Bella Virtual Assistant
Bella is the assistant built into Dealersip. Ask her how something works and she answers from the Dealersip manual, in the language you wrote in, and gives you a button that takes you straight to the screen she is describing.
Every user has Bella Lite. It is free, needs no subscription, and has no usage limits. There is no setting that switches Bella off for a user or for a dealership.
Opening Bella
There are two ways in, and they behave differently.
- Bella in the left sidebar, the second item from the top. This opens Bella as a floating window over the screen you are already on, so you can read her answer and work at the same time. You can drag the window by its title bar and resize it.
- Ask Bella! on the Meet Bella! card of the Home page. This opens Bella’s own full page, with your past conversations listed down the left.
On a phone or tablet Bella floats in the same way.
The chat window
The window is headed Bella and carries two controls at the top right: a dash to minimize and a cross to close.
When you open a fresh conversation Bella greets you with Hi there and “I’m Bella, your Virtual Assistant. Ask me anything about using this software!”, followed by four sample questions — What can I do with Dealersip?, How can I create a new lead?, Tell me your capabilities. and How can I change my password?. Click any one of them and it drops into the message box, ready to send.
To ask your own question, type it into Type your message... at the bottom of the window and either click Send or press Enter.
- History, at the top left of the window, lists earlier conversations. Each is named after the question that started it. Click one to reopen it and carry on where it left off.
- New Conversation, at the top right, clears the window and starts a fresh conversation. The one you were having stays in History.
- Minimize, the dash beside the close cross, tucks Bella away into a small bubble in the corner of the screen. Click the bubble to bring her back with the conversation still in place.
- Close, the cross, ends the session and puts the window away.
She stays with you as you move around
This is the point of the floating window. Opened from the sidebar, Bella follows you from screen to screen: click one of her buttons, or open something else entirely, and she reappears over the new screen with the conversation still there. She stays with the browser tab you opened her in.
If you move to another screen while Bella is still writing, she finishes the answer anyway and it is waiting for you when the window comes back.
Leaving Bella’s full page works the same way — rather than losing the conversation, she moves into the bubble and waits there.
She knows which screen you are on
Because Bella floats over the software, she is told which screen and which tab you have open. That means “how do I do this here?”, “what does this button do?” and “what is this screen for?” all work, without you having to name the screen. If the answer is on the screen you are already standing on, she tells you so and starts from what is in front of you rather than from the main menu.
She cannot see the data on that screen. No records, no figures, no idea which vehicle or customer you have open — only which screen it is.
Buttons and links in her answers
When Bella tells you to go somewhere, her answer ends with a button that takes you there. She only offers screens your permissions allow you to open, so anything she gives you is a screen you can actually reach.
She also ends with a link to the manual topic she used, which opens in a new tab if you want the full write-up.
Language
Bella replies in the language you write in, and switches the moment you ask her to. Screen names, menu paths and button labels stay in English, so you can still match them against what is on your screen.
What Bella Lite will not answer
Bella Lite is a software assistant. She covers where a screen is, what a field does, how to complete a task, what a message means, and why the software is refusing to do something.
She will not answer questions about your own figures, vehicles, customers or accounts, and she will not do general chat, trivia or coding. To those she replies “I can only answer questions about Dealersip’s functionality. You can ask me how a particular feature works! For anything else, please create a support ticket - our team will be happy to help.” and gives you a Create Support Ticket button.
Anything Bella cannot handle goes to a support ticket or to your account manager — see Support Center.
Two other things worth knowing about how she answers. When a question runs past what she knows, she tells you the date her information was last updated instead of guessing. And when a question could mean two different things — you cannot find a button, or the button is there and giving you an error — she asks which one you mean rather than answering both.
Not the same as the chat agent on your website
The Bella described here works inside the software, for your staff. The chat agent that talks to visitors on your dealership website is a separate feature — see Bella AI Chat Agent, switched on and worded in Bella Chat Agent Settings. Changing those settings does not affect the assistant inside the software.
The three versions of Bella
Bella Lite — released, and free for every user. It answers questions about how to use the software. This is the version described above.
Bella Advisor — not yet released. It is designed to advise the dealership on the business itself rather than on the software.
Bella Pilot — operates the software on your instructions instead of telling you how to do it yourself. Parts of it are already at work:
- Designing with Bella builds a print template for you — describe the document you want, or hand Bella a sample of it, and she produces the template.
- On Business Health, Let Bella look at my accounts reads your dealership’s own accounting figures, ranks the areas worth your attention, and answers questions about them.
Bella Pilot is included for every dealership at present. It is intended to become a separate subscription.