What this is
Some companies want the driver who was on site to answer the customer directly: "I was there at 9. The unit was tipped over, I stood it back up and pumped it." Others want every customer conversation to stay in the office. Driver messaging is the switch that decides, and it is off until an owner or admin turns it on.
Where: Settings → Customer Experience → Driver messaging. It is part of the Inbox, so it is on the Growth plan.
Turning it on
- Customers on their route *(Recommended)*: conversations with customers they're scheduled to serve from a week ago to a week ahead, plus any conversation about one of their jobs or shared with them.
- Only what you share: conversations about their own jobs, plus the conversations or customers the office shares with them from the Inbox.
- All customers: every customer conversation in the Inbox.
Only an owner or admin can change this. Dispatchers can see the setting but not change it.
What drivers get when it's on
What drivers can and can't do
| Drivers can | Drivers can't |
|---|---|
| Read customer messages and reply from the driver app | See internal notes |
| Start a conversation with a customer about one of their jobs | Assign, close or snooze conversations |
| See messages from unknown numbers or addresses |
Replies go out the way the conversation came in: a text conversation gets a text from your business number, an email conversation gets an email, a portal conversation lands in the customer's portal. The driver's name shows on what they send, unless Hide Employee Names in Customer Portal is on.
When a driver opens a conversation, it is marked read for that driver only. It stays unread for office staff who haven't opened it.
When it's off
Customer messages stay in the office Inbox. Drivers see only Team and System in their notifications, and the Customer messages screen isn't in their app.
Conversations about a job
Every conversation can be tied to a job:
A job conversation is emailed to the customer with a reply address, so customers who never open the portal can answer straight from their email, and the answer comes back to the same conversation. When a customer writes about a job, that job's driver gets a push notification.
The job shows as a blue label ("Delivery · J-1001 · Oct 28") on the Inbox row and at the top of the conversation.
Linking a text or email conversation to a job is a label. The customer's next text still arrives in their one text conversation, because a text can't say which job it is about.
Sharing a conversation with a driver
With Customers on their route or Only what you share, the office decides which other conversations each driver sees:
- This conversation: only this one.
- All with this customer: every conversation with that customer, including new ones.
The driver gets a push notification ("Dana shared a conversation with Maple Street Apartments"), and the conversation shows up in their Customer messages. From then on, a new message from the customer notifies them too.
Once a conversation is shared, the header shows who has it ("Shared with Jordan Ellis" or "Shared with 2 drivers"). Tap that label to change it.
Good to know: