Draw your service area by drive time from where your trucks actually work, not by a mile radius from the shop. Keep it tight enough that a typical day has several jobs near each other, check that jobs at the edge still make money after the drive, and decide in advance what you do with calls from outside the line.
The service area glossary entry has the edge-margin formula. This page is the decision process: where to draw the line, and when to move it.
Step 1: use drive time, not miles
A 20-mile radius is not one thing. Twenty miles on an interstate at 10 a.m. is 25 minutes. Twenty miles across a river with two bridges at 4:30 p.m. can be an hour. Customers on both sides of the circle get the same promise, and one side quietly costs you twice as much to serve.
Draw the boundary as a drive-time limit instead: "30 minutes from the center of our work at midday." Then check it at the hours you actually drive. A boundary that works at 10 a.m. may not at rush hour, which is when your afternoon jobs happen.
Step 2: center it on the work, not the shop
The shop is where trucks park. The work is where your customers are. If most of your jobs are 15 miles east of the shop, center the area there. Plot a year of job addresses on a map and look at where they cluster. For a new company, plot where your target customers live: the neighborhoods with the housing age, type and income that buy what you sell.
If techs take trucks home, where they live matters too. Their first and last drives count.
Step 3: check the density
The point of a service area is to make days dense: several jobs near each other, with short drives between. A big area with thin demand gives you long drives between every job.
One more job a day per truck, across 240 working days, is 240 more jobs a year per truck. The jobs per day calculator runs this with your numbers. Drive time between jobs depends as much on how you book as on how big the area is, but a tight area makes it much easier to keep low.
Step 4: test the edge
For each ring at the edge, run the edge margin from the glossary entry: job margin minus the cost of the drive to reach it. If the outer ring's typical job keeps only a small share of its margin, you have three choices:
- Pull the line in.
- Charge for distance with a trip charge or zone fee past a set drive time.
- Serve it on set days through zone scheduling, so edge jobs ride along with other work out there.
The third option often wins for maintenance and other flexible work. The first or second suits emergency work, where you can't choose the day.
Step 5: decide what happens outside the line
Calls will come from outside the area. Decide ahead of time:
- Refer to a company you trust that serves that area.
- Accept for high-value job types only (installs, commercial), with a distance fee.
- Take a request and call back with a real answer, instead of booking a slot you can't keep.
What you should not do is book an outside job into a normal slot and hope. It blows up that truck's afternoon and every customer after it. CrewLink treats addresses outside every tech's area as an out-of-area request for the office instead of offering a fake slot.
When to grow the area
Grow when the area is full, not when the phone is quiet. Signs it is time:
- your trucks are booked out several days most weeks,
- you are turning away calls just past the edge regularly,
- there is enough demand in the next ring to fill a truck's day.
When those hold, a second area with its own trucks usually beats stretching the first. Two tight areas run better than one big one. The scaling guide covers when to add a branch, and service territory covers dividing an area between techs. CrewLink runs any number of branches, each with its own trucks, on one board.
What to take away
- Draw the boundary by drive time at the hours you work, not by a mile radius.
- Center it on where the jobs are, not where the shop is.
- Jobs a day ≈ H ÷ (S + D): a tighter area keeps D low and adds jobs.
- At the edge: pull the line in, charge for distance, or serve it on set days.
- Decide in advance what you do with calls outside the line, and grow with a second area, not a bigger circle.
Common questions
How big should my service area be?
Big enough to keep your trucks full, small enough that the average drive between jobs stays short. Start with a drive-time limit, such as 30 or 45 minutes at midday from the center of your work, and adjust once you see the edge margin.
Should I list ZIP codes or a radius?
ZIP codes or a drawn line are easier for customers and staff to check than a radius, and they let you follow roads and bridges instead of a circle. Choose them by drive time, not by distance.
Should I charge more for jobs far away?
Often yes, if the job is far enough that the drive eats most of its margin. A distance fee past a set drive time is simple to explain. For flexible work, booking far jobs on set days can be better than a fee.
What do I do with calls outside my service area?
Decide before they come in: refer them to a company you trust, accept only high-value job types with a distance fee, or take a request and call back. Avoid booking them into normal slots you can't keep.