What to look for in dispatch software before you buy

Dispatch and scheduling software ends up holding your customers' names, addresses and phone numbers and deciding who shows up where. This checklist is ten questions to ask any vendor before you commit, including us. It is written for a small service company with a handful of technicians. The questions are our suggestions, and where a question is about security we point to the public guidance it comes from.

1. What problem are you fixing?

Write down what goes wrong in a normal week: double-booked jobs, missed callbacks, a technician who does not know the next address, a customer who asks for a time you cannot find. Software that does not fix your top two problems is not worth its price, however long its feature list is.

2. Who can see and change what?

Ask which roles exist and exactly what each can do. A technician may only need the job in front of them, not your whole customer list. The Federal Trade Commission's guide for businesses lists "control access to data sensibly" as one of its security lessons. If a vendor cannot say what a technician login can see, treat that as an answer.

3. How does it stop double-booking?

Try to create two jobs for one technician at the same time and see what happens. Ask what happens when two people book the same slot at the same moment, and how appointment times are handled when the clocks change. A scheduling tool that quietly lets both through leaves you to sort it out with the customers.

4. Does it work for the people in the field?

Ask to see it on a phone, in the sun, in a basement. Ask what a technician does when there is no signal and whether they can mark a job as on the way, on site or done in a few taps.

5. What does it send to your customers, and how?

If the software texts your customers, ask how it records consent and how it handles STOP replies, and have a lawyer confirm what your own texts need.

6. Whose data is it, and can you take it with you?

Ask whether you can export your customers, locations and job history in a standard file at any time, and what happens to your data if you cancel. Do this before you enter a single customer, because moving later is much harder than asking now.

7. How is it secured?

The FTC's small business cybersecurity guidance gives you concrete things to look for. It says a strong password is at least 12 characters, that businesses should limit failed login attempts, and that they should require multi-factor authentication to protect sensitive information. It also says to encrypt sensitive data and to back up important files regularly. Ask the vendor whether it supports multi-factor sign-in, limits password guessing, and keeps backups, and what it does if it has a security incident. The same FTC guide has a section on vendor security, which is worth reading before you sign.

The FTC's "Start with Security" guide adds that you should "make sure your service providers implement reasonable security measures": be candid about your expectations before you hire someone, and check that they meet them.

8. What do you hold, and for how long?

The FTC's "Protecting Personal Information" guide starts with taking stock of what personal information you have, then keeping only what you need. Ask the vendor how long it keeps job and customer data after you delete it, and whether you can delete a customer on request.

9. What do the contract terms say?

Read the length of the commitment, how the price can change, how to cancel, whether there is a fee to get your data out, and what the setup costs. Ask what happens to your service if the vendor stops operating.

10. Can you test it on a real week?

Run your real schedule through it for a week before you commit: import real customers, book real jobs, move one, cancel one. A demo shows the best case. A trial shows how it behaves when your Tuesday goes wrong.

What you can safely skip at first

Software can come with more features than a small team needs. If your problem is the phone and the calendar, start with those, and add the rest only when you hit a real limit.

Where Bash Tail fits

Our dispatch and scheduling software is in development, so it cannot be your answer to this checklist today. Every question above applies to us as well, and the product page says plainly what works in our test version and what does not.