Backlog And Scheduling

AAPaint

Quick question. How long of a backlog do you keep for work? It seems mine stays at around 2-2 1/2 weeks. However, I have heard some with much longer waiting lists. How do customers react to longer waiting times?

When one job causes an extra week's delay because the customer significantly increases the scope of work, how do your waiting customers react? I'm sure you all keep them updated frequently of any delays just as I do....

Anyway, share your thoughts and experiences please. I haven't had a need to extend my waiting period because I seem to get enough leads to keep me going at this rate without too much trouble. I do want to learn from those more experienced in the business side of things how to handle/acquire a longer backlog of work so I'm not spending a whole day's worth of time each and every week doing estimates to make sure there is another project to start week after week.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Mike Finley

Well, I don't qualify as those more experienced but for whatever it is worth, if a customer added a weeks worth of work to the scope of work during the middle of the job, they would have to become a new job and be tacked onto the end of my back log, there's no way I could or would bump everybody back a week, it just wouldn't work out since I usually have a couple of other companies involved in my work and it would be like dominos falling screwing up everything down the line. I usually have quite a bit of pre-construction planning involved in a lot of the remodeling, sometimes 3 or more weeks before the job starts.

As far as how do customers react to long wait times, most of mine don't seem to have a problem with it, which suprises even me. Of course there are those that need something right away, but they all seem to be customers that I'm not really excited to win as customers anyways, such as somebody with a rental property or somebody trying to sell their house, both of those types of customers I really don't fit in well with anyways.

It will be interesting to see how others answer.

ProWallGuy

Ditto to what Mike said. A one-day extra change order is no problem, but a week's worth will get fit in the schedule at the next available week slot.

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Teetorbilt

My long haul is about 3 yrs. In my experience, the business world is like juggling a golfball, apple, orange, axe and running chainsaw. The trick is to keep everything in it's place while allowing for adjustments.

Today, my #1 cheerleader called needing a slab for his whole house generator. I have no gameplan as to how I'm going to pull this one off but I can promise you that he will have his slab.

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Grumpy

2-2.5 weeks is my comnfort zone. Any more and I call up a few subs to knock out a few jobs... any less and I am stressed out.

If a job get's blown out, let's face it, in my situation the most this could add is a day or two MAX. If a start date is imperative, like i said above I just call a few subs.

A smooth schedule ALL comes down to having qualified labor on stand by. I usually have plenty. A couple phone calls and problem solved, everybody is happy.

kenvest

anything longer than 2 or so weeks and people start falling apart. the budget gets used for little johnnies new braces or my brother in-law knows a guy who said he could do it cheaper or some such mess....

give people too much time to think about stuff and sometimes they'll think their way right out of it.

IHI

I too have been pretty lucky with customers understanding the wait...at times during the summer depenind on scope of work i like to keep a 2 week lead, but often it's 3-4 weeks. It all depends on what projects we have going since we dabble in a little of everything. I could make an easier schedule doing 1 aspect of construction, but would bore myself to death without the huge stress of organizing every aspect LOL!!

It never fails, typically even with great planning change orderes are made or material is back logged longer than expected/scheduled so if we reach a point we can go no futher I have no choice but to start the next knowing we have to work fast to now finish 1.5-2 jobs in the same alloted time schedule. Luckily I have great subs that try to be as flexable as possible and they roll with the punches since nothing is set in stone in our lines of work. Being a good juggler is key to making it all flow as seamless as possible, but even that's not that's not a guaruntee-just finished a bath that was supposed to take 1.5 weeks start to finish...2 months later we're done-tile ordered from italy went from coming in the week we started the prject to 3 weeks after we had demo, rough in done/inspected and everything else finished up.

I've lost my fair share of jobs cuz I could'nt do it the next day...most recent was a gal trying to remodel and prepare her new home she'd bought-3 weeks into doing the work herself she wanted to move in Sat., i got a call Wed afternoon asking if I could stop by to look at bathroom-she needed a few drywall patchs her and there...once I got there she ran down a list which consisted of a full gut, change this that, etc...typical bath remodel...then asks if I can have it all done by Sat. morning LMFAO!!! Too much Extreme Home Makeover on the television for societies own good But like Mike said, if their so clueless as not to plan ahead, it's going to be a headache working for them anyways so ya dont need 'em.

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FireballBrick

My masonry company fills a niche in our area, we do repair work and custom work. When we are slow, we will pick up additions, and for one GC that treats us like gold, we will do whole houses, and he doesn't mind that it takes us 5X longer than a crew of Mexicans and is 5X more expensive...
In April of this year, we were backlogged 4 months. During those months, the phone just stopped ringing. When we came off the log, my partner and I took three weeks of vacation to visit family all over. When we got back to Florida, we had a voicemail, and have worked steady since that....and now, we are booked through February again....It seems to come in cycles for us. As far as people getting pissy about our waitlist, most people understand that there are only two of us, and we are the only ones in town usually who can do what they want correctly. We have never had someone turn us down because of the wait...I think if anything, it makes people a little more assured that we are the best.....
Adrienne

mdshunk

I usually plan a day or two in each week for quick service calls that pop up. This way, I can get to them pretty quickly. Usually in that same week, or early the next. Any "projects" or "jobs" (that don't fall squarely into the service call category) are about 1-1/2 to 2 months out. It's pretty much always been that way, and nobody seems to mind. As long as you tell them up front when it's gonna be, and call if something gets juggled around, you're okay.

In my line of work, sometimes you automatically have at least a month between acceptance of the job by the customer and when the possible start date is due to several factors that are out of my hands. Permit application approvals, engineering approvals or design work, power company schedule co-ordination, special order equipment, etc.

AAPaint

Thanks for the insight guys. I just had a job take me 3 extra days to complete, and we put in some long days and the weekend to make it happen. It didn't interrupt our schedule much, so not too big of a deal.

I'm surprised that most of you are a lot like me keeping only a couple of weeks work in your backlog. I would like to have it like Fireball does where eventually people know we are the best and are willing to both pay for our expertise and wait for our schedule.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

RobertCDF

I usually have anywhere from 2-3 weeks to 2-3 months ahead right now if I count the stuff I need to do for a friend and the landscaping for my dad and the little stuff people told me "fit it in when you can" I am about 3 months out right now. Better than last year at this time, I could not get anything lined up and I was putting 1,000's of flyers on mailboxes and door handles. I have noticed it is a little harder to get people to spend money in Nov-Jan I guess christmas just makes people broke. Most of the time I dont give people a start "date" I give them a start week (2nd or 3rd week of dec depending upon the weather) and most of the time I can push them back a little if I need to. But any "new" projects unrelated to what I am already doing for the customer goes to the back of the line.

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Robert Shaw
Colorado Springs Custom Decks
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Teetorbilt

Robert, that is one of the reasons that I went into custom cabinetry, there are no seasons. Marine business, best in the winter but year 'round. Window treatments, year 'round.

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Mike Finley

Robert, you and I are doing it almost the exact same way. I'm not 3 months out, but fluctuate between 4 and 8 weeks. (Hopefully that will change here shortly as I roll out some new advertising and swamp myself good!) But I do the same thing, give them a vague time, later part of January and tell them that as we get closer I will call them with a firmer date such as the 3rd week of January and finally when we get closer I call them with the actual start date, January 24th. I found this keeps things fluid and gives me the freedom and flexibility to adjust, add a small job or two in the schedule, move one up or down depending on another customers flexibility. Quoting somebody a date that is 6 weeks away I found led to padding other jobs too much and I ended up with sometimes too many days inbetween jobs.