Booked, then cancelled at eight in the morning
The customer was keen and free on Thursday, so Thursday it was. On Wednesday afternoon someone notices the deposit has not been paid. On Thursday morning the fitter discovers the approval the job needed has not come back, and the tethered unit the customer chose is not in stock anyway. The van turns round, the customer takes a day's leave for nothing, and the slot is empty.
Everyone did their part. Nobody checked that all the parts were done before the date was agreed.
Dates offered on enthusiasm, not readiness
Scheduling is usually the first thing a customer asks about and the easiest thing to give them. The dependencies that decide whether the day will work are spread across the business: accounts knows about the deposit, the surveyor knows whether the survey is signed off, someone else holds the operator application, the warehouse knows about stock. The scheduler sees none of it.
- The diary shows free fitters, not job readiness.
- Deposits are checked in accounts, separately from the booking.
- Survey sign-off and operator approval are held in different places.
- Stock is checked on the morning, too late.
- For flats and rentals, permission from the landlord or managing agent is a document nobody tracks.
The cost of a failed install day
A cancelled install costs a fitter's day, a van run and a slot you could have filled with a ready job. It costs the customer a day off, which they will mention in a review. It creates rework for the office, which has to rebook, apologise and often fit the job into an already full week. And it happens most in busy periods, exactly when you can least afford empty slots.
Partner and grant-funded jobs make it worse, because the partner or scheme often sees the failed visit too. A pattern of rescheduled installs shows up in partner dashboards and becomes a reason to send the next batch of work to someone else.
A readiness check before any date
- Your team defines the dependencies for each job type: survey signed off, quote accepted, deposit paid, unit reserved, operator status clear, permissions received, parking access confirmed, and anything else you need.
- Each dependency updates itself where it can: deposits from Stripe or your accounts package, stock from the reservation system, survey and operator status from the job record, signed permissions from e-signature.
- The job shows a readiness panel. Items that need a person to confirm show who owns them.
- The booking screen only offers dates when every required item is clear. If the customer wants to pencil a date earlier, it is marked provisional and the outstanding items are listed.
- Provisional bookings with items still outstanding near the date raise alerts to the owner of each item.
- The day before, a final check runs and the fitter's job sheet shows it passed.
| Dependency | Checked now | Checked by the readiness panel |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit | By accounts, if asked | From payment records, automatically |
| Unit in stock | Morning of the job | From reservation at booking |
| Operator approval | Remembered or not | From the application tracker |
| Landlord or agent consent | A PDF somewhere | Signed document on the job |
| Survey sign-off | Assumed | Recorded by the surveyor |
Diaries that hold
Customers get dates the business can keep. Fitters stop turning round in driveways. Provisional bookings are honest about what is outstanding, so the customer knows why a date is not yet confirmed and what they can do about it. The office spends less time rebooking and more time filling the diary with ready work.
Are your bookings getting ahead of the job?
- Installs are cancelled on the day for reasons known the week before.
- The scheduler cannot see deposits, stock or approvals.
- Customers have taken time off for installs that did not happen.
- Permissions for flats or rentals are chased after booking.
- You have no list of provisional bookings with items outstanding.