The Emergency Call Triage SOP
Purpose
Define how an urgent call is screened for danger, classified, and routed. A standard operating procedure (SOP) is the written, repeatable process everyone follows the same way, so an emergency gets the same correct response whether a seasoned dispatcher or a fill-in takes the call. Triage is the act of sorting a call by urgency: a true life-safety event from a real emergency from a same-day inconvenience. Get the sort wrong and you either send a truck screaming across town for a slow drip, or you treat a gas leak as a routine callback. This SOP puts the safety screen first, then a fixed severity sort, so the response does not depend on who is holding the phone.
Scope
Applies to any inbound call, message, or portal request the caller frames as urgent, during or after business hours:
- No-heat, no-cooling, no-water, and no-power calls
- Active leaks, flooding, and backups
- Any report involving gas, smoke, electrical hazard, or injury
Excludes routine bookings and non-urgent quote requests, which follow the standard intake process.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Dispatcher / intake | Runs the safety screen, classifies severity, sets expectations |
| On-call / nearest technician | Responds to dispatched calls, confirms arrival |
| Manager / owner | Escalation point for unusual or high-risk situations |
Safety screen: do this before any diagnosis
The first job on every urgent call is to find out whether anyone is in danger, before troubleshooting anything. Ask plainly: is anyone hurt, and do you smell gas or smoke, see fire, or see water near electrical? If the answer points to danger, give the safety instruction first and dispatch second:
- Gas smell or hissing gas: Tell the caller to leave the building now, not to touch any switch, light, or phone inside, and to call the gas utility and emergency services from outside. Get everyone out before anything else.
- Smoke or fire: Tell them to get out and call emergency services. Do not troubleshoot.
- Electrical shock, sparking, or water reaching electrical: Tell them to stay clear, not to enter standing water, and to shut off the main breaker only if they can reach it safely and dry. If someone was shocked, call emergency services.
- Injury or a medical situation: Direct them to call emergency services first.
- Active flooding threatening safety: Tell them to shut off the water at the main if they can do it safely, and to keep clear of any electrical.
Only once the caller is safe do you move to classifying and dispatching the work. Getting the customer to safety always comes before getting a tech on the schedule.
Procedure
Step 1: Classify severity
With safety handled, sort the call using a fixed scale:
| Severity | What it looks like | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Life safety | Gas, fire, electrical hazard, injury, flooding with electrical risk | Safety instructions given above; dispatch immediately |
| True emergency | Major leak, no heat in hard cold, sewage backup, vulnerable occupant | Dispatch as fast as coverage allows |
| Urgent | No hot water, a failure disrupting daily use, contained leak | Same-day or first thing next morning |
| Not urgent | Minor or cosmetic issue that can safely wait | Schedule into the normal board |
Sort on facts, not volume. An upset caller does not automatically have an emergency; the questions, not the tone, set the level.
Step 2: Set expectations honestly
Tell the caller the classification and what happens next, in plain words: whether a tech is coming now, tonight, or in the morning, and a realistic arrival window. Be clear that after-hours or emergency response carries a different rate per shop policy, so there is no surprise later. An honest "ninety minutes" beats a hopeful "right away" that turns into three hours.
Step 3: Dispatch to the right responder
Route the call to the nearest capable tech for the severity: the on-call tech for after-hours, the closest available qualified tech during the day. Give the responder the address, the problem, the safety notes, and the customer's number. Confirm the tech has it and is moving.
Step 4: Keep the customer informed
An anxious customer needs contact, not silence. Confirm the tech's name and window, send an update if anything slips, and for a life-safety call, follow up to confirm they are safe. Silence during the wait is what turns a recoverable situation into a lost customer.
Step 5: Document the call
Log the call, the safety screen result, the classification, who was dispatched, and the time. The record protects the shop if a life-safety call is ever questioned and feeds the pattern of what emergencies actually come in.
Records and retention
Keep emergency-call records, including the safety screen and dispatch times, long enough to cover any dispute or liability window. Life-safety calls in particular are worth a durable record.
Common triage failures
- Diagnosing before screening for danger. The gas leak gets treated as a repair ticket.
- Triaging emotion, not facts. A loud caller jumps the line over a real emergency.
- Vague arrival promises. "Right away" becomes hours and destroys trust.
- No follow-up on a life-safety call. Nobody confirms the customer is actually safe.
References
- Local gas, electrical, and water emergency response codes
- OSHA General Duty Clause guidance on hazard response
- See related: Handling After-Hours Customer Emergencies
- See related: The Scheduling and Dispatch SOP