How do you handle after-hours emergency calls?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

in my experience the 'emergency' calls are 80% user error. customer flipped the wrong breaker or kicked the disconnect. I started taking 10 minutes to walk them through basic troubleshooting when they call. 90% of the time I don't have to go out.

we don't document this in FieldPulse though. probably should. anyone doing that

Hi Teresa — we want to make sure you're set up for success with this. Great question and clearly a pain point for a lot of teams.

While we don't have a built-in on-call rotation scheduler today, I'd love to hear more about what would make this easier for you. Specifically:

• Would you want FieldPulse to automatically assign after-hours jobs based on who's on-call?
• Or is the pain point more about visibility (knowing who's available) versus assignment?

We're exploring improvements to the availability system and real-world workflows like this help us prioritize. Feel free to DM me or we can continue the conversation here.

Carla thanks for showing up but can we get a real answer on when availability will actually work for rotating shifts. Been waiting two years.

We do something kind of different that might help! We created a separate 'Emergency Service' job type in FieldPulse with its own color code on the dispatch board. Then we have a standing policy: emergencies get assigned to whoever has the lightest schedule tomorrow, not who's on call tonight.

This sounds weird but hear me out — we do a video triage first. Customer walks us through the problem on their phone. If we can fix it remotely, great. If not, we schedule first thing in the morning with the best tech for that equipment type. Our callback rate is super low because we actually solve the problem instead of just showing up.

Customers were mad at first but then we started explaining it as 'we want to send the right expert, not just whoever's available.' They actually like that framing!

Thanks so much for starting this thread — really appreciate all the different perspectives here!