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The Call Guy
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The Call Guy vs Podium

Podium answers your customers. This gives them a reason to call.

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82% delivered. A three-day private sale at a Ford store in Western Canada

A text they read. A voicemail they hear.

A voicemailvs.A text message
HAHillside Auto

Text message · Today 10:02 AM

Hi Sarah, Hillside Auto here. Your Equinox is coming due for its regular service. Reply YES to book a time. Reply STOP to opt out.

Voicemail

Hillside Auto10:02 AM
0:19

Transcript

“Hi Sarah, it’s Heather at Hillside Auto. Your Equinox is coming due for its regular service — oil, filters, and a proper once-over before road-trip season. We’ve got openings next week, and it’s usually about an hour. Call me back at 587-331-9189, and I’ll get you booked in.”

Slide

This month’s due list, each customer by name, vehicle and the service that’s due. Press play to hear the take.

Learn more about service due campaigns

Every take here is a real render in a house voice. Yours send in your voice or your team’s.

The Call Guy vs Podium at a glance

Podium runs the inbox: calls, texts, chats and reviews. The Call Guy sends voicemail campaigns, so every customer on a list you pick hears your store say their name and their vehicle.

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CompareWhat each one doesVoicemail campaignsTexting, reviews and AI agents
Built forThe job it was made to doReaching a listRunning the inbox1
Who starts itWho makes the first moveYou, with a listInbound and outbound2
ChannelsHow you reach a customerVoicemail, then a textText, chat, email, calls3
The voice on the phoneWho your customers hearYours, or your team’sAn AI voice1
Where responses goWhen a customer answers backYour phone, then your CRMOne Podium inbox4
Published pricesThe price, before a sales callYes, four bundlesNot published4
You pay forWhat the bill is based onDelivered voicemailsA plan per rooftop4

Podium’s side, from its own pages, read November 6, 2026:

  1. automotive.podium.com
  2. automotive.podium.com/solutions/service
  3. podium.com/industry/automotive-text-software
  4. automotive.podium.com/plans

Podium is a trademark of its owner, and The Call Guy isn’t affiliated with it. Products change, so check Podium’s site for today’s details.

Pick by the job. A store can run both.

Where Podium fits

  • Answering every call, text and webchat in one place
  • Asking happy customers for a review
  • Booking the appointments that come in by text

Where The Call Guy fits

  • Reaching a whole list you pick, in a voice from your store
  • Service due, recalls, lease ends and private sales, by name and vehicle
  • Callbacks to your people, and every response in your CRM

A person on the team checks every campaign before it sends.

They do different jobs. An inbox handles the customers who reach out to you; a voicemail campaign reaches the ones who haven’t.

Real campaigns. Counted from the records.

A Ford store in Western Canada

1,157 of 1,407 voicemails delivered over a three-day private sale. The misses came back as credits.

Ten campaigns over three days in October, read from the campaign records on November 4. One store’s campaigns: your results depend on your list and your offer.

Start in three steps. Nothing to install.

Your store keeps Podium for what it does. A campaign starts with a list you already have and a voice from your store.

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  1. Step 1 Send your list

    Export it from your DMS: names, numbers and vehicles. The team sets aside any number outside Canada.

    A CSV from your DMS

  2. Step 2 Record a voice

    A manager reads one short script. Every voicemail then says each customer’s name and vehicle in that voice.

    A 40-second read

  3. Step 3 Approve and send

    A person on the team checks the campaign, you sign off, and it goes out inside calling hours.

    Inside calling hours

The Call Guy vs others.

The tools dealerships already pay for, side by side.

Questions

Asked about Podium and The Call Guy.

Ask us on a call

For part of the job. Podium describes itself as texting software that helps you sell more cars, with an AI employee, Jerry, that answers every call. The Call Guy sends voicemail campaigns: every customer on a list you pick hears a voicemail in your voice or your team’s, by name and vehicle, and their callbacks ring your people. If you want to reach a whole list at once, it’s an alternative. If you need every incoming call answered, it isn’t one.

Yes. They don’t need to connect to each other. You send The Call Guy a list from your DMS, the campaign goes out, callbacks come to your store on its campaign line, and each callback and text reply goes to your CRM as a lead. Podium keeps doing what it does today.

They’re built for different jobs, and no side-by-side test has been run, so we don’t claim one beats the other. Here’s what we can show: a Ford store in Western Canada sent 1,407 voicemails over a 3-day private sale in October. 1,157 were delivered and 190 people called the store’s campaign lines back. Counts calls to that number only. 282 new leads went into its CRM. Your results depend on your list and your offer.

No. It reaches out, and your people answer: a customer who calls back reaches your store on its campaign line.

Bundles are prepaid in Canadian dollars, plus GST/HST: 500 voicemails at $1.10 each up to 10,000 at $0.55, and every price is on the pricing page. A credit is spent only when a voicemail is delivered, and a miss comes back to your balance.

They can be, when the rules are followed: consent first, calling hours, and a message that says who it’s from. Every campaign rests on consent you confirm for the list and is checked by the team before it sends. Nothing here is legal advice. The rules in plain words: Are voicemail drops legal in Canada?

Keep reading

Keep reading. Other ways to reach a list, compared.

Your next service list,
by name.

Voicemail from Hillside Auto0:19

“Hi Sarah, it’s Heather at Hillside Auto. Your Equinox is coming due for its regular service: oil, filters and a proper once-over before road trip season. We’ve got openings next week, and it’s usually about an hour. Call me back at 587-331-9189 and I’ll get you booked in.”

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A twenty-minute walk-through on Zoom: the dashboard, a campaign, your questions. Nothing is sent to your list.