The first warm weekend in March brought a hundred enquiries in a fortnight and the owner answered them from the van between jobs, so half were still waiting a week later. Meanwhile the maintenance rounds needed scheduling around weather and staff, and the autumn work nobody had booked was the winter nobody was paid for. The firm wanted every enquiry answered the same day, quoted from its rates, and the rounds and seasonal work filled without the owner.
Three things kept going wrong, and each cost the business time, money or a customer.
Three agents built on the firm's scheduling app and rate sheet, with the owner approving any quote above the rate card and the agents doing the answering, pricing and scheduling around the crews.
The scheduling app held the customers, rounds and crews; the rate sheet was in the owner's head and a spreadsheet, and we wrote it down properly, which he said was worth the project on its own. For the first week he read every quote from the van; by the second week the crew leads were signing them off. The dispatch agent proposed each week for approval through the first month, then ran it itself, with the owner watching a shared view of who was where.
Spring enquiries are answered within the hour and visits booked the same day, so the firm gets to the customer before the three others they emailed. Quotes go out the day of the visit and win more often. The rounds run themselves, the rain is handled by a reshuffle and a message rather than a morning on the phone, and the autumn work is booked in August because the campaign agent asked. The owner is on site again.
'March used to be a hundred people asking for a quote and me answering them at traffic lights. Now they've all had a visit booked by the time I've finished the first job of the day.'
Owner
A cancellation on Tuesday night meant a cleaner with nothing to do on Wednesday morning and an owner on the phone at 10pm trying to fill it. Cleaners forgot shifts they had not been reminded of, and quotes for new regulars waited until the weekend. The company wanted the schedule full, the rota confirmed and the owner's evenings back.
Quotes were written up by the owner in the evenings, so they went out four days after a site visit and jobs were lost to faster competitors. Invoices went out late for the same reason.
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