Is it still June?
A customer who accepted their quote in February was told you could probably start in June. It is late May. They ring to check. You look at the diary: two jobs overran, there were four wet days in April, and a big job has been slotted in for a repeat client. June is now optimistic. You say it will be late June, maybe early July, and make a note to call them back.
Multiply that by twenty customers in the queue. The phone calls take time, the answers are guesses, and customers who feel strung along cancel their deposit or go elsewhere.
Why the start date is always a guess
A garden build backlog is a queue of jobs with different lengths across crews with different skills. Every overrun, rain day and new priority job pushes everything behind it. Keeping that straight in a diary is possible for a few jobs and hopeless for a season.
- Accepted jobs are listed, but not sequenced with their expected duration.
- Some jobs need a particular crew, such as the one that does natural stone.
- Overruns and weather delays are not rolled forward through the queue.
- Customers are told a month when they accept, and nothing afterwards.
- Nobody can see how far ahead the order book actually runs.
What vague dates cost
Customers who are left guessing ring the office, which takes time, or lose patience and cancel. Some book the patio with you but arrange other trades, like a fencer or an electrician for the garden lighting, around a date you did not really give. And without a clear view of how full the book is, the owner cannot tell whether to keep selling, raise prices for the peak, or take on another crew member.
The backlog planner we build
- Every accepted job goes into the planner with its estimated crew days, which crews can do it, any fixed constraints such as a customer away in August, and dependencies such as a design sign-off or a delivery.
- The planner sequences jobs for each crew and gives each an expected start week.
- As crews record progress, overruns and rain days move later jobs automatically, and the owner approves the revised plan.
- When a customer's expected start moves, they get a short message explaining the new expected week, in your wording, with a way to reply.
- Customers can check their place and expected start through a simple link at any time.
- The owner sees how many weeks of work each crew has booked and where the gaps are.
| Question | Answered by |
|---|---|
| When will my job start? | Expected week, kept up to date |
| Why has it moved? | Short message with the reason |
| How full are we? | Weeks booked per crew |
| Can we fit in a repeat client? | Planner shows the knock-on effect first |
| Where are the gaps? | Unfilled weeks by crew |
Estimated start weeks are shown as estimates. Promising customers a fixed date is a business decision, and the planner does not make it for you.
What changes in the office
The phone rings less with start date questions, because customers already know. When a job does move, the customer hears it from you before they have to ask. The owner can say yes or no to a new job with a clear view of what it would push back. And a full book is visible early, which is useful when deciding what to charge in the busy months.
Signs your backlog is running you
- Customers regularly ring to ask when you will start.
- Start dates given at acceptance are rarely met.
- You have lost booked jobs to delay.
- Only the owner knows the order of the queue.
- You cannot say how many weeks of work are booked.