Guide

Set up pre-arrival emails

A last note before the customer travels — where to meet, what to bring, anything outstanding. You can approve each one first, or let them send on their own once you trust them.

5 min read

This guide answers

  • How do I email customers before they arrive?
  • Can I check a pre-arrival email before it sends?
  • How do I text customers on the day of pickup?

Two screens work together:

  • Settings → Pre-arrival email sets the rules.
  • Pre-arrival review is where prepared emails wait for you, with a count on the menu item.

Choose how much you want to check

The mode is the decision that matters:

  • Review, then auto-send — Glovebox prepares each email and holds it. You look, you approve. If you do not get to it, it goes anyway once the auto-send time arrives, so a busy week does not mean a customer hears nothing.
  • Send automatically (no review) — prepared and sent, no queue.

Start on review. Read a dozen, see whether you would have changed any, then decide whether the queue is earning its place.

The timings

Three numbers, all hours:

  • Review hours — how far ahead of pickup the email is prepared and put in front of you.
  • Auto-send hours — the point at which an unapproved email sends by itself.
  • Nudge hours — when to chase a customer who still has something outstanding.

Review hours must be further out than auto-send hours, since one has to happen before the other.

The review queue

Pre-arrival review lists the prepared emails. For each you can approve it, send now, or change the send date if the customer's plans have moved.

The number on the menu item is what is still waiting, so a growing count means the queue is not being worked.

Pickup-day text message

Optionally, a text on the day itself, with its own offset in hours before pickup. Off by default.

This one goes to customers, which makes it different from the urgent staff texts on the Communications screen — different audience, different provider, separate switch. It needs customer SMS set up for your account before it will send.

What you should see when it worked

On Review, then auto-send, prepared emails start appearing in Pre-arrival review roughly your review-hours before each pickup. Approve one and it goes; leave it and it goes at the auto-send point.

Things worth knowing

  • The email is only as useful as what you put in it. Where to meet, parking, after-hours arrangements, what to bring — the things you would otherwise be phoned about.
  • A customer with something outstanding gets nudged at your nudge hours, which is the point of the setting: not another reminder for everyone, one for the people holding you up.

If it did not work

  • Nothing is appearing in review. Check the mode, and that pickups actually fall inside your review window — a booking made for tomorrow may already be past it.
  • Emails send before you get to them. That is auto-send doing its job. Push the auto-send hours closer to pickup for a longer look.
  • The pickup-day text is not sending. It is off by default and needs customer SMS configured.
  • Choose which emails Glovebox sends Glovebox sends a lot on your behalf. This is the one screen that controls it — which emails reach customers, which alerts reach your team, and who they appear to come from.
  • Put your own information in the hire email The three things customers ring you about — how to return the car, who to call if it breaks down, what to do after a bump — written once, in your words, and included automatically.

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