Free decision tree - 11 pages

The after-hours call decision tree

One page per trade. What is an emergency, who gets woken, what it costs, and what to say at eleven at night.

A branching decision diagram in thin olive lines

What is in it

The four-question triage that works on any after-hours call
A one-page tree each for plumbing, HVAC, electrical and roofing
The true emergencies per trade, and the ones that only sound like emergencies
What to say to a customer you are not coming out to tonight
How to set the after-hours rate, and when to say it in the call
The on-call rota that does not burn out a three-person crew

11 pages. Written for someone holding a phone in a van.

The problem is not that the phone rings at night

It is that every call at night gets treated the same way. Either everything is an emergency and somebody drives out for a dripping tap, or nothing is and you find out in the morning that a burst pipe went to a competitor.

Both cost money. The second one costs more, and it costs a customer as well.

Four questions, asked in order

Is anyone in danger. Is the property taking damage right now. Can it hold until morning without getting worse. Is this even our work.

Asked in that order, they sort almost every call in under a minute. The tree is one page per trade because the answers differ: a gas smell and a live wire are not the same call as a roof leak in a storm, and a no-heat call at 10F is not the same as a no-heat call in April.

The half nobody writes down

What you say when the answer is no. A customer who is told plainly that this can wait until 8am, given a time, and given something to do in the meantime, usually accepts it. A customer who is sent to voicemail calls the next contractor.

The guide gives you the actual sentences, including the one for the after-hours rate. Saying the rate at the start of the call rather than at the door is the single change most owners tell us they should have made sooner.

And who gets woken

A rota only works if the person on it knows what will reach them and what will not. There is a page on setting that up for a crew of two to ten, including the rule for when the owner stops being the default backstop.

None of this needs software. It is a decision tree and a script. If you want something to answer the phone and run the tree for you at 2am, that is what we sell, and the guide works perfectly well without it.