A burst pipe call comes in, and the whole day's schedule has to be rebuilt.

Emergency plumbing calls don't wait their turn. One slab leak or sewer backup, and every job after it on the board has to move. That means calls, apologies and a plumber heading the wrong way across town.

Book a call

Water gushes out of an old brass valve and pipe fitting, the kind of leak that turns into an emergency call — Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash

Sound familiar?

The day was booked solid before the coffee was gone. Then a sewer backup came in, and nothing after it went to plan.
Moving one job means calling several customers to explain.
You pull a plumber off a water heater install to cover an emergency, and now the install runs into tomorrow.
Someone has to decide which job slides, and that person is also answering the phone and ordering parts.

What it costs you

The planned work gets bumped, and those customers took time off to be home for you. Some won't be as patient next time.

Overtime creeps in. The emergency gets done, the bumped job gets squeezed in late, and someone works into the evening.

Mistakes happen in the shuffle. A job gets double booked, or a customer never hears that their time changed.

Why it keeps happening

Emergencies can't be planned. You know some will come in this week. You just don't know when or where.

Usually only one person can see the whole day at once. While they're on the phone with the emergency, nobody is fixing the rest of the schedule.

Reshuffling means talking to everyone affected, one call at a time.

Busy days are booked tight, so there's no room to soak up a surprise.

Who you'll talk to

Kevin Kirchner smiling, in black glasses, a black cap and a green plaid shirt — Kevin Kirchner

It's me you'll be talking to, Kevin Kirchner. Expect me to ask about the last time an emergency blew up your schedule, from the first call to the last job of the day.

Much of the scramble after an emergency is the same calls and the same rearranging. Your dispatcher can now be freed from much of that, in a way that fits your shop.

Questions

Why does one emergency mess up the whole day?

Because a busy plumbing day is booked back to back. Pull one plumber off, and every job after theirs has to move, and every one of those customers has to hear about it.

Should I keep room in the schedule for emergencies?

That's a judgment call for your shop. It depends on how often emergencies come in and what they're worth to you. Either way, when an emergency lands on a full day, something else usually has to move.

What exactly do you build?

It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.