There’s a lot in dispatch and logistics that can lead to frustrated customers and added expenses. This includes missed deliveries, incorrect addresses, or inconvenient delivery times. To ensure happy customers and reduce added costs, dispatch and logistics companies must communicate and coordinate effectively with drivers and customers.
Using a phone call to get in touch with customers or transportation staff can be inconvenient and time-consuming. Plus, emails often get left unopened or flagged as spam. A dispatch text message is more effective because it delivers a concise message directly to customers' or drivers’ phones. Dispatch texting can also be used to coordinate with employees or share updates with staff who don’t sit at a computer all day.
Read on to see why you should try Textline's SMS dispatch software today.
<span class="text-center">Textline has many SMS tools to help your company keep customers and staff informed. Below we share a few key ones.</span>
Many SMS messages can be automated. This gives time back to your staff to focus on other priorities. Textline’s Automations allow your logistics and communications team to schedule messages in advance, set up auto-reply messages, or trigger messages to send based on a set of rules. Create automated workflows to keep customers in the know on delivery timelines and share important time-sensitive updates with staff.
Automations remove the need to manually manage all SMS communication, making it easier for your team to see results.
Use two-way texting to converse with customers and staff members. Enabling two-way SMS allows you to hear from them in real-time and communicate no matter where they're located.
For example, you can get status updates from delivery staff members out in the field or allow customers to reschedule their deliveries via SMS. You could also use two-way SMS to survey customers about their delivery experience.
Send text alerts to communicate quickly and efficiently with your contacts. An SMS alert sends a text message when a particular condition is met or when an alert is manually created. Create alerts to keep your drivers in the loop or customers informed about an upcoming delivery. Alerts facilitate immediate communication when it matters most.
Send a message to many contacts at once using Textline’s bulk SMS functionality. For example, you could send all field employees a text message at the same time. With this feature, you can share relevant announcements, survey many customers, or keep customers updated with general information. Save time by using Textline to send a bulk dispatch text message.
More than just a delivery update tool, SMS dispatch software can improve many areas of your business, from recruitment to customer retention.
Textline helps businesses like yours confirm customer information quickly, share delivery order status, and welcome new clients. In addition, our solution works as an emergency mass notification system, alerting customers and staff to dangerous weather conditions or road closures.
Textline also can be used in staff recruitment, helping your business communicate with the community.
Use Textline to create automated welcome messages to send to new customers. Assure new clients that their delivery needs will be met and thank them for choosing your business. This welcome touchpoint gives a good first impression and can lead to higher customer retention rates.
Share delivery updates with your customers via SMS messages. Let them know details like when it’s expected to arrive. Providing these updates or sharing a tracking link via SMS will help you reduce missed or repeated deliveries.
You can also configure Textline to automate order confirmations and delivery messages.
Use SMS to improve customer support. Texting is a convenient way for customers to reach your business. It’s built for rapid back-and-forth communication, which allows your team to respond quickly to customer requests. For example, a customer could text your support line to reschedule a delivery.
With Textline, you can handle all customer support texting communication in one single dashboard. Your customer service agents can see all customer conversations, handle multiple cases at once, and resolve them quickly.
Use SMS messaging to help streamline staff scheduling. Send weekly schedules to employees, share last-minute schedule updates, or remind employees of upcoming events. With SMS dispatch software you can easily communicate with your staff via their mobile phone.
Facilitate internal communication with an SMS solution. Use SMS to share company newsletters, important events, or other updates to staff who are in the field or in the office. SMS makes it easier to organize communication with contractors and staff members, especially those who don’t sit in front of a computer. With Textline, you can also see text conversation history, which makes it easier to keep track of conversations. Access all of this from one central SMS dashboard on Textline.
SMS is a great mass emergency notification system. Use emergency alerts to keep drivers safe on the road and keep staff informed. This can include alerting them to extreme weather conditions, road closures, or accidents.
Text messages are sent even when there’s no internet connection. Plus, the average text message is read within just three minutes of being sent, meaning critical messages are delivered promptly and read almost immediately. These things make SMS a great tool for emergency alerts.
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of texts are read within three minutes. — SMS Comparison
of SMS messages are opened, compared to 20% of emails. — Dynmark
of workers use their cell phones for work each day. — Samsung
In 2023, mobile carriers enacted stricter requirements for business texting to combat spam. The most notable change is proper phone number registration. Any business wanting to text customers must register by providing information about their brand and texting use case.
Textline, an industry-leading SMS platform, has simplified this registration process for our customers. Textline customers register their phone numbers in-app by filling out a form. Textline even submits the form on your behalf. Make phone number registration easy by choosing Textline as your SMS provider.
Plus, while waiting for carrier approval for your number, you can test Textline features, set up automations, create text templates, and more.
<span class="text-center">Several Textline customers use SMS for dispatch and logistics. Let’s take a look at two of them.</span>
Fixer, a home repair company based in Chicago, uses Textline to communicate with field workers and for customer support. Prior to implementing Textline, the team was struggling to keep field workers up to date on company updates as it’s hard to check email while on site. Plus, it was often hard for them to hear the phone ring while using power tools on the job. Now, the company shares job reminders, event invites, and more via SMS. And the field workers love the convenience.
Fixer also uses Textline for customer support, which improves efficiencies for their team. One major benefit is their support team can now handle multiple cases at once. In fact, the small team handles up to 350 conversations per day now.
Read the full case study here.
DFH Transportation is a truckload transportation provider that operates out of Fort Worth, Texas. The organization uses Textline to help coordinate the delivery of freight for companies like Corona and Nestlé Waters. DFH doesn’t employ any drivers on its own. Instead, it works with independent drivers for shipments. Coordinating is a top concern for DFH as it is responsible for handling communication between these new drivers and their customers.
Prior to Textline, the company would try to call or email the drivers to qualify and communicate with them, but a majority would respond back with a text. That’s why the company began looking for a texting solution. Before using Textline, DFH’s response rate was 71 percent for phone and email combined. By adding SMS, the response rate jumped to 87 percent for texting alone. As a result of raising this response rate, DFH grew revenue by 15 percent and reduced its team size due to realized efficiencies.
Read the full case study here.
Textline has simplified our approach to SMS in general. We've tried many platforms and more robust services like Twilio, but Textline is the perfect turn-key solution for small and big business.
I love the ease of using Textline for mass texting as well as 2-way texting. In the transportation recruiting business, texting is what captures the attention of drivers. Especially with all of the SPAM/SCAM calls drivers are more apt to respond to a text vs. a call.
Textline was so easy to use. It made contacting clients with updates more efficient. And we found we got faster responses when texting clients, than calling clients. We also were able to have our employees keep their personal phones for personal use because of using Textline.
Sync your dispatch and logistics tools with Textline to facilitate real-time SMS updates and communication. Textline’s pre-built integrations help organizations integrate the applications they need in a few clicks.
Get started now with Textline’s SMS transportation and logistics software. Join thousands of other dispatch and logistics partners across the country using SMS to keep their customers and staff informed. Take advantage of two-way texting, automation, surveys, and more from one centralized dashboard. Communicate better to build stronger customer relationships. You can even use Textline to find your next delivery driver or customer service team member. With your Textline dispatch text message solution, it’s easy to reach your customers or staff with important delivery messages. Contact our expert team today to book your demo and discover how Textline can add a competitive advantage to your dispatch and logistics business.
Still have questions? Text us: +1 415-849-4349 or contact us here.
