PlumbingBossPro Blog — Dispatch & Scheduling

A Daily Plumbing Dispatch Routine: Morning, Midday and End of Day

The best dispatchers are not the ones who are best at handling chaos. They are the ones with a routine that makes most chaos small. A plumbing day will always have surprises, but a dispatcher who does the same checks at the same times catches problems while they are still easy to fix.

Paper or Not, You Need a Routine

Whether the techs carry route sheets, as in Printing Plumbing Route Sheets for the Van and the Office, or work only from the phone, the office still needs a rhythm. Here is one that works for many small plumbing shops. Adjust the times to your day.

Before the Vans Roll

The morning routine sets up the day. Aim to finish it before the first tech leaves the shop.

1. Check overnight. Any after-hours jobs completed and invoiced? Any follow-up to book?
2. Check new requests. Form Responses from the website, service requests from the customer app, approved estimates.
3. Open each van's saved view for today. Is the load right? Is there a long job, and is it early?
4. Route each van. Auto-route Closest First or Furthest First from the shop, then set the order by hand for customer windows and long jobs.
5. Look at the Waiting List map. Any due visits near today's routes worth adding as afternoon fillers?
6. Leave room on the repair van. Do not fill every slot. The emergency has not called yet.
7. Print route sheets for techs who want them.

Through the Morning

Once the vans are out, the job is watching and adjusting:

• Glance at the board for Starts, Completes and Skips as they come in.
• Handle skips right away. Read the reason, text the customer, rebook.
• Slot emergencies. Check crew GPS on the office map, pick the closest van with the right gear, add the call and move it up.
• Text customers who are being bumped before their window passes.

Resist the urge to call techs for updates. The board and the map answer most questions.

Midday Check

Around lunch, take five minutes for a deliberate look:

• Is any van running behind? If yes, move its last stop to another van or to tomorrow, and text the customer now.
• Is any van ahead? If yes, check the map for nearby work from tomorrow or the Waiting List.
• Any approved estimates since morning? Book them while they are fresh.

A midday correction is cheap. The same correction at 4pm is a missed window.

Building Tomorrow

Mid-afternoon is a good time to build the next day, while the office still has time to text customers:

• Open “All vans, tomorrow.”
• Check that long jobs have room and an early slot.
• Make sure every job has a van.
• Confirm access for long jobs and rentals with a quick text.

Customers with night-before alerts will get their reminder automatically, so tomorrow's board needs to be right by evening.

End of Day

The end-of-day sweep is the most important part of the routine:

1. Open “All vans, today.”
2. Every job should be completed, or skipped with a reason and moved to a new day.
3. Check that completed jobs created invoices, and look at any card charges that did not go through.
4. Glance at tomorrow one more time for late changes.
5. Hand off to whoever is on call tonight, if anyone.

A board that is clean at night means a calm morning.

Weekly Additions

Once a week, add a few checks that do not need daily attention:

• Overdue pins on the Waiting List.
• Approved estimates still waiting on parts.
• Saved views that need updating.
• Balance across vans for the coming week.

Writing the Routine Down

A routine that lives in one person's head disappears the day that person is sick. Write it on one page, in the order above, with the names of the saved views to open at each step. Tape it next to the office computer. When someone new covers the phones, they can follow it line by line, and when the regular dispatcher comes back, nothing has drifted.

Review the page every few months. As you add vans, change how work is split or start offering after-hours service, the routine should change with you. A short, current checklist is worth more than a long one nobody reads.

Routine Makes Room for Surprises

A daily routine does not stop the burst pipes. It makes sure everything else is under control when they happen. For shops where one person handles all of this, see Plumbing Dispatch With a Small Office: One Person on the Phones and the Board. To see the tools behind the routine, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing dispatch software page.