When you get busy does your level of service change?

Question

As the pressure builds in the back half of the year, where is your customer experience most likely to slip—and what are you committed to protecting?

The reality is that our clients don’t care that it’s summer, we’re extremely busy, or our team is stretched thin. They still deserve the same consistent level of service.

That responsibility falls on us.

A systemized business shouldn’t have to reinvent how it operates every time things get busy. You should be able to run more clients through the same well-built system without communication, follow-ups, scheduling, or service quality falling through the cracks.

If clients are becoming frustrated or important details are being missed, those are leaks in the boat. Being busy may expose them, but it didn’t create them.

So, as you head into the busiest part of your year:

Where is your customer experience most vulnerable right now?

And what system, process, or standard are you committed to strengthening or protecting?

nathanhch · Answer

I have struggled a little with keeping track of job visits and new job requests. partially because of the system I was on. now that I am back on jobber that has gone away for the most part. I always want to make sure that I am communicating well with current and potential clients. I don't want to leave people in the dark.

pestfreecanada · Answer

I really like this question!After a few too many times saying "yes" to something I was too busy for, too tired for, or not properly equipped for, I realized that I would rather come back and complete a job than do it half assed and make myself look bad. I will tell the customer straight that I am too tired to do this today, I will have to come back tomorrow to finish as I am not going to do it half way or anything less than perfect. This situation is obviously when I am already onsite and the work is more than expected or the scope changes.People really respect it and never give any push back. I think the honesty is what they appreciate and knowing that I am not will to give them anything less than perfect.&nbsp;

wiringbyron · Answer

Hey Nathan, love it. And if you can we have an admin that is full-time in charge of incoming calls and then requests, and then scheduling those requests for quotes. It's been an amazing change in our business. She just lives in there and nothing get's missed. She tee's up scheduled requests for me and I knock them down.&nbsp;

wiringbyron · Answer

I completely agree about honesty. I said to my wife tonight, "Being honest about something to someone when you don't really have to lets them know that you're going to be honest on another occasion when you could have easily lied about it."

samashborn · Answer

Big agree that the phone is usually the first place service slips under volume. What protects it is treating new-inbound calls like a separate system from field work: pick one thing to protect during busy season and make it non-negotiable. Most owners I've seen who keep lead response consistent do three things. First, a hard callback window — fifteen minutes in-hours, two hours after-hours — and they build the voicemail greeting around it ('we're on a job, leave a number and we'll be back with you inside 15 minutes'). Second, an automatic text-back on a missed call that asks for address, service needed, and the best time to talk, so the owner reviews a written list at the top of the next window and calls in order. Third, they cap the queue: if a missed-call stack is already 8–10, the voicemail says 'we're booked through X; we'll still call you back, but new work slots after X.' For true emergencies they run a separate forwarded line or an on-call rotation among the leads so storm/water calls bypass the backlog. Track missed-call-to-callback time weekly and treat anything outside the window as a routing problem, not a 'busy season' problem. Protect the call path and the rest of service holds together.

Forum Discussion

When you get busy does your level of service change?

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