Long distance
Messages customers get on a trip
The emails and texts a long-distance trip sends customers by itself — driver on the way, delivery scheduling and the 24-hour notice — plus the ones the office sends, and how to switch them or change the words.
- 2 min read
- Checked against MoveBoard
- For owners & admins, dispatchers
On this page
A long-distance customer waits days for their delivery. MoveBoard keeps them informed from the trip, without the office having to remember.
Sent by themselves
| Message | When it goes |
|---|---|
| Driver on the way | When the driver (or the office) marks done the stop before this customer's pickup or delivery — with an arrival estimate from the drive time. Rest, fuel and scale stops in between don't count as the next stop. |
| Delivery scheduling | Once the shipment is picked up and is delivered on a later day: the delivery spread and the planned day, for the customer to confirm or change. |
| 24-hour delivery notice | The day before the planned delivery, from 9 AM in your branch's time. |
Each goes once per order, per trip (and per stop, for "on the way"). Each lands in the order's conversation and log, like every other message.
Sent only by the office
- Delay — offered when you record a delay, never automatically.
- Weight and charges (375.521) — when the customer asked; see Weight and charges notice.
- Early delivery to storage (49 CFR 375.607) and Storage conversion (49 CFR 375.609) — from the SIT board; the conversion notice goes by itself on its day. See Storage in transit.
Every one of them is listed on the trip's Schedule tab under Customer messages and notices.
Switch them on or off
- Open Trips › Trailers & settings.
- Under Customer messages, switch Driver on the way, with arrival estimate, Delivery scheduling, 24-hour delivery notice or Delay message by email or text. Each switch saves at once.
A kind of message is on while its template is active, so switching a template off in Settings › Communication › Templates does the same.
Shipment milestones in the client portal shows the customer Booked → Picked up → In transit / In storage → Out for delivery → Delivered on their portal.
Change the words
The messages are your templates, in Settings › Communication › Templates, folder Trips: Long-distance: driver on the way, Long-distance: delivery scheduling, Long-distance: 24-hour delivery notice and Long-distance: delivery delay. MoveBoard creates them with ready words the first time they're needed, and never over a template you already have. Each has an email and a text version.
If a message can't go
Sending never stops the trip. If a message can't go — no email or phone on the order, for example — the record on the order says why.
Related guides
- Long distanceTrailers and trip settingsSet up the Trip Planner once — trailers, truck weight limits and lengths, the capacity headline, the SIT period, per diem, routing, the drivers' hours-of-service cycle, the load plan, and which customer messages trips send.
- Long distanceRecord a delayWhen a long-distance delivery can't make the promised spread, record the delay on the trip — the new date, the reason and how the customer was told — and keep the record federal rules ask for.
- Long distanceWeight and charges noticeWhen a customer asks to know the actual weight and charges before delivery, tick it on the trip and send the notice in time — one full business day before delivery (49 CFR 375.521).
- Long distanceStorage in transit (SIT)Keep long-distance shipments that wait in a warehouse on the SIT board — carrier holds and billable SIT, the 375.609 conversion notice, billing the stay, delivery out, partial delivery and conversion to permanent storage.
- SettingsEmail and text templatesThe page where every email and text is built — the words, the design, the variables — while Workflows decide when each goes.
- Email, texts & callsVariables in templatesThe placeholders that fill in each customer's name, move details, prices, invoice and links when a message goes out — how to insert them, how they're spelled, and how to check them.
Still stuck? A person will help.
Open a ticket from Support inside MoveBoard, or email us — we usually reply within one business day.