Today, 86% of consumers use off-premise services at least once a month. Because businesses from traditional transportation companies to new, on-demand startups are beginning to provide these services widely, consumers have become accustomed to high-quality at-home service. This also means that more businesses are having to contend with a tough challenge—logistics. But new communication technologies, like dispatch text messages, can help.
Dispatch and operations teams have to contend with a wide variety of problems in everyday operations, from in-field snafus to overburdened agents. By empowering teams to send fast, seamless messages, SMS dispatch solves or prevents many of these challenges.
Read on to learn more about the top 5 problems dispatch text messages can solve.
Dispatch Problem #1: Missed Delivery Or Appointment Windows
For many deliveries or services, customers have to be at home to receive their package or to let a field tech inside their homes. This can be especially important for businesses selling delicate, large, or perishable goods. However, sometimes delivery or field staff can arrive at a predetermined meeting space and find that the customer is not there. With the help of an SMS dispatch platform, operations teams can send out multiple delivery or appointment reminders via dispatch text messages that clients and customers are likely to check. After all, texting has an astonishing 98% open rate.
Pro Tip: SMS dispatch platforms allow teams to schedule out delivery reminders so that they arrive multiple times before the day of the scheduled delivery or appointment.
Dispatch Problem #2: In-Field Issues
It’s very common for in-field staff to experience problems while on their delivery routes. In-field problems range from unexpected locked gates to an incorrect address on a package. While it can be difficult for in-field staff to get a timely response from operations by calling in, since often operations teams have to call clients for answers in turn, dispatch text messages are a far faster alternative. After receiving a text, the operations team can quickly text the customer and reply to the staff member with instructions. If in-field staff need to report a delay, they can text dispatch operations team members, then the operations team can inform customers. Dispatch text messages turn what would have been an hour-long issue into a 10-minute solution.
Pro Tip: Teams can automate their SMS dispatch inboxes so that incoming messages with certain keywords are routed to the appropriate agent. For example, a text with the word “late” can be forwarded to a client communications specialist and send an auto reply.
Dispatch Problem #3: Tied-Up Ops Teams
Often, ops teams are tied up on the phone, either relaying messages, asking questions, or waiting for an answer to a phone call. With dispatch text messages, agents can multitask across many more conversations, freeing up their time for more complex tasks. For example, while waiting for a customer to answer a text, dispatch team members can send a delivery notification to another customer.
Pro Tip: Shared inboxes empower each permissioned team member to see all incoming messages, and assign themselves (or another team member) queries that they are qualified to answer.
Dispatch Problem #4: Slow Customer Service
Today’s customers want to know where their packages are, and they want to know right now. When customers accidentally miss your SMS dispatch notifications and are excited about receiving their purchase, they can often find a team’s response too slow for their liking. In this day and age, waiting more than 20 minutes to respond to a text can be interpreted as rude. With the help of a business SMS platform, teams can set up a polite auto reply to let customers who text dispatch teams know when they can expect a reply. In addition, dispatch text messages allow agents to send responses quicker than ever, and ensure customers read them quickly. (Ninety percent of texts are read within the first three seconds of receipt and the average response time for a text is 90 seconds.)
Pro Tip: SMS dispatch platforms can respond to messages with varying replies depending on the incoming message’s content. For example, a message containing the word “problem” can receive a reassuring response alongside a list of business hours, while a message containing the word “opt in” can receive an opt-in confirmation.
Dispatch Problem #5: Disjointed Training
Training is one of the most important tasks of dispatch and operations teams. However, it can be hard to help new team members in the field once initial training is over. SMS dispatch provides new team members with a quick channel for sending through questions, so they can receive fast and accurate messages from managers. Operations teams can improve their training with dispatch text messages; since shared inboxes allow managers to monitor customer SMS conversations in real time, new operations team members can loop in senior team members through private messages for help. Additionally, with a single text, dispatch managers can request scheduling or other critical information from the entire team.
Pro Tip: Take advantage of your SMS dispatch platform’s private messages during the training process. New hires can loop in experienced co-workers or managers to their chats for help with customer requests.
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