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Some Tellem messages are for you, not your customer — a heads-up that a job needs staffing, or a customer reply that needs a human. This page covers both and where to control them on the Account page.

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Unstaffed-appointment alerts

If a job’s start time is approaching and no technician has been assigned, Tellem warns you automatically — once on the day of the job (from midnight), and again about two hours before it starts. These go out even outside your messaging hours, which only apply to customer messages. This runs for every account; there’s nothing to turn on. Once you assign a worker, the alerts stop for that job. Alerts to your business, a card on the Account page, is where you choose which channel(s) carry these warnings:
  • Email me about unstaffed appointments — sent to the contractor email set in the Business details card above it.
  • Text me about unstaffed appointments — sent to your cell, same place.
Both are on by default. Turn either off if you’d rather not hear about it that way — turning off both means Tellem won’t alert you about unstaffed jobs at all, and the page tells you so. Texting needs a valid cell number. If you turn texting on but the cell number on the Business details card is missing or not a real US number, the Account page shows a note right next to the toggle, and you’ll only get these alerts by email until you add one — saving still works either way, you just won’t get the text half of the warning. This is different from your customers’ messages, which are unaffected by anything on this page.

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Running-late alerts

Whenever Tellem tells a customer their technician is running late, it tells you too. That covers both the first running late message and the running later than expected follow-up. Your copy says which customer was told what, includes the exact message they received, and gives the estimated arrival time it was based on, so you know what your customer has heard before they call you. Tellem also alerts you when it works out a technician is late but the customer isn’t messaged — for example because the customer’s running-late text is turned off, can’t be delivered, is waiting for your messaging hours, or the customer has already been told the worker is on the way. Any of these triggers that alert:
  • Live location. The worker’s phone is reporting a recent location and the drive from there puts them past the job’s arrival time plus your delay grace period — the same check that decides whether your customer gets a running late text.
  • No location. The job is past its arrival time plus your delay grace period, the worker hasn’t arrived, and their phone hasn’t reported a location recently. Your customer isn’t told “running late” in this case — Tellem can’t say where the worker is — so you’re the one who needs to know.
  • The worker says so. While a technician is on a job and has another one later that day, the Tellem field-worker app asks them whether they’re on the way to the next job. If the app works out that they’re likely to be late and they answer that they aren’t on the way yet, Tellem alerts you.
That alert names the worker and the job, and, when Tellem has them, the estimated drive time and the job they’re at now.
  • Running-late alerts go out on the same channel(s) as the unstaffed-appointment alerts — the two toggles on the Alerts to your business card control both. Turning both off means you won’t get running-late alerts either.
  • You won’t hear about the same delay twice: once you’ve been told a job is running late, you’ll only hear about it again if the customer is sent the running later than expected follow-up.
  • They’re sent immediately, even outside your messaging hours, because they only happen during the worker’s shift and are time-sensitive.
  • Nothing goes out once the worker has arrived or has been marked arrived.

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Customer reply routing

When a customer replies to a Tellem text with something other than a STOP or START keyword, Tellem forwards it to you so you can respond — this is the Customer reply routing card, just below Alerts to your business.
  • Forward customer replies is the master switch. Turn it off to drop free-form replies without notifying you; STOP and START are always handled regardless.
  • Email me when a customer replies and Text me when a customer replies work independently, each with its own optional override address or number — set one if you want replies routed somewhere other than your main contractor email or cell (e.g. a shared dispatch inbox).
Email is on by default; text is off by default, because texting your own number counts against your SMS throughput and most accounts don’t have a texting number wired up on day one. If you turn text on before that is in place, those texts are dropped — they are not held and delivered later — so leave email on as well until you’ve confirmed texts are arriving.