How a Towing Company Stopped Losing Stranded Customers to Hold Times

The Problem: A Stranded Motorist Won't Wait on Hold

Dennis Kowalczyk has been in the towing business in St. Louis for eighteen years. He runs four trucks — two flatbeds and two hook-and-chains — out of a yard near Lemay, covering the south city and south county corridors including the I-55, I-44, and I-270 interchange areas. He does emergency towing, accident recovery, non-emergency moves, roadside assistance, and long-distance hauls for customers who need a vehicle transported across the metro or out of state.

The dispatch setup is lean by necessity. Dennis handles most dispatch himself during peak hours, with a part-time coordinator on nights and weekends. When all four trucks are running on a busy Friday evening — and they are almost always all running on a Friday evening — incoming calls stack up. Someone on hold for six minutes while their car is disabled on the shoulder of I-55 near Reavis Barracks Road is not a patient customer. They hang up. They Google the next towing company. They call Uber Eats. Whatever gets them out of the situation fastest. Dennis loses the job.

The hold-time problem was the most visible symptom, but it wasn't the only one. A significant portion of Dennis's website traffic comes from people who aren't in an active emergency — they're pre-researching. They had a breakdown last month and want to put a reliable tow company in their phone before the next one. They're a fleet manager for a landscaping company checking whether Dennis covers their service area. They're a shop owner in Affton who wants to know if he'll bring cars directly to their bay. These visitors were landing on a static website with a phone number and a general description of services — and most of them were leaving without making contact because they couldn't get a quick answer to a specific question.

The roadside assistance calls had their own friction. A person locked out in a Schnucks parking lot in Crestwood at 8pm wants to know: do you do lockouts, how long until someone gets there, how much does it cost, and will you actually show up? Four questions. Dennis's team was answering all four over the phone, multiplied by every lockout and jump-start call that came in on a busy night. The information was repetitive, the calls were pulling dispatchers away from routing trucks, and impatient customers were hanging up mid-hold and calling a competitor.

The Solution: A Chatbot That Handles the Questions Before the Call

Dennis deployed an AI chatbot on his company website through Anchor Co AI. The build was straightforward — Dennis knew exactly what people asked before they called, because he'd been answering those questions for eighteen years. Service area. ETAs. Pricing ranges. What type of equipment he used and when. Whether he'd tow to a specific shop. Whether his flatbeds could handle a loaded pickup.

The chatbot was not designed to replace the dispatch call for an active emergency. A person with a car on fire on the highway needs to call 911 first and a tow company second, and that call needs to be to a human. But the chatbot handles everything that happens before and around that call — the pre-research, the after-hours inquiry, the "do I call these guys or the other guys?" decision moment. And for roadside assistance calls that are urgent but not emergency-level, the chatbot captures enough intake that the dispatch call itself becomes shorter and more efficient.

What the Chatbot Actually Does

• Confirms service area coverage — the chatbot maps Dennis's coverage across St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Jefferson County, and specific highway corridors. Visitors who are trying to figure out whether he covers their location get a direct answer instead of a phone call to find out.
• Provides pricing guidance by service type — local hookup vs. flatbed, short-distance vs. long-distance, roadside assistance by service type (jump start, lockout, tire change, fuel delivery). These aren't binding quotes, but they set realistic expectations and reduce the "I had no idea it would cost that much" friction after the fact.
• Handles roadside assistance intake — for non-emergency roadside calls, the chatbot collects vehicle make and model, nature of the problem, current location, and contact number. The dispatch team receives a structured intake rather than starting the call from scratch. ETA estimation is also addressed with context about typical response windows by time of day and location.
• Routes shop and fleet inquiries appropriately — a shop owner asking about preferred tow arrangements, or a fleet manager asking about monthly service agreements, gets flagged differently from a consumer emergency. Dennis can follow up with those during business hours with the appropriate conversation, rather than having them fall into a general voicemail pile.
• Explains which shops he works with — a common question for motorists who don't have a preferred repair shop is whether the tow company can help them figure out where their car should go. The chatbot addresses the company's general approach, shop relationships, and how the decision about destination is typically handled.
• Covers off-hours availability — the chatbot makes clear when 24/7 service is available, what the process is for late-night calls, and how the after-hours line works. This simple clarification captures the visitors who were leaving the site unsure whether they could even call at midnight.

The Results

• Hold-time complaints dropped significantly in the first 60 days — by routing website-based inquiries through the chatbot before they reached the dispatch line, Dennis reduced the volume of calls hitting his phones during peak hours. Customers with non-urgent questions got answers without calling at all.
• Off-hours website leads increased by 55% — the chatbot captures structured inquiry forms from visitors who arrive between 9pm and 7am, a window when the old website was effectively invisible. Those leads arrive with full contact and vehicle details, ready for morning follow-up or immediate dispatch.
• Dispatch intake time per call decreased by about 3 minutes — for calls that came in through or alongside chatbot interaction, dispatchers reported shorter calls because basic vehicle and location information had already been captured or communicated.
• Fleet and shop inquiry conversion improved — business-to-business inquiries that previously arrived through a generic contact form now have structured context. Dennis's first call with a fleet prospect starts at a different place than it did before.
• Stranded motorist complaints about website dropped to near zero — previously, the number-one complaint in Google reviews was difficulty reaching someone. The chatbot addressed that directly by being immediately available on the site, answering basic questions, and setting expectations for response time.

Why Towing Companies Are a Natural Fit for AI Chatbots

Towing companies operate in a high-urgency, high-volume environment where dispatcher capacity is constantly strained. The moments when demand peaks — bad weather, rush hour accidents, weekend nights — are exactly the moments when hold times get longest and stranded customers get most frustrated. A chatbot that handles non-dispatch questions removes load from the phone line during those moments.

The research behavior around towing services is also unusual. Unlike most services people call at leisure, towing involves both emergency situations and pre-research moments. Someone who had a bad experience with a towing company last year is actively researching their next choice before they need one. A chatbot that answers their coverage, pricing, and service questions at 11pm while they're doing that research — and captures their name and number — is converting leads that never would have called.

There's also a practical trust element. The towing industry has a reputation problem in some markets — customers worried about scam operators, bait-and-switch pricing, or taking their car to the wrong shop. A chatbot that gives clear, specific answers to "where do you operate," "how much does a flatbed cost," and "do you work with my shop" addresses that uncertainty directly. A company that communicates clearly before the job gets more jobs from the customers doing their homework.

If you run a towing or roadside assistance company and recognize the hold-time and after-hours lead problems Dennis was dealing with, an AI chatbot is one of the most practical improvements you can make to your website. Anchor Co AI builds and manages chatbots for local service businesses starting at $29/month. Visit anchorcoai.com/pricing to see what the build looks like for a towing operation like yours.