Plumbing dispatcher cheat sheet — the 12 decisions that keep water-damage claims off your desk

# Plumbing dispatcher cheat sheet Plumbing dispatchers live in emergency mode more than any other trade. Water leaks don't wait. Sewage backups don't wait. Water heaters that died at 6:30am mean the customer is showering at a neighbor's house right now. Here are the 12 decisions that separate a good plumbing dispatcher from a great one. ## 1. Triage by water-damage risk, not order-received Active leak into a finished basement → top of queue, 30-min ETA. Slow-drip under a sink → same-day but not now. Clogged bathtub drain → tomorrow's early slot. Camera-inspect a sewer line for a real-estate closing → schedule this week. The rule: **any active water in a place it shouldn't be = right now**. ## 2. Shut-off instructions BEFORE the truck rolls Talk the customer through their main water shut-off on the phone FIRST. Every 5 minutes of running water before the tech arrives is $300-500 of drywall + carpet damage. The customer will remember you saving their floors. ## 3. Match license class to job Basic residential drain → any tech. Gas water heater → gas-certified tech only. Backflow prevention → certified backflow tester only. Commercial 3+ story building → master plumber for permit sign-off. Wrong license = failed inspection = callback + do-over. ## 4. Stock the truck for the top 20 diagnostic outcomes Common water heater no-hot-water calls: thermocouple, thermopile, gas control valve, pilot assembly, T&P relief valve, dip tube, element (electric), thermostat (electric), anode rod. If the tech needs to come back for a $40 part, you just lost 90 minutes and possibly the invoice. ## 5. Confirm parking + access on commercial calls Downtown high-rise? Loading dock access, freight elevator schedule, building engineer contact. Techs arriving at 8am to a building where security won't let them in until 9 = 60 minutes lost. ## 6. Use camera inspections as the upsell frame Sewer line clog cleared? Recommend a camera inspection. If tree roots are visible on video, the trenchless liner or spot-repair estimate follows naturally. Video = customer sees the problem = they authorize the repair. Without video, 4 in 10 approve. With video, 9 in 10. ## 7. Batch after-hours callouts by geography 2am calls: if two calls come in within 20 minutes of each other in overlapping geographies, one on-call tech takes both. Charge trip fee + hourly on both calls. Nobody has to know they were dispatched together. ## 8. Every water damage risk gets photo documentation Before-photos of any existing damage protect you in insurance disputes. "That warped floor was already there when the tech arrived" only works if you have the timestamped, geo-tagged photo on the job record. ## 9. Communicate ETA in writing "En route, ETA 45 min" via SMS beats "we'll be there ASAP" every time. Cuts inbound "where's my plumber" calls by 60%. Service Pro Suite fires this automatically when the tech taps "En route". ## 10. Callback rate is the leading indicator Callback = tech had to come back within 30 days to fix something they already touched. Every callback has a root cause: bad diagnosis, wrong part, no part, missing skill. Track callbacks per tech per month. Callback rate should be under 5%. Above 8% and you have a training problem, not a scheduling one. ## 11. Weekend on-call rotation, written in advance Never dispatch a Saturday no-hot-water call to whoever "happens to answer the phone". Have a rotation posted a month out. Techs know which weekend is theirs. On-call gets a $75/day standby fee + double- time for actual calls. Fair to them, predictable for you. ## 12. Same-day close-out for every finished job End of shift: verify every "in progress" job has notes, parts used, photos, and status = complete. Auto-invoicing fires from the mobile app. Techs who forget to close jobs never invoice — a lost invoice is worse than a lost lead because you already did the work. ## What good looks like in Service Pro Suite - **Dispatch board** with active job status + water-damage risk flags - **Truck stock** tracking per vehicle with low-stock alerts - **Skill/license tags** per tech (master, journeyman, backflow, gas, commercial, residential) - **Camera inspection attachments** on job records - **Photo-required job completion** - **Automated "On My Way" SMS** - **Callback rate report** per tech per month Great plumbing dispatchers are the reason mid-size shops scale past $5M without falling apart at the seams.