pain Point: Voicemail Wasn’t Cutting It
The shop’s regular voicemail gave the crew very little to deal with when they missed a call. Dylan roughly estimated that only about 10% of missed callers would even bother leaving a voicemail; the rest would simply hang up and try another shop. That meant he often didn’t know whether the caller was a prospect, an existing customer, a salesperson, or spam.
In commercial repair, that uncertainty matters. Dylan knows some callers are shopping around, and occasionally one incoming call can turn into a high-value customer relationship. But if nobody answers and nobody leaves a message, there may be no opportunity to follow up at all.
Enter Fullbay
Dylan was upfront in our conversation: He did not set out to find an AI receptionist. He would, in fact, prefer customers to reach a person whenever possible.
“In an ideal world, every business would always have a real person answering the phone,” he said. “But reality is, that’s just not always possible.”
The shop was already generating plenty of calls, sometimes more than the small team could realistically handle. So when Fullbay reached out to Dylan to offer him a trial of Claudia, he decided to give the AI receptionist a shot, not as a replacement for human customer service but as a fallback for the calls no one could grab.
“People don’t leave voicemails,” he said. “So I see Claudia as an alternative to voicemail.”
Result: Fewer Interruptions
Claudia helps reduce some of the interruptions surrounding missed calls. Dylan said spam callers generally don’t interact with Claudia, while legitimate prospects tend to provide enough information for him to understand who called and what they need.
He estimates Claudia is saving him 15-30 minutes per day — not only in phone time, but in the time it takes to regain his train of thought after an interruption. And importantly, he hasn’t seen evidence that letting Claudia pick up those missed calls is costing him worthwhile business.
“I cannot think of any missed sales that I wish I hadn’t missed because Claudia took the call for me,” he said.
“I’m going from a 10% voicemail rate to a 90% voicemail rate with Claudia.”
Result: Missed Calls Become Callbacks
When the team does miss a call, Claudia gathers enough information to follow up quickly. Dylan estimates that Claudia has taken the shop from something like a 10% voicemail rate to a 90% voicemail rate, meaning far more missed callers actually leave usable information.
Better yet, he says 90-95% of the people answer when he calls back in a timely manner, and roughly nine out of 10 still need help.
One of these calls has already turned into repeat business. Dylan missed the customer’s original call, Claudia handled it, and he called back right away. The shop got the job — and by the time we spoke with Dylan, that customer had sent Parfitt Truck Repair three units.
“Claudia is worth every penny that we pay for it, and then some.”
Plan B, Not Plan A
Dylan still wants to answer the phone whenever he can. For Parfitt Truck Repair, Claudia isn’t there to replace that human interaction; it’s there for the moments when Dylan is under a truck, helping a tech, handling a service call, or simply too far from the phone to grab it in time.
“To me, it’s still a Plan B, not a Plan A,” he said.
But it’s a Plan B that means a missed ring no longer has to become a missed opportunity. Dylan can stay focused on the work in front of him, callers can still explain what they need, and the shop has the information to follow up while that customer still needs help. For a four-person operation that depends on the phone, a little bit of backup can go a long way.
For Parfitt Truck Repair, Dylan says, “Claudia is worth every penny that we pay for it, and then some.”
Get news & tips Right in your inbox.
