How to: Get Started With SMS for Shipping + Delivery Notifications

SMS provides incredible benefits if you’re shipping and making deliveries. Here are just a few things you can do with SMS to improve customer service: * Use an SMS to […]

SMS provides incredible benefits if you’re shipping and making deliveries. Here are just a few things you can do with SMS to improve customer service:

* Use an SMS to provide a customer with alerts about when their delivery arrives

* Link customers to additional details about their delivery, like a tracking tool

* Allow customers to choose a different delivery option real-time if they’re not there for a hand-off

* Confirm when a delivery is complete

* Offer two-way communication so the customer can ask questions and even contact their delivery driver

Delivery Workflow Planning

Take time to plan how you will implement SMS for package delivery. Do you want customers to be able to respond at any time? Within a day of delivery? What’s best for your delivery service and the customer? When will you send messages? This section helps you out with some ideas for your SMS delivery notifications.

Basic Delivery Notifications. For an effective, low-cost option, send messages to let the customer know what’s going on, and wait until the last message to allow them to provide feedback. They can’t necessarily respond. In this scenario, your SMS flow might look like this:

* Send a message when a package shipped

* Send a message when there’s a certain amount of days or time left before delivery

* Send a message when the delivery is an hour away or less

* Send a message when the package was delivered

* Thank the customer for their business and encourage them to buy again with a coupon, or have them provide feedback about the delivery.

Notice the last message is the first point where the customer can respond. But how do you want them to respond? Do they write back a message? Click a link to log in to an app and fill out a form? Writing back a message is easiest for a customer, so consider this whenever possible. You will be able to get more feedback with this method than with the click a link method.

Detailed Delivery Notifications. In a more detailed notification system, you include the five basic messages above, but more of the messages offer the customer a way to respond. If you want to cut down on them sending too many responses, you can wait to open everything to two-way communication, or make it available but encourage them to use a different method like clicking a link. A more detailed system might include:

* A link to a map showing where the driver is as the delivery reaches a point where it’s less than an hour away.

* A text that asks them to reschedule delivery or change their delivery options if they’re not there for the delivery

* A way for the driver to send a confirmation photo showing the package dropped off at their residence or business

* More communication options – maybe they can choose to receive notifications through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, or other similar messaging services

Implementation Choices

Hire Developers. If you’re looking to create a custom implementation, you’ll want to use telecommunication APIs that support:

* SMS

* Ability to track SMS delivery

* Two-Way Communication

* Number Masking (so customers and drivers don’t reveal their information)

* Chat from different platforms

Mitto offers all these features and more, allowing you to create a completely custom implementation on the web or mobile. With Mitto, you can not only use SMS, but WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, and more. Create an exceptional customer experience with easy-to-use documentation, stellar support, and well-designed APIs. We also offer dozens of integrations to allow you to integrate all kinds of marketing and tracking tools with just a few clicks of a button.

Out-of-the-box. We also offer two useful products pre-built if you want effective low cost options for delivery. You can use Mitto’s Campaign Manager for delivery SMS. Schedule personalized delivery messages, then track to make sure they’re delivered and opened. And you can use Mitto’s Conversations App if you use multiple channels to deliver notifications to customers. Reap the benefits of having all delivery messages, customer questions, and feedback in one easy-to-access place.

Contact Mitto to get started with your custom or out-of-the-box SMS delivery system today!