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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

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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.

  • in reply to Josh Mercer

    thanks Josh. how do you handle when the on-call tech doesn't answer. do you just keep calling down the list or is there a backup system

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  • in reply to Teresa Lund

    We have a 15-minute rule. No answer = we escalate to the next tier. The tech who missed it still gets the call logged against them for the quarterly review. Sounds harsh but it keeps people responsive.

    Also pro tip: we pay a flat $50 just for carrying the phone that week, plus hourly if they actually go out. The carry fee alone cut our no-answer rate way down.