Locksmith Dispatch Team: an Appointment-Setting Dispatcher Plus a Tech Who Closes the Job On-Site
A dispatcher doesn't have to be a salesperson: often you just need a flat-rate hire who answers the phone, books a time, and enters the job, while the technician closes it on site with a signed invoice. In JobBase the dispatcher quotes from your catalog and can add a line item at their own price, but never sees whose cut a job is, your margin, or your profit; the technician sees only their own earnings. The books balance themselves, because the money is written by the technician's close, not the dispatcher's retelling. Calls that don't become jobs get logged as leads with an honest conversion per source. Pay matches the model: a flat rate per period for the appointment-setter, a percentage of gross for the closer.
01Which dispatcher do you need: a closer or a flat-rate hire?
Dispatching is two different jobs, and mixing them up costs money. A closer takes a lead, works the phone, and lives on a percentage of what they collect.
The flat-rate hire is underrated: they just answer the phone, agree on a time, and log the address and the problem. A missed call in this trade doesn't get a callback later, the caller dials the next locksmith within a minute, so someone who always answers pays for themselves by stopping that leak.
02Why bookkeeping used to fall on the owner
Both models shared the same pain: the dispatcher took the calls, but the books stayed yours. Jobs lived in text threads, and every evening you entered them by hand and reconciled who closed what. Worse, nobody recorded the leads that didn't convert, so ad numbers counted only surviving jobs: a channel with three jobs and nine walk-aways looked golden while its real conversion was poor.
03How the dispatcher-and-technician combo works in JobBase
The dispatcher enters the job right in the system: client, address, problem, time. They assign a technician and quote a price from your catalog, watching the total build as they add items, since otherwise there'd be nothing to tell the caller. That's also where their access ends: the dispatcher account can't close a job or collect a signature, and reopening a saved job, even one they entered themselves, shows no dollar figure, the job card just doesn't carry money in their interface. Their entry is flagged as a draft awaiting confirmation.
The technician closes on site: builds an itemized invoice from your catalog, the client signs on screen, and the job moves to completed, no signature, no close, enforced by the software. The invoice carries an ownership and liability-waiver clause ("By paying, I confirm the service is satisfactory and waive any claims regarding functionality, pricing, or damages"), so a chargeback two weeks later meets a signed document, not a memory. The technician account works the same way with money: catalog prices and their own earnings, never the company's profit, the owner's cut, or margin.
The job total, the technician's cut, and the dispatcher's accrual are all computed from that one signed invoice, so there's nothing to reconcile beyond an evening scan of drafts and closed jobs. Whose cut a job is, your margin, and your profit stay invisible to the dispatcher everywhere in the system. Ad payback is a blocked route for their role, not a hidden menu item, the page never loads. Which lead sources, referral partners, and technicians a dispatcher can see is your call in settings, from the full list down to a short one.
04Where do dead leads go?
They become records instead of a hole in your stats. Someone asks what it costs to open an old safe, hears the price, and says they'll think about it, the dispatcher logs it as a lead with its source in under a minute. That builds an honest funnel per channel: inquiries in, jobs out, revenue collected. The first month of logging these usually changes which channel you think is your best.
05How to pay each role
Pay matches the model, and it all calculates automatically. The appointment-setter gets a flat rate per period, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. The sales-style dispatcher gets a percentage of collected gross, computed on revenue, not profit, so paying it never means opening your margin. The technician earns their own cut, computed from the jobs they close. You mark payouts as an amount plus a note, and the history stays on hand. In their own analytics, the dispatcher sees only their own gross and rate, the technician only their own earnings, your margin stays with you.
| Model | What they do | How they're paid | What they see |
|---|---|---|---|
| The owner alone | calls, assigning, closing, bookkeeping, all of it | whatever is left over | everything, margin included |
| Flat-rate dispatcher | answers calls, books the appointment, enters the job and the lead, assigns a technician | flat rate per period: weekly, biweekly, or monthly | clients, schedule, client prices; no margin, no profit, no whose cut |
| Percentage-of-gross dispatcher | works the lead end to end: takes it, convinces, assigns | a percentage of collected gross, not of profit | their own gross and rate; no margin, no profit |
06FAQ
Can my flat-rate dispatcher close the job themselves?
Can my dispatcher see my profit or job totals?
How do I pay a locksmith dispatcher: flat rate or percentage?
What happens to calls that don't turn into jobs?
Calls to the dispatcher, closing to the tech, books to you
Create a dispatcher account and a technician account right inside your JobBase workspace: the dispatcher assigns the job and quotes the price without ever seeing your margin, the technician closes with a signed invoice, and accruals compute themselves. See the combo working in the demo, no signup required.