iMessage for towing and roadside assistance

Roadside is the most time-compressed trade there is. The customer is stationary, exposed and counting minutes, and their tolerance for ambiguity is zero. Two pieces of information matter — where are you and when will someone be here — and everything else is noise.

Location, resolved properly

'I'm on the highway near the bridge' is not a location. A dropped pin is. Asking for one directly, in a thread, is faster and more reliable than trying to extract cross-streets from someone who is upset.

export const dispatch = {
  getLocation: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.company}: send your location — tap the + in Messages, ` +
    `then Location. That's the fastest way to get us to exactly where ` +
    `you are. Are you somewhere safe?`,
 
  dispatched: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.company}: ${c.driver} is on the way, ${c.etaMins} minutes. ` +
    `${c.truckDesc}, unit ${c.unitNumber}. ` +
    `Stay in the car with your belt on if you're on a live carriageway.`,
 
  // The single most important message in this trade.
  delayed: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.company}: traffic's put ${c.driver} back to about ${c.newEta}. ` +
    `Sorry — he is definitely coming. If anything changes for you ` +
    `or you feel unsafe, call ${c.emergencyNumber}.`,
};

Safety comes before logistics

A customer on a hard shoulder at night is in real danger, and it is worth saying so. This is one of the few trades where your first message should be about their safety rather than your service.

• Ask whether they are safe before you ask anything else.
• Tell them where to wait — behind the barrier, not in the vehicle, if they are on a fast road.
• Escalate rather than absorb. If someone is injured, in a live lane, or with children in an unsafe position, that is an emergency services call, not a tow booking.
• Never let a safety message sit in a queue. Inbound on this channel must route to a human immediately.

After the tow, the thread is worth keeping

A tow usually ends at a garage, which means the conversation naturally continues into a repair — often yours. Handing over cleanly, in the same thread, is a better experience than starting again, and it is where the margin is.

The repair side of that conversation is covered in iMessage for auto repair.