Bodyshop hold-time variance is the silent cost in your indemnity spend. Switchboard runs the chase queue — outbound calls on schedule, capturing what was promised, flagging the outliers. In production at Laird Assessors today.
Why It Matters
Hold-time variance is the kind of cost that does not show up as a line item. It hides in hire-vehicle days, customer escalations, and handler hours.
Every extra day a vehicle sits at a bodyshop is hire-vehicle days, possibly storage costs, and customer escalation risk. Hold-time variance compounds across the book.
Customers chase you because you have not chased the bodyshop. The handler time you spend explaining is time you do not spend resolving.
Some bodyshops get chased weekly. Others get forgotten. The slow ones learn which insurers do not chase, and they prioritise accordingly.
A handler asking a bodyshop “is the estimate ready yet?” is overhead. The same handler reviewing a finalised estimate is value. Switching the ratio is the point.
The Chase Queue
Five steps from workflow trigger to case update. Every step Timeline-logged.
SwiftCase workflows track expected milestones per case — estimate due, repairs in progress, completion expected. When a milestone slips, the case enters the chase queue.
Outbound voice call on-brand, in your accent, at the time you specify. Identifies as the insurer or assessor. Asks the right questions in the right order. Handles common pushbacks.
Estimate ready Tuesday. Repairs starting Thursday. Vehicle ready next Friday. Each commitment captured as a structured field on the case, with the conversation transcript attached.
Case file updated as the call progresses. Workflow milestones moved. Customer-facing communication queued for handler approval if relevant. The case is up to date when the call ends.
Persistent slippage, repeated reschedules, or contradictory promises trigger handler escalation. The handler gets the chase history at a glance — not a stack of voicemails.
Where The Numbers Move
The chase queue stops being a cost centre and starts being a data feed.
Routine chase calls leave the engineer queue entirely. Engineers and senior handlers work on assessments, disputes, and total-loss conversations — the work only they can do.
Every supplier gets chased on the same schedule. Variance between bodyshops drops because pressure becomes consistent. Outlier suppliers surface because the data is clean.
Every chase call recorded, transcribed, and logged in Timeline. Carrier audits and FOS files get a complete supplier-management history without anyone hunting for it.
Reduced hire-vehicle days, fewer customer escalations, faster cycle time. The indemnity savings typically eclipse the Switchboard cost of running the chase queue.
Buyer Questions
Yes. Switchboard runs outbound bodyshop chasing in production at Laird Assessors today, alongside out-of-hours intake and total-loss valuation conversations. See the Laird year-in-review for the production volumes.
Switchboard uses ElevenLabs voices that sound natural; most bodyshops do not realise they are on an AI call. Where you want explicit AI disclosure (because regulator policy or your supplier code of conduct requires it), it is a configurable line in the agent definition.
Switchboard escalates immediately to a named handler with the partial conversation and the reason for the escalation. The handler picks up with full context — no cold transfer. You also see, over time, which suppliers do this routinely and can address it as a relationship issue.
Yes. The agent definition specifies the questions to ask, the order, the tone, the pushback handling, and the escalation triggers. Most teams start with our defaults during a 30-day pilot and tune from real call data.
Switchboard reads from and writes to the SwiftCase case file directly. It does not sit beside your case management as a separate log; the structured fields it captures land on the case as if a handler had typed them, with conversation transcript attached and Timeline entry for the call itself.
We can integrate with most case-management systems via REST API or webhook. The deeper benefits come when SwiftCase is the operational layer (workflows, Timeline, multi-channel parity), but Switchboard chase calls can also feed an external case system through structured event delivery.
30 days. Switchboard runs your chase queue alongside your existing process. Compare hold-time variance, handler hours, and customer escalation rate. Decide.
