TowingBossPro Blog — Roadside Assistance

Moving Roadside Calls Off Notepads, Group Texts and Spreadsheets

Plenty of towing companies still run roadside calls the way they always have: a notepad by the phone, a group text to the drivers, a spreadsheet someone updates on Fridays. It works until it does not: a call gets lost, a driver goes to the wrong address, an invoice never goes out, and nobody can say how many jump starts you ran last month.

Switching to software is less painful than most owners expect, if you do it in the right order.

Why the Old Way Breaks

Chasing Unpaid Roadside Invoices With Automatic Payment Follow-Ups covered chasing unpaid invoices, many of which come from calls that were never written down properly. That is the core problem with notepads and group texts. Information gets copied from the phone to the pad to the text to the spreadsheet, and every copy is a chance to lose something. The driver's text has the address but not the vehicle. The spreadsheet has the price but not whether it was paid.

Software puts it all on the call, once.

There is also the problem of knowledge leaving. When the dispatcher who knew every regular customer takes a week off, the notepad system leaves everyone else guessing. When customers, locations and history are in the software, anyone on the desk can pick up where the last person left off.

Start With Customers and Locations

If you already have a customer list, even a messy spreadsheet, bring it in. TowingBossPro supports CSV import, so your existing customers do not have to be typed in one by one. Add commercial accounts and their repeat locations next. That way, the first time a regular calls after the switch, the dispatcher can pull them up.

Do not let a messy list hold you up. Import what you have and clean it up as calls come in.

Bring in the history that matters most: regular customers, their phone numbers, their vehicles and their usual locations. Older one-time callers can wait. The goal is to make the first week of calls faster, not to digitize ten years of paper.

Set Up the Basics

Before the first live call, set up the essentials:

• Your trucks and drivers.
• Your roadside price list, with base prices and add-ons.
• Sales tax settings.
• How you accept payment: online payments, card on file.
• Your intake script, matched to the fields on the call.

That is enough to run roadside calls. Memberships, package plans and reports can come later.

Resist the urge to configure everything before going live. Owners who spend weeks setting up every option before the first call often stall. Start with the essentials, run real calls, and adjust as you see what your team actually needs.

Train Dispatchers on Intake and the Map

Dispatchers need two skills: entering a complete call, and using the waiting list map to assign it. Walk them through a few practice calls. Show them how to circle or select calls and assign them to a driver and truck in one step. Show them where the vehicle details and notes go, and how the customer texts work.

Most dispatchers are comfortable after a shift.

Have someone experienced sit with each new dispatcher for the first few live calls. Questions come up that practice calls never surface, and answering them in the moment builds confidence faster than any manual.

Train Drivers on Five Taps

Drivers need even less: open the next call, tap on-the-way, tap arrival, take photos, tap complete. Everything else, like pickup and drop-off, vehicle details and notes, is just reading. Since TowingBossPro is never billed per user, every driver gets the app without adding a seat fee.

Expect a little resistance from the most experienced drivers. They have done it their way for years. Show them what it saves them: fewer calls from the office, no wondering what color the car is, no customers calling their personal phone. Most come around once they see it working on a busy day.

Run Both for a Week, Then Stop

For the first week, it is fine to keep the notepad as a backup. But every call must go into the software, and the group text should stop on day one, because that is where calls disappear. After a week, put the notepad away. The 14-day free trial is enough time to run real calls and know whether it fits.

The final article in this series covers the questions to ask before choosing roadside software. For everything in one place, see the TowingBossPro roadside assistance software page.