Guide
Drive Time Is Killing Your Day: Simple Routing for Small Teams
Group jobs by area for each day (e.g. north zone Monday, south Tuesday, or morning north / afternoon south), use wider appointment windows when travel is heavy, and have one person own the morning schedule build so no random adds happen without moving something else. No fancy optimization—just area grouping and a few rules that stick. When you're ready for software, look for map view of scheduled jobs and route suggestions so you see the zigzag before the day starts.
For teams losing hours between jobs and willing to change how the board gets built.
Next: Try area-based grouping for one week; then take the FSM quick check if you want map view and route suggestions.
The situation
Techs crisscross town all day. One job north, next south, then back north. Work is solid; travel kills margins and burns the tech out by 3 p.m.
A few rules fix most of it: group jobs by area for the day, one person owns the morning schedule build, and no add without moving something else. When you're ready for software, a map view and route suggestions show the zigzag before the day starts.
Why routing breaks
- Jobs get booked in the order calls arrive—no area logic—so the board looks random and drive time adds up.
- No service-area grouping: dispatch assigns by who's free, not by who's nearby, so the nearest tech isn't always the one sent.
- Last-minute priority jobs get dropped in without swapping anything so the tech drives 40 minutes for one call.
- Nobody adds drive time to the estimate so the day is scheduled like travel is free and the board is impossible to run.
Simple routing fixes you can do this week
- Group jobs by area for each day (e.g. north zone Monday, south Tuesday, or morning north / afternoon south) so you're not zigzagging.
- Use wider appointment windows when travel is heavy so you're not promising 9–10 and showing at 10:30.
- Batch small jobs in the same neighborhood so one trip covers two or three stops.
- One person owns the morning schedule build; no random adds without moving something else so the plan holds.
When software helps
- Map view of scheduled jobs so you see the zigzag before the day starts and can fix it.
- Route suggestions (even good-enough order) so you're not guessing the best sequence.
- Tech location or status updates so the office doesn't send the nearest tech on a guess.
Mistakes to avoid
- Over-promising narrow windows when you know drive time is unpredictable; you'll miss the window and annoy customers.
- Sending one job alone across town because it was urgent—swap it with something or batch it so you're not burning a trip.
- Ignoring travel time in estimates so every job is underpriced and the schedule is packed too tight.
Take the FSM quick check
Quick checkSee if Field Service Management tools are right for your team.
Take the FSM quick checkRelated templates
Copy-paste scripts and checklists for this pain: