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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

  • Strongly disagree with making dispatchers triage over the phone. That's a liability nightmare waiting to happen.

    We use a dedicated emergency line that forwards to an answering service after hours. They do the initial screening using our script, then page the on-call tech. This separates the liability from your company and honestly? Customers take it more seriously when there's a formal intake process.

    Also — and I know this is controversial — we stopped offering same-night response for anything that isn't actively flooding or a safety hazard. Revenue actually went up because we stopped burning out our best techs on $300 after-hours calls that should have been $1800 replacements we sold the next morning.

    Let me tell you how we do it: every customer gets a printed 'what counts as an emergency' card on every install. Sets the expectation upfront.

  • in reply to Gwen Albright

    honestly gwen that sounds great in theory but the answering service we tried was terrible — they would call me for stuff like 'the customer says the thermostat looks weird' at 11pm and I'm like ok? so basically I still had to triage just with a 10 minute delay

    what service are you using that actually works

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  • in reply to Connor Burke

    Connor, totally fair — most are garbage. We went through three. Currently with DispatchHealth Connect (not affiliated, just what worked). The key is spending time training them on your actual equipment and having a tight script. We review calls monthly and give feedback. It's work upfront but pays off.

    Another way to think about it: if you're getting bad emergency calls, your intake isn't the problem — your daytime communication is. Customers call at 11pm because they couldn't reach someone at 4pm when the problem started.