§ 02 · HVAC

Stop dispatching trucks to break-even calls.

Service margin lives or dies in the dispatch board. Allometry scores every call against parts cost, drive time, and account history — so the trucks that go out come back profitable.

Operator C · Tuesday route7 calls · 4.2h drive · 34% net margin
Live · HVAC topology decisions routing across address-level signal · sample · 24s loop
ADDRESS · UNIT INSTALL SERVICE REPLACE RENEW DECISIONS IN → MARGIN → ROUTE → UPSELL → RETENTION OUTCOMES OUT
What goes wrong

Three places HVAC margin quietly leaks.

We've audited 40+ HVAC operators. The patterns are universal: stale pricing, geography drift, and incentive misalignment.

§ 01 · Pricing drift

Price books that don't move with parts

Compressors, refrigerants, and labor rates move quarterly. Static price books bleed margin every truck roll until someone notices.

"We were quoting on a book three quarters out of date. No one had time to update it."
§ 02 · Bad geography

Trucks chasing the wrong stops

Dispatch optimizes for stops per truck, not margin per crew-hour. Loss-leader maintenance calls eat the margin the install jobs make.

"Forty percent of our PM calls were costing us money. Nobody had the math."
§ 03 · Incentive drag

Reps quoting on commission, not margin

Commission structures reward volume over profit. Reps undercut floors to close, and ops absorbs the cost three weeks later.

"Best rep on the team was our biggest margin leak."
A day in the life

One truck. Tuesday. Allometry's calls.

Eleven possible stops. Allometry says go on seven, defer two, decline two. Same crew, same shift — 12-point margin lift.

07:30Brookline Tower · install start+38%GO
09:15Newton Plaza · PM contract visit+24%GO
10:45Westwood Office · warranty fix · 38mi−6%DEFER · WED
11:30Allston Lab · emergency callout+52%GO · PRIORITY
13:30Cambridge Mid · install complete+34%GO
14:45Quincy Storefront · maintenance · single-stop+2%DECLINE · UPSELL
15:30Somerville Med · diagnostic+28%GO
16:30Watertown Tech · contract install+41%GO
17:30Brookline return · billing close+22%GO
Where the margin lives

A truck day, scored call by call.

A 50-truck commercial HVAC operator runs ~6 calls per truck per day. That's ~300 service decisions a day, ~75K a year — and most operators can't see margin at the call level. Allometry scores each call against labor hours, parts margin, first-time fix, and contract renewal — so the bottom-decile calls get repriced or routed differently.

Most service operators look at margin by branch or by service line — never by call. By the time the unprofitable call patterns surface in quarterly review, you've absorbed 90 days of margin leak.

Allometry pulls live labor cost (BLS + your payroll), parts cost (your distributor feeds + OEM lists), and contract renewal probability into every truck-roll. The 6 levers on the right roll up to the call-level margin a service VP actually controls.

Avg labor hours / callDrive + diagnose + fix
2.4h−0.3h
Parts marginDistributor + OEM blend
32%+2.1pt
Truck-roll utilizationBillable calls / truck / day
6.2+1.4
Recurring-contract renewal12mo, by segment
84%+4pt
First-time fix rateNo callback in 30d
91%+6pt
Composite gross margin · per callAllometry-defended portfolio
38.4%+5.2pt
Operator C · case study

"Pulse told us to walk away from a $400K deal. We listened. We were right."

Hypothetical · 50-truck commercial HVAC operator · 4 states
+11ptMargin lift
−38%Loss leaders pursued
140Trucks routed
Operator C · 9 territories140 trucks · Q3 2025
Audit a week of dispatch, free

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We'll score every call against your real cost-to-serve and walk you through the margin you're leaving on the truck.