Courier messaging: the driver, the customer and the record

In courier work the conversation happens whether you build for it or not - drivers message customers from their own phones because it is the fastest thing available. The question is whether the business keeps the record, and any replacement has to be as fast as what it replaces.

What the personal phone costs

• The record. "Leave it with the neighbour" was agreed on a device you do not control.
• The relationship. The customer now has a driver's number and uses it next time.
• The evidence. A claim about a missing parcel has no conversation attached.
• The driver's privacy. Their personal number is in hundreds of strangers' phones, permanently.

The three messages, and the fourth

A window, on the way, outside - and then the one that matters most:

Make it faster than the alternative

A driver holding a phone in one hand and a parcel in the other will not open an app, find a customer and compose a message. Whatever you build has to be one tap from the job they are already looking at, or they will use WhatsApp directly and you will be back where you started.

1. Templates on a button. On the way, outside, no answer - one tap each.
2. The photo attaches to the job, not to a chat the office cannot see.
3. The customer replies to the business number, and the driver sees it.
4. It works with one hand, in the rain, on a bad connection.

The failed delivery

Say what happens next in the same message: the next attempt, where to collect, how to reschedule. A failure notice with no next step generates a support conversation for every parcel, and those arrive at the office rather than at the driver.

Route the reply to somebody who can act

"I'm not home, can you come back at 5?" is useless in an inbox the driver cannot see and the office reads tomorrow. Whatever the architecture, replies during a delivery window have to reach the person holding the parcel - coordinating the last hundred metres is the whole job.