A week in plumbing — 1,510 jobs. 99.9% auto-assigned.
Gas-line work needs a certified installer. Commercial drain cleaning needs heavy equipment. After-hours emergencies need whoever's closest. We ran a week of plumbing dispatch through FSM Navigator® and tracked every match.
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, and two technicians starting each day at their job limit. 10 urgent calls with tight service-level windows were included. 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 plumbing week — from scheduled installs to late-night water-leak emergencies.
99.9%
Auto-assigned, no dispatcher
1,509 of 1,510 jobs went to a qualified technician. The other one was a request where every qualified tech was already booked at the requested time, held for a dispatcher instead of double-booking.
0.09s
Typical decision time
Real-time technician matching across certifications, schedules, service windows, proximity, and workload — a typical decision takes about 0.09 seconds.
10/10
Urgent calls covered on time
Burst pipes don't wait for business hours. Urgent calls are flagged, matched to the closest on-shift technician with the right skills, and dispatched automatically.
Auto
Coverage when techs are out
Sick day, vacation, truck breakdown — the engine reshuffles affected jobs to the next-best qualified tech automatically. All 31 jobs from absent techs were reassigned mid-week without dispatcher intervention.
How the week actually played out
Picture a mid-size plumbing company with three regional offices and sixty techs. Some are gas-line certified. Some run the big commercial drain machines. Each morning the dispatch board has about 300 jobs — water heater swaps, faucet repairs, a couple of PM contracts for restaurant grease traps — plus the usual buffer for whatever the day throws at you. On a manual dispatch board, that's a dispatcher glued to the phone from 7 a.m. onward. With FSM Navigator®, work flows in and matches happen in the background.
Monday through Wednesday the engine placed 302, 302 and 302 of the 302 jobs each day, urgent calls included. Wednesday three techs called out sick and three started vacation; all 31 jobs on their boards went back into the pool and were reassigned automatically. Thursday and Friday, still short-staffed, the engine placed 302 and 301 of 302 — the one left over was a request where every qualified tech was already booked at the requested time, so it waited for a dispatcher instead of double-booking someone.
What changed isn't just speed — it's predictability. When a water heater install runs long and the tech misses his next stop, the customer call waiting on a noon leak repair doesn't get pushed to the dispatcher's problem pile. The engine sees the capacity change, re-evaluates the day's schedule, and keeps moving. Your office staff spend their time talking to customers, not shuffling jobs.
What the dispatch engine considered
Here's a plain-language view of what went into each match.
| Factor Evaluated | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Certifications & skills | Gas-line certified, backflow prevention, commercial drain cleaning, residential service |
| Service-level urgency | Emergency, same-day, scheduled — and the promised response window |
| Equipment & truck loadout | Camera rig, jetter, press tools — the right tools already on the truck |
| Technician proximity | Based on the tech's current location and the job address |
| Shift schedules | After-hours and weekend calls go only to techs who are on shift |
| Current workload | Jobs already scheduled today and remaining capacity |
These are the factors that make the biggest difference to plumbing 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 customer requests a water-heater swap from your booking page at 10pm. The replacement goes out as a quote built from your pricebook, and the customer signs it on their phone and pays the deposit online.
After dispatch, the plumber works through the job form on the mobile app, photographs the old tank and new install, gets the customer’s signature and sends the invoice before leaving. The customer pays by card or bank transfer in the customer portal. A membership plan brings them back for the annual flush, with member pricing on the next repair.
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 calls, 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 — how fast it decides, how consistently it matches skills like gas-line certification, and how it recovers when plans change.
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 the methodology openly so you can see how the engine behaves under a realistic plumbing workload before you sign up.
How does the engine handle gas-line and other certified-only work?
Each technician's certifications are part of their profile. When a gas-line job comes in, the engine only considers technicians who hold the required credential. Non-certified techs are filtered out automatically — you can't accidentally dispatch the wrong person to a regulated job.
What about after-hours and weekend emergency calls?
Emergency calls are flagged with tight service windows and sent through the same dispatch pipeline. Auto-assignment only considers techs who are on shift, so after-hours calls go to whoever is scheduled for the overnight or weekend shift. The benchmark included 10 urgent calls across the week; all 10 were assigned automatically and covered within their service window.
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
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