Dispatching

Dispatching is the act of assigning field service jobs to specific technicians or crews and communicating the schedule to them in real time. The dispatcher decides who is going where, when, and what they're doing — and updates the plan as the day shifts.

What dispatching looks like in practice

In a small shop, dispatching is often the owner with a phone in one hand and a whiteboard in the other. As the shop grows, dispatching becomes a dedicated role — the dispatcher receives incoming calls, books jobs onto the calendar, assigns techs based on skill and location, and reshuffles when an emergency call comes in.

A typical dispatching workflow:

1. A customer calls or books online.
2. The dispatcher captures the customer info, the issue, and the priority (routine vs same-day vs emergency).
3. The dispatcher checks who's available, who's qualified, and who's geographically closest.
4. The job is assigned to a tech and slotted onto the calendar.
5. The tech sees the job on their phone, gets the address, customer notes, and any equipment history.
6. The customer gets a confirmation and (ideally) an "on the way" notification when the tech departs.

Why dispatching matters

Bad dispatching shows up as: techs sitting idle between jobs, crews crisscrossing the city for no reason, customers wondering when the truck will arrive, and the same emergency call bouncing between three people before someone owns it. Good dispatching is invisible — work flows, calls get answered, customers get served.

Dispatching software

Once a shop has more than 2-3 techs, dispatching from a whiteboard or group text starts breaking down. Field service software (also called dispatching software or dispatch software) gives the dispatcher a real-time calendar view, a way to assign jobs by drag-and-drop, mobile views for the field, and automated customer notifications.

Common dispatching software features to look for: per-tech daily capacity, drag-and-drop scheduling, mobile crew app, customer notifications, equipment history per address, and integration with invoicing.

CrewConductor is dispatching software built for 2-15 person contractor shops. Start a free 14-day trial to see how it works.