Go to Settings > External parties > Recipient notifications to turn recipient notifications on.

With this feature enabled, Circuit will automatically send recipient notifications by email or SMS directly to your customers if recipient contact information (email address or phone number) has been provided. If no details are provided, no recipient notifications can be sent.

Recipient contact information can be imported when you create a route or manually added to a stop.

Recipient notifications provide delivery/pickup updates and contain a dynamic tracking link where further details about a specific stop can be found.

This dynamic tracking link gives the recipient real-time and useful information about their delivery.

You can choose how many recipient notifications you want to send and at what stages of the delivery process. You can also select whether to send recipient notifications by email or SMS.

The first recipient notification is sent when your driver starts their route.

It tells delivery recipients that their package is out for delivery and what time their stop is expected to happen.

The second recipient notification is sent when the recipient's stop is next in the queue.

It tells customers that their order is arriving shortly and what time their stop is expected to happen.

The third recipient notification is sent when your driver marks the stop as successful or failed.

It tells customers that their stop has been attempted and was successful or failed and the dynamic tracking link now shows any proof of delivery that was collected by the driver.

Go to Settings > External parties > Recipient notifications > Messages

Use the tick boxes to select which delivery and/or pickup messages you wish to send via email and/or SMS.

You can customize what your recipient notifications say.

In Settings > External parties > Recipient notifications, you will find a range of default message templates.

If you want to customize the content of your message templates, click one to edit it. The message will then appear in a pop-up editing box. Here, you can edit the SMS and email message content, then click > Save changes.

You can change the language, custom fields, and wording of your recipient notifications to whatever you like.

Highlighted in the pop-up editing box are custom fields:

These custom fields are completed using the data you import into Circuit to create a route, and you can click on a custom field to add it to your message.

You can find a glossary of custom fields here.

Control what type of tracking information you share with recipients when they click the dynamic tracking link which is included in recipient notifications.

Go to > Recipient tracking preferences and select one of these options:

Delivery time windows are used to create an ETA time window, which is included in recipient notifications.

You can create fixed or dynamic delivery ETA time windows depending on your preferences.

A fixed delivery time window will apply to all stops and will not change regardless of route progress.

Go to Settings > External parties > Recipient notifications > Time window preferences.

Select > Fixed time window. Enter a ‘start time’ and ‘end time’ for your delivery time window.

Example: A fixed delivery time window of 9 am - 5 pm can be helpful for businesses that wish to send ETAs to customers which are accurate to the nearest working day.

A dynamic time window will apply to all stops and update in real-time depending on the progress of the route.

Go to Settings > External parties > Recipient notifications > Time window preferences.

Select > Dynamic time window. Enter a ‘minimum time’ and ‘maximum time’ for your delivery time window.

Example: A dynamic time window with a minimum value of 30 minutes and a maximum value of 2 hours for a stop with an ETA of noon. This dynamic time window will show customers a minimum delivery time of 11.30 am-12.30 pm, potentially increasing to a maximum delivery time of 10 am - 2 pm, depending on route progress.

A dynamic time window can be helpful for businesses wishing to send real-time ETAs to customers, which are accurate to the nearest minute.

When recipients receive a delivery notification and click on the tracking link, they will see more delivery details and the option to add delivery instructions for their driver.

This can be useful when recipients add information about hard-to-find addresses, but recipients can also misuse it, so there is the option to turn this feature off.

Click here to find out how to provide customer service contact details so your customers can contact you if they have an issue with their delivery.

Contact your account manager, start a live chat, or email [email protected]