In the dynamic world of last mile delivery, providing customers with a seamless and informed experience is a priority. Imagine a world where every step of the delivery process, from the moment a run starts to the successful completion of each job, is met with timely notifications and accurate ETAs.
Tarot Routing's "Events and Actions" module makes this vision a reality. In this tutorial, "How to Customize and Send Delivery Notifications to Your Customers," we will walk you through the setup of two essential actions: "Send Email Notification to All Jobs" triggered by the "Run Started" event and "Send Email Notification" for individual jobs upon their completion. By mastering these configurations, you will empower your delivery operations to elevate the customer experience, ensuring satisfaction and building lasting connections.
Get Started to Send Delivery Notifications to your Customers.
To get started with Delivery Notifications you will need to have a Tarot Routing account (click here to learn how to run your first optimisation) with the Events and Actions module enabled.
Reach out and book a demo with our team or contact your account representative if your Organisation does not have Events and Actions module activated.
Log into your account and navigate to the Admin Panel. From the left menu expand Events and Actions and click on Manage. Your screen should look like this. For each Event, e.g. Job Created, you can see existing actions and create a new Action.
What's an Event?
Put simply, an Event is something that has happened and corresponds with a delivery milestone. e.g. Job Created Event occurs when a new Job is created in the Database, Run Started Event occurs when a driver clicks Start Run in the app and a Job Completed Event occurs when a Job Proof is submitted to the Database.
What's an Action?
An Action is what the Tarot Routing backend does when an Event occurs. For example, the Action "Send Email Notification to All Jobs" triggered by the "Run Started" Event will tell the Tarot Routing backend to send an email to all Jobs where there is a Customer Email.
You can set up multiple Actions for each Event. Actions can be SMS notifications, Emails, Webhooks or API calls to linked systems.
How to set-up and send Delivery Notifications to your customers
We will now set up Delivery Notifications for a very common use case, notify all customers in a specific Run that their delivery is enroute and then, once the delivery is completed, send proof of delivery information.
For the first Delivery Notification we need to set up an Action for a Run Started Event.
Click Create Action for a Run Started Event
Open the drop down and select Send Email Notification to All Jobs. The Add Action modal will default to the blank template for this action. The fields are as follows.
Name: A meaningful name so you can identify the action.
Recipients: Who will receive the email. By default, the Recipient is set to the job_customer_email but you can add a dedicated email address if desired.
Message Subject: The subject of the email. Use </> button to add placeholders for variables.
Message Body: The body of the email. Use </> button to add placeholders for variables.
For example, the filled template could look like this.
Note: Job Eta 30 min window will give a 30 min range on the Jobs Updated ETA, not the exact time. You can choose Updated ETA, or 15 min, 30 min, 60 min and 120 min ETA windows.
Hit save and your delivery notification is good to go when the next driver starts their run. You can edit the notification at any time.
Great! Now we have created the Run Started Action we can create the Job Completed Action to Send an Email Notification to a Job upon its completion.
To Create this action click Create Action button in Job Completed Event.
Similar to Run Started Event the Add Action modal will appear. Open the drop down and select Send Email Notification. The Add Action modal will default to the blank template for this action. The fields are as follows.
Name: A meaningful name so you can identify the action.
Recipients: Who will receive the email. By default, the Recipient is set to the job_customer_email but you can add a dedicated email address if desired.
Message Subject: The subject of the email. Use </> button to add placeholders for variables.
Message Body: The body of the email. Use </> button to add placeholders for variables.
For example, the filled template could look like this.
Again, hit save and your Job Completed delivery notification is good to go when the next Job Proof is submitted. You can edit the notification at any time.
Test Mode
You can test the messages and notifications that are sent via SMS or Email in Events and Actions by navigating to the Config Menu.
Here you can Enable Test Mode and set a Default phone and email recipient. This will override set in the Action template you created previously, and all SMS and Email notifications will go to the Test Mode recipient.
Remember to come back and turn Test Mode off once you are happy with the messages being sent and ready for them to go to your customers for real!
Congratulations, You're Done!
You've successfully set up delivery notifications so your customers can stay informed with the latest delivery information.