A call at eleven at night
A manufacturing plant has a line down and needs a part collected from a supplier two hundred miles away and delivered before the morning shift. They call three couriers. One goes to voicemail. One is answered by a controller's mobile, and the controller is asleep. The third has a booking page that takes the job, gives a price and confirms a driver within a few minutes.
That third courier gets the job, and probably the next few.
Why out-of-hours work slips away
Small and mid-sized courier firms rarely staff a controller overnight. The out-of-hours phone is diverted to someone's mobile, which works until they are driving, asleep or on holiday. Quoting at night means doing the arithmetic half awake. And there is no easy way to find which driver is available.
| Out-of-hours step | What usually happens |
|---|---|
| Customer calls | Voicemail or a diverted mobile |
| Quote | Worked out by a tired person, or 'I'll call you back' |
| Payment for new customers | Taken on trust or by card over the phone |
| Finding a driver | Ringing round |
| Confirming to the customer | Delayed until a driver says yes |
What it costs
Out-of-hours urgent work is some of the best-paid in the business. Losing it to voicemail is losing margin you would welcome. It also costs sleep and goodwill: a controller who takes every night call burns out.
Customers who find you reliable at night also tend to use you in the day. Customers who cannot reach you at night look elsewhere for everything.
The jobs that do get taken at night are often under-recorded. A controller agrees a price on the phone at one in the morning, a driver goes, and the details are passed on in a text. In the morning nobody is quite sure of the agreed price, whether waiting was mentioned, or who the invoice goes to. The best-paid job of the week ends up invoiced from a half-remembered conversation.
New customers are the riskiest part. Somebody you have never dealt with books an urgent job at night on account, the job is done, and the invoice goes unpaid. Taking a card payment before a driver sets off is easy in daylight and awkward over a sleepy phone call.
The out-of-hours route we build
- An online booking page and a text number for out-of-hours requests, and a phone line with a short message pointing to them or taking details by voice.
- Quoting from your rules, including out-of-hours rates, the same way as daytime quotes.
- Payment by card for non-account customers through Stripe or similar before the job is confirmed.
- An on-call rota, and an alert to the on-call driver or controller with the job details and price, to accept or decline from their phone.
- Escalation to the next person if nobody accepts within a time you set, and an honest message to the customer if no one is available.
- The job created in your system with all details, so the morning team sees what happened overnight.
What changes
Urgent bookings at night are captured and quoted without anyone doing sums at midnight. The on-call person only has to decide whether to take the job. Customers get an answer rather than voicemail. And a night's work is on the board in the morning.
Signs you are losing out-of-hours work
- Out-of-hours calls go to voicemail or one person's mobile.
- Night quotes are worked out by hand.
- New customers at night cannot pay up front.
- Finding an available driver means ringing round.
- You know you miss urgent jobs but not how many.