9 HVAC Dispatching Tips to Improve Routing and Communication

1. Improve communication between technicians and the office

Having a reliable communication plan ensures HVAC dispatchers and technicians stay on the same page as they receive new requests. A consistent process saves technicians from relying on phone calls or texts back to the office any time they’re missing information on a job. 

Whether you use a radio, phone, or HVAC service software, here are a few tips to fix dispatch communication:

• Set communication protocol. Define when, how, and how often technicians and dispatchers should communicate. For example, do techs need to check in with their dispatcher once the job is done?
  
• Stay informed about job delays. Technicians should  notify you when jobs go over their allotted time so you can manage customer complaints about delays. Have your technicians notify you over text—or keep tabs on the tech’s location with GPS tracking (more on that later).
  
• Send automatic schedule updates to your crew. Automating these updates will save you time and prepare your field techs for on-the-fly changes.

When you manage your team with Jobber’s HVAC software, anytime you make a schedule change to an employee’s current workday, they’ll get a notification on their phone with all the details.

2. Schedule ride-alongs with your HVAC technicians

To help dispatchers better understand what field workers experience on the job, ride-alongs may be the perfect training opportunity. These are chances for HVAC technicians to show dispatchers what their daily workload entails, and how travel time, customer interactions can put a strain on their schedule.

If you’re in charge of dispatching, go on two or three ride-alongs to get a sense of the time your technicians spend on the job. If you run a larger team with dispatchers, make ride-alongs with technicians part of your HVAC dispatch training.

3. Create a system to prioritize jobs

Prioritizing your crew’s schedule is one of the easiest ways to stay organized and take on more work. To start, assign each type of job an urgency level: low, medium, or high.

For example, emergency AC repairs during the summer receive highest priority, while routine system maintenance appointments are usually low priority.

You should be capturing enough information in your work request forms or customer phone call notes to tell you how urgent a repair job is.

Jobber Tip: In Jobber, you can customize the color of different visits in your team calendar. This helps dispatchers recognize job urgency at a glance and make faster rescheduling decisions.

Set specific colors for visits with certain keywords in their title, like “emergency repair” to help easily re-route unpredictable emergency calls.

4. Give technicians access to schedules in advance

When HVAC techs have the opportunity to view their schedule at any time, they’ll be more prepared for the day ahead. The result is better customer service thanks to having the right information, HVAC tools, and equipment.

Use a shareable job schedule (like this one in Jobber) to easily reschedule jobs or reassign them to a different field service technician.

5. Make customer notes and details easy to access

It’s always important to provide HVAC technicians with one consistent place they can go to in order to access all the details they need to do a job well. Before techs arrive at a job site, make sure they know:

• Specific details about the job, customer, or property
• Notes or images the field technician should review prior to the repair
• Any additional customer requests or questions that the technician can solve

All of these details should be easy to share and refer back to digitally, which eliminates tedious back-and-forth emails or paper documents. Instead, use a customer relationship management systems (CRM) or HVAC scheduling software to upload details.

Jobber Tip: When a tech needs to access details about a service call, they can simply click on the visit in their Jobber calendar and see the original HVAC work order, notes, images, and other attachments.

6. Dispatch technicians by location groups

Speed up dispatching by assigning HVAC technicians to the jobs that are closest to them. Location-based scheduling reduces driving time between jobs, improves your crew’s efficiency, and makes managing a team of technicians easy.

Follow these steps to organize your crew by location:

• Organize visits into geographic “groups.” You can group them by which part of the city or town they’re in (e.g, northeast, southwest, etc), or by neighborhood if your services are more localized.
• Assign one technician (or crew) to each location group. This way, your staff will spend less time driving from one job to the next.

Make this process easier by using route planning software. Jobber automatically creates the most efficient crew schedule based on the location of each visit—and lets you track your team’s location as they’re driving from job to job.

7. Schedule consistent breaks

Everyone at your HVAC company has the right to rest—so be diligent about scheduling A balanced work schedule ensures that your team is able to function at peak productivity and complete every job accurately. Be mindful of including regular breaks in each HVAC technician’s schedule.

To more easily manage employee breaks, you can:

• Schedule breaks in advance. Setting a defined break time in each technician’s calendar (e.g., 12:00-12:45) before even scheduling jobs ensures you never miss a break. 
• Figure out your team’s peak productivity periods. Plan your breaks immediately after the busiest, most productive times.
• Allow input from the employees on their preferences about their work breaks. Always make note about preferences, and schedule breaks that accommodate them as best as you can.

Breaks ensure that your team stays well-rested and ready to do great work. Not only do scheduled breaks satisfy labor compliance standards, but they can also prevent burnout and fatigue. 

Pro Tip: Check your regional and state guidelines on minimum rest periods or meal breaks. If you’re stuck, Google “[YOUR STATE] + required labor breaks” to get started.

8. Monitor technician progress with GPS tracking

Track your crew’s progress and location throughout the day using a GPS tracking tool. Knowing the location of your crew’s vehicles can help you manage delays effectively and without as much frustration.

Using fleet management tools in Jobber, you can see when a technician gets stuck at a property or job site. (For example, maybe they ran into an unexpected issue, or they needed to find the proper tool or repair part.)

9. Keep customers informed about upcoming visits

To deliver great customer service, notify each customer before their repairman or installer arrives. Use these strategies to keep customers in the loop as you dispatch your technicians:

• Automate your appointment reminders. Use emails and texts to make sure that all customers get a reminder 1–2 days before the service call.
• Get your field service technicians to send on-my-way text messages to customers. This is helpful for letting customers know when a tech is en-route, and it lets them know who exactly will show up to their home. 

Jobber Tip: With Jobber, you can schedule reminder emails and send standardized ‘on my way’ text messages before every visit without typing them each time.

Then, manage all these conversations in a single place. Using two-way text messaging, you can see what was sent, when it was sent, and which team member sent the message.