TowingBossPro Blog — Roadside Assistance

Two-Way Texting on Roadside Calls: Getting the Real Location and Photos

Some of the most useful information on a roadside call comes from the customer after you hang up. They figure out which exit they passed. They find the lug key. They walk around the car and realize two tires are flat. Two-way texting gives that information somewhere to go, and keeps it where your dispatcher and driver can find it.

Why Texting Beats Calling Back

One-Tap On-the-Way and Arrival Texts for Roadside Drivers covered the updates your driver sends with a tap. Two-way texting is the conversation in both directions. A customer stuck on a shoulder often cannot hear a phone call over the traffic. Texting works in noise, works when the signal is weak, and leaves a written record of what was said.

It also frees the dispatcher. A text can be answered between calls. A phone call cannot.

Texting is also easier for customers who are dealing with other things. A parent with kids in the back seat, someone on a work call, someone sitting in a store waiting for help: all of them can answer a text when they get a second. A ringing phone they miss means another callback to your desk.

Ask for the Location Pin

The single best use of two-way texting is getting an accurate location. After intake, send a short text: "Please reply with your location pin so our driver can find you." Most phones can share a pin in a couple of taps. That pin, plus the description you already have, is far more reliable than "a mile or two past the truck stop."

Copy the key details into the driver notes, so the driver sees them in the app on the way.

Be specific in what you ask for. "Send your location" can get you a vague reply. "Please reply with a location pin, and tell us which side of the road you are on and what is nearby" gets you something a driver can use. Keep a few saved phrasings for the requests you send all the time, so dispatchers do not type from scratch.

Ask for a Photo

A photo is worth a lot on certain calls:

• Winch-outs: how deep and how far off the road.
• Tire calls: which tire, how bad, and whether the spare looks inflated.
• Possible tows: whether the vehicle looks drivable.
• Lockouts: where the keys are visible through the window.

One photo can tell you which truck to send, which saves a second trip.

A photo is also documentation. A picture the customer sent before your driver arrived shows the condition of the vehicle and the scene in their own words, which can matter if there is a disagreement later about damage or about how stuck a vehicle really was.

Honest Updates When Things Change

Two-way texting is where you tell the customer the truth when plans change. The driver got held up. The call got reassigned. The driver is ten minutes out. A short text is respectful and heads off the angry call.

It also works the other direction. A customer who got a jump from a passerby can text "cancel, all set." Your dispatcher pulls the call off the waiting list before a truck makes the trip.

Keep updates short and factual. Customers do not need the story of why the driver is late. They need to know there is a delay, how long it is likely to be, and that you have not forgotten them. Two sentences is usually enough.

Keep It Off Personal Phones

The texts in TowingBossPro live with the call. Anyone who opens the call later, whether a dispatcher on the next shift, the owner checking a dispute, or the person handling an unpaid invoice, can see what was said and when. That matters when a customer later claims they were quoted a different price or never told about a delay.

It also keeps your drivers' and dispatchers' personal numbers out of customers' hands.

Text, Then Get Paid

Texting does not stop when the work is done. The invoice can go out by text or email, and the customer pays online from their phone. If they have questions about the bill, they reply, and the answer is on the record. Automatic payment follow-ups handle the ones who forget.

The next article turns to the money side in detail: building a roadside price list your dispatchers can quote the same way every time. For texting, dispatch and payment in one place, see the TowingBossPro roadside assistance software page.