A week in HVAC — 1,510 jobs. 99.9% auto-assigned.
Emergency no-heat calls in January. Roof-top commercial work. Three technicians out sick. We ran a full realistic week of HVAC dispatch through FSM Navigator® and tracked every assignment. Here's what happened.
Methodology transparent · Simulation-based benchmark · Updated November 2026
How we ran the numbers
This benchmark runs a week-long workload through FSM Navigator's dispatch engine using a mixed-trade service workload: 60 technicians across three service regions, 120 customer locations, about 300 jobs a day mixing scheduled work and emergency calls, six technicians out sick or on vacation mid-week, two technicians starting each day at their job limit, and 10 urgent call-ins with tight service-level windows. The results below reflect what the engine does automatically — no manual adjustments, no cherry-picked days.
What happened over five days
A snapshot of how the dispatch engine handled a realistic HVAC week — from quiet Monday mornings through the Friday afternoon rush.
99.9%
Auto-assigned, no dispatcher
1,508 of 1,510 jobs went to a qualified technician with no dispatcher. The other 2 were requests where every qualified tech nearby was already booked at the requested time, so they were held for a dispatcher instead of double-booking anyone.
0.08s
Typical decision time
Intelligent matching across skills, schedules, service windows, proximity, and workload — a typical decision takes about 0.08 seconds.
10/10
Urgent calls covered on time
One-hour service window? Handled. Mid-day urgent call-in? Handled. The engine reprioritizes and reroutes without a human touching the dispatch board.
Auto
Recovery from disruptions
A tech calls out sick. Another takes unplanned vacation. Their jobs go back to the pool and are reassigned automatically: 26 of 30 found a qualified teammate in the benchmark week; the other 4 shared one fully booked slot.
How the week actually played out
Picture a growing HVAC company with three offices — Chicago, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee. Sixty technicians with overlapping skills: residential service, commercial rooftop units, refrigeration, heating specialists. Each morning the dispatch board fills with about 300 jobs, and two techs start the day already at their job limit. On a traditional dispatch board, this is a dispatcher's full-time juggling act. With FSM Navigator®, jobs flow in and get matched to the right tech automatically.
Monday through Wednesday the engine placed 302, 302 and 301 of the 302 jobs each day, urgent call-ins included. Wednesday three techs called out sick and three started vacation; 26 of the 30 jobs on their boards were reassigned automatically and the schedule updated itself. Thursday and Friday, still short-staffed, it placed 302 and 301 of 302 — the few left over were requests where every qualified tech nearby was already booked at the requested time, so they waited for a dispatcher instead of double-booking someone.
The takeaway isn't that the engine replaces judgement. It's that "dispatcher bandwidth" is no longer the constraint on how many jobs you can run. The engine handles the matching; your dispatcher becomes a customer-communication role — calling homeowners back, managing escalations, keeping techs supplied — instead of spending the day pushing job cards around a whiteboard.
What the dispatch engine considered
Here's a plain-language view of what went into each match.
| Factor Evaluated | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Technician skills | HVAC-certified, refrigeration-qualified, electrical add-on, commercial rooftop experience |
| Service-level urgency | Emergency, same-day, scheduled — and the promised response window |
| Technician proximity | Based on the tech's current location and the job address |
| Current workload | Jobs already scheduled today and remaining capacity |
| Service history | Prior visits to this customer — continuity where it matters |
| Availability & schedule | Working hours, overnight and weekend shifts, planned time off, sick days |
These are the factors that make the biggest difference to HVAC teams.
Dispatch is one part of the job
This benchmark measured one thing: whether the right tech reached every job. FSM Navigator® is the app for the rest of it too, from first booking to renewals.
Most of those 1,510 calls started before anyone assigned them. A homeowner books a furnace tune-up from your booking page on a Sunday night. A replacement condenser goes out as a quote with good, better and best options, and the customer signs it on their phone and pays the deposit online.
After dispatch, the tech works through the job form on the mobile app, takes the photos, gets the customer’s signature and sends the invoice before leaving the driveway. The customer pays by card or bank transfer in the customer portal. The maintenance agreement that covered the tune-up schedules next season’s visit, gives members their repair discount, and renews on time.
Online booking, quotes, job forms, portal payments and service agreements are included on Pro and Enterprise. Dispatch, invoicing and the offline mobile app are on every plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers about the benchmark, engine and cost.
What does this benchmark actually measure?
A full benchmark week of mixed-trade dispatch activity: 1,510 jobs across 60 technicians in three service regions (Illinois, Indiana/Kentucky, Wisconsin), including 10 urgent call-ins, mid-week sick days and vacations, and two technicians starting each day at their job limit. We measure how FSM Navigator's dispatch engine assigns jobs to technicians — how fast, how consistently, and how well the match fits the job.
Are these real customer results?
No. These are simulation results from a representative operational scenario. Real customer outcomes will vary based on your team size, service mix, and geographic spread. We published these so you can see how the engine behaves under a realistic workload before you sign up.
What happens when a technician calls in sick?
Their assigned jobs for that day (and the rest of the absence) are automatically returned to the dispatch pool. The engine immediately evaluates each one against the remaining qualified technicians and re-assigns. In the benchmark run, 4 jobs shifted on Tuesday when one tech called out; the dispatcher saw the change, not the scramble.
Does this require any setup?
Add your technicians, their skills, and their working hours once. Enter your customers and service categories. Then every new job that comes in gets matched automatically using those rules. Most companies are dispatching in under an afternoon.
How much does this cost?
Intelligent dispatch is included in our Pro plan at $34.99/user/month (or $27.99/user/month billed annually). Teams up to 5 users can start free. See our pricing page for the full breakdown.
See Other Benchmarks
Dispatch results across other trades
Your HVAC business could run like this, from booking to renewal.
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