SmartRoutingĀ® ā The algorithm that replaces your dispatcher
In under 100 milliseconds, SmartRoutingĀ® identifies the geographic zone, selects the priority technician, checks availability over 14 days and confirms the appointment ā while your customer is still on the phone.
The problem
Without an algorithm, dispatch is your bottleneck
Every call requires a manual decision: which zone? which technician is available? which time slot? It's slow, error-prone, and impossible to sustain at 10pm.
5 to 15 minutes
The average time for a human dispatcher to find the right technician, check their schedule and confirm a slot ā when they're reachable.
Meanwhile, the customer waits or hangs up.
Conflicts & duplicates
Without a centralized system, two simultaneous calls can result in the same time slot being booked for two different customers.
Result: no-show, unhappy customer, double-booked technician.
No 24/7 coverage
Manual dispatch stops when your team stops. Evening calls, weekends, and holidays go unanswered.
40% of requests come in outside business hours.
SmartRoutingĀ® in action
The right technician, in the right zone, in under 100ms.
No more "I'll check and call you back". The algorithm finds the available slot while the client is still speaking.
Postcode
BS8 1AA
Bristol, UK
Zone identified
Bristol Centre
O(1) index Ā· ~2ms
Technician assigned
John Ā· P1
Priority 1 Ā· Monday
Free slot
Thu 9am
14-day window Ā· ~100ms
Appt + SMS
ā Confirmed
Sent immediately
Postcode
BS8 1AA
Bristol, UK
Zone identified
Bristol Centre
O(1) index Ā· ~2ms
Technician assigned
John Ā· P1
Priority 1 Ā· Monday
Free slot
Thu 9am
14-day window Ā· ~100ms
Appt + SMS
ā Confirmed
Sent immediately
āŗ Click to replay
Time to find a slot
What makes the algorithm fast
- No full VRP ā local insertion O(n)
- Index on postcode ā O(1) lookup
- Priority cascade ā P1 ā P2 ā P3
- 14-day rolling window
- Clear separation: AI understands, code calculates
Architecture
How SmartRoutingĀ® computes in real time
No on-the-fly machine learning, no full VRP solving. A layered architecture built for speed and reliability.
Zone resolution ā O(1)
The postal code is the key of a pre-computed hashmap. The geographic zone is returned in ~2ms, with no loops, no SQL joins. If the postal code is missing from the index, the adjacent zone fallback activates immediately.
Technician selection ā Priority cascade
Technicians are ordered by priority (P1, P2, P3) for each zone. The algorithm tries P1 first: if unavailable within the window, it falls back to P2, then P3. This cascade guarantees the best available technician without iterating all combinations.
Slot search ā Local insertion O(n)
The search window is capped at 14 days. The algorithm does not solve the full travelling salesman problem (NP-hard) ā it performs local insertion: it finds the first free slot that meets all constraints (duration, hours, technician working days).
Atomic write + notification
The appointment is written to the database with a transactional lock to prevent concurrency conflicts (two simultaneous calls cannot book the same slot). The confirmation SMS is sent immediately via Telnyx.
Benchmark ā Computation time
Design principles
Clear separation: AI / deterministic algorithm
AI understands language, code computes ā not the other way around
No machine learning for dispatch
Deterministic = predictable = zero surprises in production
Pre-computed index, never rebuilt on-the-fly
Zone resolution stays O(1) regardless of load
Transactional lock on appointment writes
Two customers cannot be booked on the same slot
14-day bounded window
Controlled complexity, no temporal drift
Configuration
Tailor SmartRoutingĀ® to your organization
1 technician or 20, 1 zone or 50 ā the engine adapts without redeployment.
Geographic zones
- Map postal codes ā named zone
- Adjacent zones for P2 fallback
- Overlap allowed between zones
- Add / remove zones in real time
- Example: Zone North (SW1āSW3), Zone South (SE1āSE5)
Technicians & priorities
- Profile per technician: covered zones, working days, hours
- Priority level P1 (senior) ā P3 (junior)
- Multi-zone: one technician can cover N zones
- Configurable leave and unavailability
- Example: John P1 Zone South MonāFri 8amā6pm
Business rules
- Duration per service type (e.g. full setup = 2h)
- Minimum gap between appointments (travel time)
- Proposal window: 7, 14 or 21 days
- Max appointments per day per technician
- Custom message if no slot is found
Example: company with 3 technicians, 2 zones
Configuration
Zone A ā codes SW1āSW3 ā John (P1), Mark (P2)
Zone B ā codes SE1āSE5 ā Luke (P1), John (P2)
Rule ā full setup = 3h, maintenance = 1h30
Window ā 14 days, max 4 appts/day/technician
Scenario ā incoming call
2ms Postal code SW2 ā Zone A identified
5ms John (P1) ā schedule checked ā busy Thursday
8ms First free slot: Friday 2pm
95ms Appointment written + SMS sent to customer
Total: 95ms ā the customer is still on the phone
Frequently asked technical questions
Ready to automate your dispatch?
SmartRoutingĀ® is included in all Otoblue plans ā no technical setup required.