Engenix.Ai A Kwick Blocks product

Blogs · July 2026

When do car and van enquiries actually arrive?

Not between nine and five. Half of Auto Trader's Deal Builder enquiries land outside normal business hours, on a purchase that takes 87 days to make.

The short answer: not when your showroom is open. Auto Trader found that half of its Deal Builder enquiries come outside normal business hours, measuring against a nine to five day. And those enquiries are not impulse buys. The average car purchase takes 87 days of research. So the question is not whether people are shopping while you are shut. They are. The question is what happens to them when they do.

The demand curve stopped matching the opening hours

Car buying moved online and moved out of hours, and the forecourt did not.

  • 94% of buyers research online before they visit a dealership.
  • They shop around while they do it: buyers now visit an average of 4.2 car search websites, up from 3.5 in 2021.
  • The decision takes an average of 87 days.
  • Half of Auto Trader's Deal Builder enquiries arrive outside a nine to five day.

Read those together and a pattern falls out. Your customer is doing the work in the evening, on the sofa, on a phone, across several sites at once, for nearly three months. And your business is answering between nine and five, Monday to Saturday.

What happens to the out-of-hours enquiry

Mostly, nothing. And that is not a slur on your team, it is what the numbers say.

In Auto Trader's mystery shop of its top 1,000 UK retailers:

  • 18% did not respond to an email enquiry at all.
  • 12% failed to respond by either email or phone.
  • Fewer than half of the replies that did come arrived within an hour.
  • Only 36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a forecourt visit.

That last one is the quiet killer. On a purchase that takes 87 days, one reply and then silence is not a sales process.

Why it costs you more than a lost enquiry

Because your customers are already complaining about exactly this. The Motor Ombudsman opened 18,570 used-car complaints in 2025, up 14% on the year before, and the largest single driver was not the car. Customer service accounted for 40% of used-car complaints, which the Ombudsman describes as including "consumers not receiving responses to their queries when contacting businesses".

Customer service was the largest single driver of used-car complaints at 40%, and not being answered is part of it.

The hire desk has the same problem, faster

A hire customer is not on an 87 day journey. They need a van on Thursday. If nobody picks up, they ring the next firm, because the job is happening either way.

And the margin does not forgive it. The BVRLA describes the current UK rental market as "high demand, tight margins", with sustained downward pressure on rates. Losing a booking to an unanswered phone is the worst way to lose one.

What actually fixes it

Not "try harder in the evenings". Your people have gone home, and they should have.

  1. Answer at the hour the enquiry arrives. Not the next morning, when the buyer has already messaged three other retailers.
  2. Answer with something real. Live stock, a real price, a real appointment slot. An acknowledgement that promises a callback is not an answer.
  3. Keep following up. For weeks, not once. On a purchase that takes 87 days, a single reply and then silence is not a sales process.

Where Engenix fits

It answers every call, email, chat and message, in your business's voice, at 10pm on a Sunday. It reads your live stock or fleet, so what it tells the customer is true. It books the test drive or the hire into the systems you already run. And it keeps politely following up over the weeks the buyer actually takes.

It does not replace your salespeople, and it should not try: 95% of buyers still want an in-person experience and almost two in three turn up on the forecourt unannounced. The customer in front of your salesperson is worth more than any automation, which is exactly why that salesperson should not be stuck on the phone.

And it will not invent a price, promise a date you have not agreed, or give finance advice. Anything that needs an opinion goes to a person.

Frequently asked questions

What share of car enquiries arrive out of hours?

Auto Trader found that half of its Deal Builder enquiries come outside normal business hours, measured against a nine to five day. That figure is specific to Deal Builder enquiries, so treat it as a strong signal about buyer behaviour rather than a total for every enquiry type.

How quickly should a dealer reply to an online enquiry?

There is no magic number, and be sceptical of anyone who quotes one. What is measurable is the gap: fewer than half of the top 1,000 UK retailers replied within an hour, and only 36% attempted a follow-up within 48 hours of a forecourt visit.

Will an AI agent replace my sales team?

No. Most buyers still want the showroom, and two in three arrive unannounced. It covers the enquiries nobody reached and the hours you are closed.

Does it work for a hire desk as well as a dealership?

Yes, though the job differs. A dealer needs persistence over weeks. A hire desk needs an instant, accurate answer on availability.

Sources

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