What Is the Service to Sales Agent?
The Service to Sales Agent watches for service activity at your store, such as a booked appointment or an opened repair order. When a customer looks like a strong upgrade candidate based on the rules you set, the agent sends a text to open the conversation. If the customer engages, the agent hands the lead off to a salesperson as a Follow Up.
As the manager, you control what qualifies, who receives the handoffs, and how aggressive the outreach is. The agent runs inside those rules automatically.
Where to Find It
The Service to Sales Agent lives in your Agents Dashboard.
Dashboards is a permission based feature
Open Dashboards.
Click Agents Dashboard.
Select Service to Sales.
You will see the Configuration and Vehicles tabs at the top. Expert User status is required to edit either tab.
Setting Up the Agent
Expert User status required to edit
The Configuration tab is where you set your triggers, valuation rules, follow-up routing, and suppression windows.
Triggers
Trigger by appointment engages the customer when a service appointment is booked. Use Days before appointment (or less) to set how far in advance the agent reaches out.
Trigger by RO opened engages the customer when a repair order is opened in your DMS. Set a Minimum RO Amount to only fire on repair orders above a dollar threshold.
Vehicle Eligibility
Minimum Valuation set the trade value minimum you want to work.
Maximum Mileage excludes vehicles above a mileage ceiling.
Vehicle Condition determines the price range that will be pulled and displayed to the customer.
You can choose Fair, Good, Excellent, or any combination.
Valuation Handling
Never send valuation to customer: The agent never quotes a price, but the pulled value still reaches the salesperson on handoff.
Maximum Valuation: Above this value the agent hands off instead of quoting a price. Leave empty to turn off.
Valuation Type controls which value the agent uses: Wholesale, Retail, Certified, or All Types.
Customer Messaging
Enable Soft Touch Intent turns on a lower-pressure opening that asks the customer about interest before quoting anything.
Use the Soft Touch Intent field to write your prompt.
Suppression Rules
Suppress S2S messages for vehicles (For Months): Prevents the agent from re-engaging a customer about a vehicle for the number of months you set after that vehicle is marked Sold or Delivered.
Suppress S2S messages since last Service (months) blocks engagement if the customer has been in for service within the window you set.
Follow Up Assignment
Service to Sales Follow Up Assignment is the list of salespeople who receive the handoff.
Supports user names, mention groups, Sales1, Sales2, BDC
Choosing Which Vehicles to Target
Expert User status required to edit
The Vehicles tab is where you tell the agent which vehicles you actually want to buy back or trade for. Add vehicles one at a time with Quick Add, or build out a list quickly using the Setup Wizard.
For each vehicle entry you can set:
Type (Car, Truck, SUV)
Make, Model, and Engine Type
Year Start and Year End for the model year range
Min Mileage and Max Mileage
Min Appraised Value and Max Appraised Value
Focus On tells the agent which vehicles to actively pursue. Avoid tells it which vehicles to leave alone. Avoid always overrides Focus On.
How it works in practice:
No filters set: Every eligible vehicle gets a message. This is the default.
Only Avoid set: Every vehicle gets a message except the ones you marked Avoid.
Focus On set (with or without Avoid): The agent only pursues vehicles that match your Focus On list, minus anything on your Avoid list.
Defer valuation skips valuation at qualification and hands it to the follow-up assignee.
Watching Performance
The Service to Sales dashboard shows engagement totals, attribution, and ROI for the agent's outreach. Use it to see how many opportunities the agent is surfacing, how many are converting to warm handoffs, and how those handoffs are performing in your pipeline.
Tips for Managing the Agent
Review your Vehicles list every quarter. The vehicles you want to buy back today may not be the ones you want next quarter.
Turn on Enable Soft Touch Intent if your team prefers to qualify interest before the agent puts a number in front of the customer.
Set your suppression windows based on how aggressive you want the agent to be. Shorter windows mean more outreach. Longer windows mean fewer customer complaints about repeated contact.
Watch the dashboard weekly for the first month. That is when you will spot patterns in what is working and where to tighten your rules.
Make sure the salespeople on your Follow Up Assignment list are the ones you actually want fielding these warm leads. This is the door the agent hands the customer through.
Good to Know
Expert User status is required to edit the Configuration and Vehicles tabs.
An appraisal integration partner is recommended for automated vehicle valuations. The agent still runs without it, but it cannot include automated valuations in the outreach.
Supported DMS platforms at initial release: Reynolds, CDK, Dealertrack, and Tekion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between the Service to Sales Agent and the Sales Agent?
The Sales Agent handles inbound leads that come into your CRM. The Service to Sales Agent watches service activity and proactively reaches out to service customers who match your upgrade criteria. They are two separate agents with their own configuration.
Can the agent work without an appraisal integration partner?
Yes. The agent will still send outreach and route Follow Ups without an appraisal integration partner. Automated vehicle valuations inside the message require the appraisal integration partner to be active.
Need Assistance?
For assistance, reach out to your Customer Success Team using the Support Icon in the bottom-right corner of DriveCentric!