Guides
Moving company dispatch: elevator reservations, stacked days and day before calls
A moving company dispatch sequence: confirming elevator reservations, matching trucks to street access, stacking end-of-month days, and making day before calls.
What to take away
- Delays in moving are rarely on the road. They happen at the door: the elevator that was not reserved, the truck that cannot enter the street, the customer who is not packed.
- Dispatch is a sequence that starts two days before the move, not a board filled in on the morning.
- The end of the month and the summer are not surprises. Build the calendar so that the stacked days carry buffer and the quiet days carry the flexible jobs.
- Every job gets a day-before call with four questions. The answers either confirm the plan or change it while there is still time.
Where the hours go
A local move is a fixed amount of work between two uncertainties: can the crew get the truck to the goods, and are the goods ready? For a two-address job, highway route planning barely matters.
What matters is access at each end and readiness, and both are decided before the truck leaves the yard. Dispatch is the function that decides them.
The sequence
Two days before
Dispatch sequence: two days out
- Two days beforeRead survey and intake sheet
- Two days beforeConfirm building reservations
- Two days beforeMatch crews to jobs
- Two days beforeAssign trucks to access notes
- Day beforeCall customer with four questions
- Day beforeSequence the day's jobs
- Read the survey and the intake sheet for every job on the day. Confirm floors, elevators, parking distance, and whether the truck planned for the job fits the street at both addresses. A truck that is too big for the block turns a move into a shuttle; the equipment and setup guide covers the fleet mix that avoids it.
- Confirm building reservations. If either address has a reservable elevator or a loading dock with hours, dispatch confirms the reservation with the building, not with the customer. The customer thinks they booked it; the building has a different form.
- Match crews to jobs. Specialty items need the crew that has moved them. A crew lead who has never seen the destination building is a risk on a job with a shared elevator.
- Assign trucks. Check the trucks against the access notes, not against what is free.
The day before
- Call every customer with four questionsAre you packed? Is the elevator or dock reserved for our window? Where will the truck stand? Has anything been added since the survey? A "no" to the first or a "yes" to the fourth changes the crew size or the estimate type, and the operations and workflow guide covers the change-order process that follows.
- Sequence the day. Where a crew has two jobs, the second job's origin should be near the first job's destination, and the second job's access must tolerate a late start.
- Print the crew sheets without pricesaddresses, access notes, inventory of special items, customer-packed flags, and the building contacts.
The morning
- Pre-trip inspection recorded, pads and dollies counted on, crew sheet in the lead's hand, and a departure time that lands the truck at the origin at the start of the window, not the middle.
During the day
- The crew lead reports at four points: arrival, loaded, arrival at destination, complete. A missed report is the earliest warning dispatch gets.
Close
- Actual hours and any deviation from the survey recorded against the job before the crew leaves. This is the number the estimator's productivity figure is rebuilt from.
Stacked days
Leases end and closings complete at the end of the month, and summer fills every week. Nothing about that is unpredictable, so the calendar should be built for it:
Calendar zones: book vs hold back
Calendar zone
- Last three days of month
- Confirmed jobs, reserved access
- Peak-season weekends
- Full-service, packing done
- Mid-month, mid-week
- Flexible-date at standard rate
- Day after stacked day
- Short jobs, known buildings
Book
- Last three days of month
- Unconfirmed elevator or dock
- Peak-season weekends
- Labor-only, flexible dates
- Mid-month, mid-week
- Nothing; buffer lives here
- Day after stacked day
- Long-distance departures
Hold back
- Last three days of month
- Peak-season weekends
- Mid-month, mid-week
- Day after stacked day
What to book there
- Last three days of the month
- Surveyed, confirmed jobs with reserved access
- Peak-season weekends
- Full-service jobs with packing done the day before
- Mid-month, mid-week
- Flexible-date customers offered the standard rate
- First day after a stacked day
- Short jobs and account moves with known buildings
What to hold back
- Last three days of the month
- Any job with unconfirmed elevator or dock
- Peak-season weekends
- Labor-only jobs with flexible dates
- Mid-month, mid-week
- Nothing; this is where buffer lives
- First day after a stacked day
- Long-distance departures
The rule behind the table: stacked days get the jobs whose uncertainties are closed, and uncertain jobs get the days with room to absorb them.
A crew that finishes early on a stacked day could have been given a second job. A crew that runs late is a customer who will write about it.
Crew hours and driver limits
Dispatch must keep the day legal. Drivers of vehicles above certain thresholds are subject to hours-of-service and other rules. Which rules apply depends on the vehicle and operation type.
Keep the dispatch day legal
- Confirm which FMCSA rules apply to your trucks
- Check state regulator limits for your drivers
- Build the day inside those limits
- Rotate crews after a stacked day
- Track crew fatigue as a dispatch problem
Do not assume. Confirm with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and your state regulator which limits apply to your trucks and drivers. Build the day inside them. The licensing and compliance guide explains how to find the governing body for your operation.
Crew fatigue is a dispatch problem as well: a second stacked day for the same crew is where the damage claims come from, and crew rotation is part of the hiring and training guide.
Interstate departures
Long-distance jobs put a truck out of the local rotation for days and carry document obligations that local work does not. FMCSA's Protect Your Move materials describe what an interstate customer must receive, including the documents and the delivery-window expectations. Its regulations and enforcement page identifies the consumer-protection rules that govern interstate household-goods carriers.
Dispatch should read both before scheduling the first interstate departure, because the delivery window promised on the order for service is a commitment the calendar must keep. Adding a second market, with its own access patterns and calendar, is worked through in the expansion and market guide.
Keep the dispatch record
Dispatch records to keep
- Dispatch log
- Day-before call notes
- Crew sheets
- Recorded actual hours
- Link crew hours to jobs for expenses
The IRS asks in what kind of records should I keep only that your system clearly show income and expenses. A dispatch log linking crew hours to jobs covers the expense side, and answers the owner's winter question: which days lost money, and why.
Common questions
What if the customer says the elevator is reserved and the building says it is not?
The building is right, because the building controls the elevator. Dispatch calls the building. That is the whole reason step two exists.
How much buffer should a stacked day carry?
Enough that the last job of the day starts inside its window even if the first ran over by the amount your job sheets show first jobs usually run over. Your sheets have that figure; a web page does not.
Should the crew lead call the customer, or the office?
The office makes the day-before call, because the office can change the crew or the truck. The crew lead calls on the morning with an arrival time.
How do I schedule a job where the truck cannot reach the door?
As two jobs at that end: a shuttle vehicle and the main truck, with the extra handling priced on the estimate before the day, not discovered on it.
