Send tracking updates with SMS text messaging

Topic: Alongside branded tracking emails, you can notify your customers by SMS whenever their parcel reaches a delivery milestone. Learn how to enable SMS messaging for your parcels in the following article. 

SMS tracking notifications

SMS messages are a convenient way of communicating tracking information to your customers, so they're always kept up to date about when they can expect their parcel to arrive. 

How to enable SMS notifications

1. From your Sendcloud account, go to Settings > Tracking messages
2. From the Tracking emails page, you can configure tracking emails and SMS messaging independently of each other by switching between the Email and SMS tabs at the top of the page: 
3. Select the SMS tab and select a brand:
   
4. You can save a different SMS messaging configuration for each of the brands you have created in your Sendcloud account. You can find more information about creating brands here. 
5. Toggle the switch to activate SMS notifications. By default, 7 out of the 8 available SMS templates are activated for all default countries. If you don't want to send messages to any of the countries in the list,make sure to disable those countries individually.
6. The first time you enable SMS, you'll see the following message to inform you about rates. You'll need to give your consent for customer phone numbers to be used by Sendcloud to send updates via SMS and click Continue. 
   
   

Tracking statuses

Once you've enabled SMS notifications, you can choose which tracking statuses will trigger the sending of SMS tracking updates. You can choose any combination of the following statuses:

Shipping:

1. Ready for shipment
2. Out for delivery
3. Delayed
4. Ready for pick-up
5. Delivered

Returns:

1. Label Created
2. Handed in at drop-off
3. Return received

Each status can be toggled on or off , and can be toggled on or off per shipping Country. This configuration is unique per brand—for example, if you enable status Ready for shipment for brand Sendcloud, this status will still be disabled for all of your other brands and countries until you enable it. 

Countries

You can select which shipping countries to include in your SMS configuration by selecting them from the Add country drop-down menu. Enabling a country will add it to the brand which is currently being configured. You can select countries for both SMS and tracking notifications, independently of each other.  This allows you to create a custom configuration for each of your brands, and for both tracking emails and SMS notifications. 

Deleting a country will also remove it from the configuration of the currently selected brand and message channel (email or SMS). 

SMS Message 

You can edit the body of your SMS text to contain a maximum of 160 characters. We provide you with some default text to get you started. You can edit the body of the message for each country you add. A default message is supplied in the corresponding market language for the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany.

Please note that dynamic tag content will affect the number of characters used in your message, and could result in extra charges. 

Character limit and rates 

Please note: If you exceed the character limit, the message will be chained into a second message. You can chain an SMS up to three consecutive times. Each message in the chain will be individually charged. A warning message will be displayed when the character limit is exceeded. The limit depends on the type of message:

*What is a segment? A "segment" is a part of a message that is split due to character limits. When a message exceeds the limit for one SMS, it is divided into segments. Each segment is sent as a separate message, but they appear as one message to the recipient. The maximum amount of segments is 3.

Dynamic tags

The SMS notification feature includes some unique dynamic tags to help personalize the body of the message. These tags will dynamically pull content, such as {{carrier}} name or {{companyname}} from the parcel details and insert the correct value into the text message. 

You can add dynamic tags to the message by inserting a curly bracket { into the text area. This will open a pop-up menu which will display all the dynamic tags available for you to use. The list of dynamic tags for SMS messages is as follows:

1. {{carrier}} Maximum length: 20
2. {{companyname}} Maximum length: 20
3. {{ordernumber}} Maximum length: 20
4. {{parcelshop}} Maximum length: 35
5. {{trackinglink}}  Maximum length: 25

Pricing

EU countries

• Lite plan: £0.11 per SMS
• Growth plan: £0.09 per SMS
• Premium plan: £0.07 per SMS

United Kingdom

• Lite plan: £0.09 per SMS
• Growth plan: £0.07 per SMS
• Premium plan: £0.05 per SMS

Invoicing

• You are charged according to 2 criteria: the country where your company is registered and your Sendcloud subscription plan. This means that the country you send the SMS to does not affect the pricing.

  • For example, if you are have a Growth Plan with Sendcloud and you are a merchant from Germany, it doesn't matter which country you send an SMS to, you always pay £0.09 per SMS. If you are a merchant from UK with a Premium plan, it doesn't matter which country you send an SMS to, you always pay £0.05 per SMS.

• You will be invoiced for SMS tracking messages on a monthly basis
• You will still receive invoices on a bi-weekly basis

We won’t send out an SMS message if a phone number is invalid or not available to avoid extra costs on your side. We do this by making use of a number validation API, making sure invalid phone numbers are avoided. Examples of invalid phone numbers: 

• Incorrect length or format
• Landline phone numbers
• Device turned off 
• Device with roaming issues
• Device with the country's telecom issues

Terms & conditions

Sendcloud and the partner we use to send SMS text messages will use the phone number and other information submitted to us to provide the text messages associated with the SMS service. Customers may opt out of receiving text messages by replaying'STOP'to a text message they receive.