A vague service radius either turns away good customers or promises coverage you can't actually deliver on time. Here's how to draw the boundary properly.
"We serve within about 20 miles" sounds reasonable until a customer at mile 19, on the far side of a lake with one bridge, waits twice as long as one at mile 8. A radius on a map and a real service area are rarely the same shape.
Draw the boundary from drive time, not distance
Mapping the actual area you can reach within a target drive time — accounting for the real road network — produces a boundary that's often lopsided and nothing like a circle, but matches what customers actually experience.
Different services, different boundaries
A same-day service and a next-week installation don't need the same coverage area. Keeping a separate boundary per service level avoids either overpromising on the fast option or underselling the slower one.
Keeping the boundary honest over time
- Re-check the area whenever a new route, bridge or major road closure changes real drive times in part of the territory.
- Compare the mapped boundary against actual completed job locations periodically — clusters just outside the line are a signal to revisit it.
- Share the same boundary with sales, dispatch and marketing so quoted coverage matches what dispatch can actually deliver.
FieldCalc lets you map and export a real service-area boundary, so every team is quoting and routing against the same shape.
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