How to Dispatch Your First Service Call

Why This Matters

Every service business lives or dies on dispatch. A missed call is a lost $385 average ticket. A poorly assigned job is a callback, an angry review, and a tech who quits. The industry benchmark for booking rate on inbound service calls is 85 percent, and the top quartile of shops hit 92 percent or higher. If you are booking at 60 percent because calls are going to voicemail or getting scribbled on sticky notes, you are leaving roughly $1,500 per week per phone line on the table. Clean dispatch also protects margin. When the right tech gets sent to the right job with the right parts, the average repair closes in a single visit 78 percent of the time instead of the 52 percent rate typical for shops running on paper. That difference alone is worth 4 to 6 points of net profit at year end, which on a $1.2M plumbing shop is $60,000 of owner pay you would otherwise never see.

The Steps

1. 1

   Step 1: Open the dispatch board and set today's view

   Log into Kaldr Tech and click Dispatch in the left nav. You will see a grid with each technician as a column and time blocks running down the page in 30 minute increments. Set the date picker to today. If you run a plumbing shop with three techs, you should see three columns labeled with their names and a small color dot next to each one showing their current status. Make sure every tech you expect to dispatch to is visible. If someone is missing, go to Settings, Team, and toggle them to Active. The dispatch board is your single source of truth for the day. Any job that is not on this board does not exist, so discipline here pays you back every hour.

   Pro tip: Bookmark the dispatch board as your browser homepage so it opens the moment you sit down.

2. 2

   Step 2: Capture the customer call

   When the phone rings, click the green New Call button in the top right of the dispatch board. A panel slides out with fields for customer name, phone, address, and issue. For an HVAC no-cool call, type the customer name, use the address autocomplete so the ZIP is accurate, and in the issue field write something specific like '2014 Carrier 3 ton, blowing warm, outdoor unit not running, house is 82 degrees, two kids home.' Specificity matters because your tech reads this in the truck. Generic notes like 'no AC' waste fifteen minutes of diagnosis. Capture the customer's preferred callback number and ask if there are pets or gate codes. Hit Save and the record is created in under 45 seconds.

   Pro tip: Repeat the address back to the caller out loud. Wrong addresses cost an average of $47 in windshield time per mistake.

3. 3

   Step 3: Choose the right technician for the job

   Look at your dispatch board and find the tech whose skills and location match the call. For an HVAC no-cool in July, you want a senior tech with refrigerant certification, not your apprentice. Kaldr Tech shows each tech's current location as a pin on a map and their skill tags next to their name. If your senior HVAC tech Mike is wrapping up a job two miles from the new call and has refrigerant cert, he is your guy. If your closest tech is an apprentice, either wait for a senior or send the apprentice with a senior on standby by phone. Drag the new call card onto Mike's column at the next open slot. Do not overthink it. Speed matters more than perfection on the first dispatch of the day.

   Pro tip: Keep one 90 minute buffer slot open per tech per day for emergencies.

4. 4

   Step 4: Assign a realistic time window

   Give the customer a two hour arrival window, not a single time. Saying 'Mike will be there at 10:30' sets you up for a complaint when the prior job runs long. Saying 'Mike will arrive between 10:00 and noon' gives you a 120 minute cushion and the customer feels on time when he rolls in at 10:45. In Kaldr Tech, set the scheduled start to 10:00 AM and the window to 2 hours. The system automatically texts the customer the window and a link to track Mike on a map once he is en route. That map link alone cuts 'where is my tech' phone calls by 73 percent, which frees your CSR to answer new inbound calls.

   Pro tip: Never promise a window shorter than your average job duration plus 30 minutes.

5. 5

   Step 5: Send the job to the tech's phone

   Click Dispatch on the job card. This pushes the full work order to the tech's Kaldr Tech mobile app and sends a text alert. The tech sees the customer name, address, phone, issue description, equipment history if any, and directions. If your plumbing tech is on a water heater install, the app queues the new call as next up so he sees it the moment he finishes. Confirm the tech acknowledged the job with a green check mark on your dispatch board. If you do not see the check within two minutes, call him directly. Dispatch is not complete until the tech has accepted it. A job sitting unaccepted is the number one cause of missed service windows.

   Pro tip: Set a phone alert for jobs that sit unaccepted for more than 5 minutes.

6. 6

   Step 6: Confirm with the customer

   Once the tech accepts the job, Kaldr Tech automatically sends the customer a confirmation text with Mike's name, photo, arrival window, and a tracking link. You should also make a 20 second confirmation call for first-time customers. Say 'Hi Sarah, this is Jenny from Acme HVAC. I have you confirmed for today between 10 and noon. Mike will be your tech and you will get a text with his photo when he is on the way. Anything else you want him to look at while he is out?' That last question is gold. It uncovers add-on work on about 18 percent of calls, which lifts your average ticket by $62. Log anything new into the job notes before you hang up.

   Pro tip: First time customers who get a confirmation call leave 4 star or higher reviews 91 percent of the time.

7. 7

   Step 7: Monitor the job until it closes

   Do not dispatch and forget. Keep the dispatch board open and watch the job status move from Accepted to En Route to On Site to Complete. If Mike has been On Site for more than 90 minutes on an HVAC no-cool, ping him with a quick text asking if he needs help or parts. Most single visit repairs close in 45 to 75 minutes. Jobs that stretch past 90 minutes signal either a bigger problem, a parts run, or a stuck tech who needs a second set of eyes. Catching this early saves a second trip and protects your first time fix rate. When the job hits Complete, review the invoice the tech built and release it to the customer for payment within 5 minutes of completion.

   Pro tip: A job that sits in Complete unreviewed for more than an hour almost always has a pricing error.