Most customers don't need a phone call to say "I'm 20 minutes away". They need to see it. The simplest way to give them that is a live map they can open in any browser, showing where the vehicle is right now and how far it has to go.
This article covers how to share your delivery location with a customer without asking them to download anything, and what to look for so you aren't handing out your location to anyone who gets hold of a link.
Why a live map beats "it's on its way"
- Fewer calls and texts. When the customer can see the van on the map, "where are you?" mostly stops.
- Someone is home when you arrive. An arrival heads-up gives people time to get to the door, the dock or the site gate.
- It looks professional. A branded tracking page tells the customer you run an organised operation, even if you're a one-vehicle business.
What the customer should not have to do
Every extra step loses people. A good tracking link should work for the customer without:
- installing an app,
- creating an account or remembering a password, or
- keeping a tab open and refreshing it.
How to do it with journey.delivery
- Start a journey. Enter where you're headed and a short description of the load. journey.delivery plots the road route for you.
- Invite your customer by email. They receive a tracking link, a Trip ID and a 6-digit PIN automatically. There's nothing for you to copy and paste.
- Drive. Your customer opens the link in any browser and sees your live position, the road already travelled, the route ahead and the time and distance remaining. The map updates on its own.
- Let the alerts do the rest. Your customer gets an email as you get close, and another when you mark the delivery complete.
The step-by-step guide is in Creating and Sharing a Journey.
Keep it private: invite-only, per trip
A plain "anyone with the link" share has a problem: links get forwarded, and they don't expire when the job is done. journey.delivery checks three things before it shows a trip: the Trip ID, the PIN, and the viewer's own email address, which must match an invite for that trip. An invite to today's delivery never opens next week's.
So your customer sees this delivery, and only this one. More on that in Privacy and Security.
What it costs
Sharing your own trips is free for individual drivers. Companies running several drivers and vehicles can choose a plan on the pricing page.
Try it on your next delivery
Registration takes a couple of minutes. Create a free driver account and invite your next customer to follow the trip, then see whether the "where are you?" calls drop.