We sometimes get asked if we can keep an on-call schedule for a whole month, year, etc. Yes, it’s no problem. We actually prefer to have an on-call schedule e-mailed or faxed to us in advance, rather than just telling an operator over the phone as you run out the door.
If we get it in writing, it can be entered, checked, and double-checked. If we misunderstand you on the phone when you’re in a hurry, well, we just got it wrong — there’s no system to catch the error and correct it.
We’ve got very nice on-call calendaring module in our computerized answering service system. We enter your on-call schedule into this module one a month. When an operator has an urgent call, she presses one key and can see who is on call at that moment (and only that person). In other words, if it is Monday and Bob is on-call today, the operator won’t see that Susan is on-call Sunday, or that Ted is on-call Tuesday. She just sees Bob’s name. It much less prone to error than having an operator read through a list.
Our on-call system also allows us to handle multiple different on-call people with overlapping schedules on the same account. For instance, if you are a service company that handles electrical, plumbing, and HVAC services, you can have a different on-call technician for each of these types of services. We can even have a primary and backup on-call for each! We’re very high-tech here at Honest Answering
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