The Glass Call Sort: an auto glass phone script for your AI receptionist

The Glass Call Sort splits every auto glass call three ways, in this order, before anyone quotes a price:

1. Capture four things. The vehicle, the damage, the carrier and the callback.
2. Leave two questions alone. Whether the caller is covered, and whether the chip can be repaired.
3. Hand three topics to a person. A leak, a question about safe driving, and anything about calibration.

That's the whole sort. Your receptionist, human or AI, collects the facts and routes the call. It doesn't make the two decisions that set the job, and it doesn't hold the three conversations where a wrong word is a safety problem. The rest of this page is the setup: who it fits, what to prepare, the script, the routing card, and how to tell it's working.

Why a glass call needs its own sort

A repair shop call turns into a symptom and an appointment. A glass call turns into a chip or a crack, a policy, sometimes a driveway, and sometimes a camera behind the glass. The two questions callers ask first are the two the phone can't answer.

Coverage is the carrier's call. Triple-I's overview of auto policies says the coverage for incidents other than a collision is a separate part of the policy, and that only some auto policies include no-deductible glass coverage, while other drivers buy it as a supplement. So "am I covered?" has a different answer on every policy, and a receptionist that says yes is making a promise for someone else's company.

Repair or replace is the technician's call. Glass Doctor follows the ROLAGS repair standard, which prohibits repair in the primary vision area, about 6 inches left and right of the steering wheel's center and through the driver's wiper sweep. The same page says chips larger than a quarter are typically replacement candidates, and that a chip with cracks spreading from it usually means a new windshield. A caller can't measure any of that over the phone, and neither can your receptionist.

If you already use an AI to answer the phone, the general setup is on our page about AI phone answering for auto shops. This guide is the glass layer on top of it.

Who this is for

This fits glass shops, and repair or collision shops that do glass, where a good share of new work starts with a phone call. It works best in three situations:

• You have an AI receptionist or an answering service, and callers keep asking it "is this covered?"
• Your front counter answers between jobs and writes down half a call, usually without the carrier.
• Techs get callbacks they can't act on because nobody asked where the chip is.

It doesn't fit a shop that takes every job through an insurer's referral portal and never answers a retail call. Few shops are that shop.

What you need before you set it up

Put these on one page before you touch a single setting. The script reads from it.

1. Your damage words. The phrases callers use ("a rock hit it", "a star", "a line across the bottom", "it's spreading") and what each one makes you ask next.
2. Your routing names. Who takes a repair-or-replace question, who takes insurance and billing, who takes mobile jobs, who takes calibration, and who takes complaints about earlier work. Name a person and a backup for each, not a role.
3. Your shop's rules for time. What your receptionist may say about how long a job takes and when the car can leave. If you don't have a written rule, the answer is "someone will confirm."
4. Your text wording. If the receptionist asks for photos of the damage or the insurance card by text, write that text now, including how to opt out.

The phone script to copy

Change the shop name and the names. The order matters more than the exact words.

1. Greeting. "Thanks for calling [shop name], this is the automated assistant. I'll get your details to the team so the right person can call you back. What vehicle is it?"
2. Vehicle. Year, make and model, and whether it has a camera or sensor near the mirror. If they can read the VIN off the dash, take it.
3. Damage. "Where's the damage, and what does it look like?" Write their words exactly. Then ask whether it's on the driver's side, how long it has been there, and whether it's getting longer. Offer a text link for a photo.
4. Carrier. "Are you planning to go through insurance?" If yes, take the carrier name and the claim number if they have one. If no, mark it cash. Don't comment on either answer.
5. Callback. The best number, a good time to call, and whether a text is fine.
6. Close. "Thanks, I've got the vehicle, the damage and your carrier. [Name] will call you back about the next step." Never close with a price, a coverage answer or a repair answer.

The lines your receptionist never says, whatever the caller asks:

• "Yes, that's covered."
• "Your deductible won't apply."
• "That chip can be repaired." Or "That will need a new windshield."
• "You can drive it right away."
• "Your car won't need calibration."

When a caller pushes, the answer is the same every time: "That's a question for [name], and I've noted it for the callback."

The routing card

Print this for the counter, or load it into your receptionist's routing rules. Every call ends in one row.

What the caller says	What to capture	Goes to
A chip or crack, no insurance mentioned	Vehicle, damage in their words, location, photo link sent	The person who makes the repair-or-replace call
"I'm going through insurance"	Carrier, claim number if they have one, VIN if they can read it	Your insurance or billing person
Needs it done at home or work	Where the car sits, whether it's under cover, who'll be there	Whoever plans mobile jobs
Water inside, wind noise, or a problem after earlier work	Original job date, the symptom, photos	A manager, same day
"Is it safe to drive?" or a crack that's spreading	Where the crack is, how fast it's moving	A technician, now
A warning light, lane-keeping or camera question	Vehicle, whether the glass was replaced, which light	Whoever handles calibration
A fleet or dealer account	Account name, unit number, PO rule, billing contact	The account owner

Three topics that always reach a person

Leaks. A leak, wind noise or water on the dash is almost always about work already done. It belongs to a manager with the job record open, because the customer is already unhappy and a scripted answer makes it worse.

Safe driving. "Can I still drive on this?" sounds like a quick question. It isn't, and neither is the drive-away question after a replacement. Sika, which makes windshield adhesives, explains that safe drive away time depends on temperature, humidity and the urethane used, and that the passenger airbag uses the windshield to aim itself at the passenger. Your receptionist quotes your shop's written rule or says a technician will confirm.

Calibration. On many newer cars the forward camera sits behind the windshield, so new glass means the camera has to be set up again. AAA's 2023 fact sheet put transferring and calibrating the windshield-mounted camera at $360 on the vehicles it studied, and told drivers to ask for proof their safety systems were calibrated after a repair. That's a question for someone qualified to answer it, with the vehicle's own procedure in hand.

What to watch out for

• Drift into coverage. Read ten transcripts a week and search for "covered", "deductible" and "free". Each one is a promise someone else has to keep.
• Translated damage. "Small chip" written down instead of "a star near the wiper on my side" hides the one detail that decides the job.
• Calls back out. Answering a call is one thing. The FCC noted in 2024 that the TCPA's requirements do not extend to technologies used to answer inbound calls, and its rules on artificial voices cover outbound calls. Texting the photo link or calling back is outbound, so get consent on the call and keep a stop option in every text. Ask your own counsel about your state.
• Missed calls. The sort only helps on calls that get answered. If calls still ring out after hours, fix that first with missed call automation.

How to tell it's working

Give it two weeks. Then pull every glass call from that stretch and check three things.

1. Four fields filled. Each call should have the vehicle, the damage in the caller's words, the carrier (or "cash") and a callback. Gaps should read "caller didn't know," not "never asked."
2. Two questions untouched. Search the transcripts for any coverage answer and any repair-or-replace answer. There should be none.
3. Three topics routed. Every leak, safe-driving and calibration call should show a hand-off to a named person on the same day.

If the callbacks still need a second call to the customer, the damage question is usually the one to fix. Make it more specific, add your own examples, and run another two weeks.

Where RevvOS fits

RevvOS is an operating system for shops: it reads your systems and drafts the next step for a person to approve, at one location or several. If you'd like to see calls, follow-ups and approvals in one view, you can book a demo.