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How do you handle after-hours emergency calls?

Teresa Lund

We are getting hammered with emergency calls after 6pm lately. Summer heat + old HVAC units = nonstop.

Right now we have rotating on-call but honestly its a mess. Techs don't always pick up. Customers get angry. Sometimes I'm calling three people before someone answers.

How do other dispatchers structure this? Do you pay premium rate for after hours? Bonus for response time? Or is there a better way to set expectations so not everything becomes an emergency

Also does anyone use FieldPulse to track on-call status or is that separate. I need something cleaner than the group text chain we have now

Parents

  • Been doing on-call for 8 years. Here's what actually works:

    1. Set the expectation at dispatch — we ask 'is anyone in the home in danger or is this discomfort?' Most 'emergencies' can wait til morning. Pro tip: train your dispatchers to sound confident when they say 'our first available is 7am.'

    2. Tiers, not blanket on-call — Level 1: true emergency (no heat in winter, no AC with elderly). Level 2: next day priority. We only pay the premium rate for Level 1 callbacks.

    3. FieldPulse tip: we use the Availability feature but honestly it's clunky for rotating on-call. We built a simple shared calendar (Google) and the on-call tech sets their status as 'On Call' in FieldPulse so dispatch sees it. Not perfect but better than group texts.

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  • Been doing on-call for 8 years. Here's what actually works:

    1. Set the expectation at dispatch — we ask 'is anyone in the home in danger or is this discomfort?' Most 'emergencies' can wait til morning. Pro tip: train your dispatchers to sound confident when they say 'our first available is 7am.'

    2. Tiers, not blanket on-call — Level 1: true emergency (no heat in winter, no AC with elderly). Level 2: next day priority. We only pay the premium rate for Level 1 callbacks.

    3. FieldPulse tip: we use the Availability feature but honestly it's clunky for rotating on-call. We built a simple shared calendar (Google) and the on-call tech sets their status as 'On Call' in FieldPulse so dispatch sees it. Not perfect but better than group texts.

Children