business-plan, business-model, idea, processI work for a company that does engineer installations and I am looking for some advice on how to improve business efficiencies.
As it stands, our engineers go to site and perform a consistently high standard of installations which results in strong customer feedback. However the one area in which we could do a little bit better in is setting a timeframe in which we attend and complete the installation.
Based on the nature of the installations we do, the time taken to do a job could range from 30 minutes to 3 hours depending on the site. This makes time planning a little tricky when the engineer could have 8 sites to go to in one day. Furthermore this is why we cannot give out an exact time in which the job will start and how long their specific job will take until the engineer gets there. To mitigate this our engineers tell the customer, in enough given time, whether s/he will be with them in the morning or afternoon of the day in which they booked.
Based on the information above, my question is what would be the best way to introduce a process in which we could offer our customers a set time to attend the site?
I have never seen a company manage this. If you leave a 3 hrs time slot for the work and need 30 mins, you have 2,5hrs left doing nothing if you do not want to arrive early at the next place. If you plan for 30 mins and need 3 hrs, you’ll be late at the next place.
So what can you do to make it easier for your customers?
There are a few tricks you can pull. If your engineers have some paperwork to do, they could fill a few gaps (note: doing that in the car is rather problematic, so this is only viable if the gap is big or small enough and they can return to base or it’s really just 15 mins).
But I see one solution that will hopefully be implemented everywhere in the future for this kind of problem.
Transparency
In the age of smartphones and digitalization, there should be no problem with doing a little more planning and accommodation. If you have a job that might need more or less time, ask the next customer if he would prefer your engineers to come earlier if possible. Ask other customers if they would like that timeslot in case it becomes available.
Don’t make this a planners nightmare though, make it di-di-digital. Sorry, but I’m serious, there’s an app for everything, there’s always a client who isn’t happy with the timeslot he got and would like you to come at earliest convenience. The only problem is capturing that information. So combine those two. Ask your clients if they want a fixed timeslot next week or would prefer your engineers to come in if a job takes less time but then maybe with only 15 mins of anticipation. Use those clients to fill the gaps. There is no harm in having a list of clients who have a slot next week but who can be called and reached earlier.
And suddenly you’ll have a timeslot more next week and you will manage to visit more customers per time - because what are you doing now if you have 6 customers planned with 1 hr + drive and all take only 30 mins? Do your engineers start calling the next days customers? Or do they go home? whatever it is, my solution anticipates this problem and gives you a better way ;-)-
It looks like your biggest problem is inability to estimate in advance the installation effort required at a particular site, so may be you could split the task in two? Have an experienced engineer survey sites in advance; a survey should only take a small, fixed time slot, so you can plan the survey round in advance with precision.
After that you will know with higher accuracy each site’s expected installation time and that will let you plan installations better. Granted, this involves about twice as much driving around, so only you can tell whether better planning outcomes warrant extra expense. May be some efficiency can be found in stopping for surveys (for the next day’s installations) while en route for today’s installations when it’s geographically appropriate.
Proceed like a plumber or a home delivery service - you’re technically doing this already.
These never tell you “we’ll be at your doorstep today at 4:30pm.” Rather, they say something like: “we’ll come this afternoon.” Sometimes they give you a 2h time slot instead of a broad “in the morning/afternoon” slot. The better ones keep you updated by phone if their plans change, be it coming earlier or not being able to make it until a bit later. The key is to set expectations right, because nobody likes to just sit there and wait when they could have been doing something else.
Aside: for planning purposes, 8 installs per day seems like dubious planning if some really take 3h once on premise. I presume they’re edge cases and you’re able to somewhat anticipate which ones will take long. Still, be wary of not ending up in a situation where your engineers regularly arrive late to their last meetings or cancel the latter - it’s bad form.
It’s better to only schedule 4-6 installs per day and surprise the clients on the upside by being available earlier. (If someone’s waiting for you early afternoon on a work premise, there’s a good chance they’ll be available in the late morning too.)
Lastly, keep the golden rule of maintenance in mind: never deploy anything mission-critical on a Friday. Because if it breaks and takes a lot of time to fix, you stand to ruin your WE plans.
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