The e-commerce industry is quickly growing post-pandemic. It is projected to be valued at US$172 billion by the end of 2025. With online shopping becoming the default for most customers, customer communications have become a vital touchpoint for brands to engage their customers. A robust notification strategy, in particular, has proven to be the most effective tool to date. 

Notifications can be populated through channels such as Email, SMS and Webhooks. The key lies in creating notifications that customers engage with instead of filtering out. 

Each notification can be applied to specific use-cases and phases throughout the delivery journey. We define these specific use-cases as notification triggers. Therefore, brands can optimize their notifications strategy by determining when, how, and why their customers receive notifications.

What are Notification Triggers?

Notification Triggers determine when communications are sent. They are pushed out for a particular reason in a particular phase during the customer journey.

Different notification triggers work with different use-cases for when notifications can be implemented. These specific triggers reflect different phases of the delivery journey. Below is an overview of the different triggers that we now offer to our customers to help craft truly unique and powerful notifications.

Types of Notification Triggers

Parcel Perform has announced a brand new feature update of our Key Notification Triggers! Below is a broad overview of the different triggers that we now offer to our customers. 

Event-based triggers:

They are the most commonly used reason for communication with a customer and widely implemented, even by many of the carriers. They are activated whenever a particular event occurs during the delivery journey. In order to provide easy implementation for our customers, event-based triggers are organized around various event phases. As the foundation of any good notification strategy, they are easy to implement and complete the full delivery notification journey.

Find out more about how a complete notification strategy can help your business by reaching out to our delivery notification experts to guide you alongside the best-practices. 

Time-Expiry Triggers 

Instead of creating a notification immediately when an event occurs, time-expiry triggers are activated after a specified time duration after an event has been completed, unlocking countless intuitive use cases. 

Compliance-Based Triggers

Compliance-based triggers are used to convey information when a parcel has failed to comply with your brand’s SLA (Service Level Agreements). These can be based on your own order processes, warehouse SLA or your agreements with respective carriers. Some shipments do not follow the regular delivery journey, thus the compliance based triggers allow you to provide updates when an SLA was not met or an event was missed.   

Prediction-Based Trigger

Finally, prediction-based triggers keep your customers in the loop when a prediction on the arrival data for the delivery can be made.  Closely linked to our proprietary Date of Arrival Prediction engine, the machine-learning derived accurate dates of delivery are a fantastic way to keep your customers informed.

How are Notifications triggered?

Each notification trigger has its own use but the channel by which they are delivered is also vital to a solid notification strategy for any business. The most frequently used notification channels include Email notifications, SMS notifications, and Webhooks.

Email Notifications

Email notifications are, by far, the most widely used method of delivering notifications. They are easily customisable with your own HTML and can be a good tool to create brand awareness as well. Once sent, they are easily accessible and provide more flexibility to the presentation of the content. Parcel Perform has recorded an open rate of 80% for email notifications which is four times higher than a standard newsletter. Moreover, proprietary content such as How-to Guides or vouchers can be added to these emails. Email notifications can work with a brand's CRM systems, thus streamlining data and turnaround for implementation. 

SMS Notifications 

SMSes are most effective when you want to communicate time-sensitive information. They command a 209% higher response rate than phone and email. Critical notifications that require immediate customer action should be communicated in this manner.

The process for creating and activating SMS notification triggers can be found in our handy SMS delivery notifications guide.

Webhooks

Webhooks can be automatically sent from our platform to yours using pre-set triggers. 

The usage of webhooks is broad and can be utilised for both internal and external communications in your brand. With webhooks, you can enable pop-up notifications on your website, create tickets in your CRM system to trigger emails from or feed your data warehouse with the latest information.

How can Notification Triggers help build your brand?

Keep your internal communications agile and responsive

Notification triggers are often used for communications across various internal teams along the order fulfilment stage. This communication helps your logistics teams manage the process efficiently while keeping respective stakeholders updated in real time.

For example when a particular shipment experiences issues or delays, a custom event-based trigger can be used to notify internal teams. Alternatively, your Customer Service staff or your Warehouse manager can be kept in the loop with the use of a compliance-based trigger if an SLA has been breached. This gives them time to act on it before a customer complaint occurs. 

Proactively communicate with end-use customers to provide delivery reminders 

The use of event-based or even time-expiry triggers is especially helpful in preventing re-deliveries. For example, you might want to include a reminder to a customer that a parcel will be delivered today, with the 'out for delivery' event-based trigger. Or a customer might have forgotten to retrieve their parcel from the parcel locker - send them a quick reminder to pick it up.

Use Notification Triggers to your advantage

Whether the goal is to smooth out operational kinks, reduce costs in the last-mile, or drive brand engagement, every notification strategy begins with recognising how the ‘when’ and ‘how’ work together.

In order to set up your email, sms or webhook notifications, users simply need to click on ‘Add notification’ on the Notification Dashboard, and select the desired notification channel. Simple prompts to input the Notification name will follow, thus allowing you to select the type of Notification trigger as well as the Notification Template to be used. For a more detailed walkthrough, we have a comprehensive step-by-step customer notification centre guide!

A robust notification strategy improves and elevates communications between any brand and all stakeholders involved in the delivery journey. Parcel Perform’s NOTIFY marries customizability with convenience to give our clients maximum control over their delivery communications. Interested to learn more about how our platform helps build effective notification strategies? Speak to our sales team today.