DumpsterBossPro Blog — Driver App & Routes

The On-the-Way Text: Getting the Customer to Move the Car Before You Arrive

Residential roll-off has one recurring enemy: the car in the driveway. The customer asked for the can in the drive, then parked right where it goes, and now the driver is sitting at the curb with a 20 on the hoist knocking on the door of an empty house.

The on-the-way text is the cheapest fix there is. Start and Complete: Two Taps That Tell the Office Where Every Can Stands covered the status taps. This one covers the first text the customer gets on delivery day.

What the Text Does

One tap in the driver app sends the customer a text that the truck is on the way. That gives them a chance to move the car, open the gate, put the dog inside, unlock the side yard, or come outside to point. It also turns a vague "sometime Tuesday" delivery window into "the truck is coming now," which is what customers actually want to know.

Customers choose which alerts they receive, so the ones who do not want texts do not get them, and the ones who do get exactly what they asked for.

When to Send It

Send it when you leave the previous stop, not when you turn onto the customer's road. The point is to give the customer enough time to act. Five minutes is usually too little for someone to find their car keys and move a vehicle. Fifteen to twenty minutes works for most residential drops.

If the next stop is close, send it before you leave the yard or while the previous job is wrapping up, so the customer still gets some warning. If the drive is long, it is still worth sending at departure; the live map in the customer app lets them watch the rest of the approach.

On a swap or pickup, the timing matters differently. The customer does not need to clear space for a delivery, but they may need to stop loading the can, move a trailer parked in front of it, or unlock a gate. The same text gives them that warning.

Fewer Wasted Trips

Every roll-off company has run a trip that ended with the driver unable to drop the can. The car was there, the gate was locked, the spot was blocked by a pile of debris waiting to go into the can. That trip costs fuel, driver time, and a slot in the schedule. An on-the-way text does not eliminate those, but it cuts them, because most customers will clear the spot when they know the truck is close.

Think about what a dry run actually costs. The driver drove there, waited, made calls, drove away, and someone has to drive back another day. The can that was supposed to go on the ground is still on the truck, which may wreck the order of the rest of the day. One text that prevents even one of those a week pays for the habit many times over.

Fewer Where-Is-My-Dumpster Calls

The on-the-way text also quiets the office phone. A customer who gets a text does not call to ask when the truck is coming. Combined with the customer's live map of the driver, it gives them something to watch instead of something to ask about. That is a lot less time spent on the phone on a busy delivery morning.

When the Customer Replies

Sometimes the customer replies: "Can you put it on the other side instead?" or "Gate code changed." Through two-way texting, the reply lands with the office, tied to the customer. The office can update the job or call the driver if it is urgent. Drivers should not be texting back and forth with customers while driving. Covered in more depth later in this series.

The text itself should make clear what happens next. A customer who knows the truck is coming, and knows that a reply goes to the office, is much more likely to clear the drive than to call the driver's cell.

Make It a Habit

The on-the-way text only works if drivers actually send it. Make it part of the routine: complete the previous job, read the next one, tap on-the-way, then roll. It takes one second. Customers notice when it does not come.

The on-the-way text is one of the small features in the dumpster driver app that the customer actually sees, and it makes the whole company look organized.