Scheduling Can Make or Break Your Business
If you’re running any kind of service business (particularly catering to residential customers), you know how critical it is to schedule your work properly. Having a system when it comes to booking jobs and scheduling services is something that most successful business owners have developed over time. Often, it’s a result of trial and error.
I’ve run a few businesses that required strong scheduling skills. My window cleaning and gutter cleaning businesses are good examples. I quickly found that having a system in place meant more productivity and fewer headaches.
Granted, when you’re starting a home service business like that, you’re not going to be able to schedule your jobs efficiently until you get more experience. You need to know how long each job is going to take – and the more experience you have, the more accurate your estimate will be.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when starting out is to schedule appointments too close together. That’s when things can fall apart. Your stress level goes up as you try to rush the job you are at in order to get to your next call. On such a tight schedule, it only takes one unforeseen problem to throw a wrench in the works.
It really comes down to tight scheduling (and making the maximum amount of money), versus a more reasonable schedule that will allow for the unexpected.
Even after I became quite experienced in my business, I still kept my schedule fairly loose. You just never know what is going to delay your progress during the day – whether it be weather, job, or equipment related. You can’t possibly foresee every situation.
Here’s a few rules that I like to follow when scheduling jobs:
Make sure you leave an extra day in your schedule so that you’ve got a little breathing room. Experience has shown that if anything can go wrong, it will. By having that extra day, I enjoy peace of mind and a lower stress level.
Once a customer is booked, I usually don’t allow them to change times at the last minute. This only leads to more phone time and frustration for the other customers I have to move around. Keep in mind that this is only for short-term changes. If someone wants to reschedule a few weeks down the road, it’s usually not a problem to fit them in. I guess the bottom line here is that you can’t allow your customers to dictate your schedule.
Make sure you get yourself a large scheduling book. Trying to cram all your customer’s details into a little pocketbook notepad is not going to do it. You should have a calendar style page with plenty of room to write the details for each call. I usually leave my large scheduling book at home and carry a small notepad when I’m out. Once I’m home, I always transfer the details to my master book. Make sure that you always get your customer’s complete information and don’t rely on your memory. Write down their full name, address, phone number, price of the estimate, and the work they want done.
Make sure you stick to the schedule. Arrive on time for each job and you’ll have happy customers and a work day that flows nicely. If you’re going to be late, give your next customer a courtesy call. If I lose time during the day, I’ll usually try to make it up by working through my lunch – it all depends on the situation.
Once you’ve got a ton of experience under your belt, you might find yourself in the position where you can tighten your schedule a little and make more money. In my case, I was able to do this after a few years. By that time I had a pretty good idea of what a typical year was like. I knew what kind of weather to expect during a certain month. I knew which months were busier than others. And I knew how long each job was going to take with amazing accuracy. I soon found a sweet spot between not having enough work to fill a day, and having so much that it was overwhelming.
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