JOB SCHEDULING INFO

Job Scheduling

 

 

“When is our installation date?”    “We need our patio installed on May 13th”    “We need our patio installed next week for a party!”

 

 

 

These are popular questions and topics from our customers. This document is intended to give you some insight into our scheduling process and more details on schedule stability vs. our ability to be accommodating with customer schedule requests.

 

In Short

 

We make the same promise to all customers, that is
“As best that we can … we complete jobs in the order that customers sign up”
“We can estimate roughly when the start date will be, eg. 6 – 8 weeks out, but that will likely change and thus we typically don’t give an exact start date.”

 

We’ll be in touch along the way….  Feel free to call anytime for an update. Please keep in mind that its much easier for us if you ask “How many more customers in front of me in line” vs. “What day will you be here?”. Due to the nature of working outside, the type of work we do, and the demands and constraints set by customers, giving an exact start date is nearly impossible. Please be patient and understand the constraints we are working with … we promise to start your job as soon as possible.

 

If you are concerned about us holding your down payment for an extended period, please call to discuss it with us. We are very flexible. If our schedule is more than 1 month out, we are typically willing to hold a smaller down payment until we start your job.

 

In More Detail

 

Scheduling outdoor work with multiple crews and many customers is literally a puzzle that requires adjustment on a daily basis.

 

We make every effort to treat each and every customer as though you are our only customer and likewise, every customer would like to have the ultimate schedule flexibility for us to freely shift your start date to suit your needs. The challenge is that we typically have 20 or more customers waiting in line and we are forced to juggle schedules as best we can to accommodate everyone in line.

 

The estimate that we give you when you sign up is most often wrong!  Sometimes we’re earlier, sometimes we’re later --- we’re not proud of it, but we’ll tell you right up front, it’s a moving target and we work with the schedule and with our customers as best as it can be done.

 

Why can’t we give a start date? Why aren’t we always exactly on target?
Here is a rough breakdown of why we can’t give you a start date:

 

25% due to the work, ie work progresses faster or slower than we planned
25% due to weather conditions
50% due to customer changing project design or schedule demands

 

50% of scheduling problems are caused by customers? That’s huge!  What does that mean?

 

SALZANO ACCOMODATING vs SCHEDULE STABILITY

 

Well, first of all, yes weather conditions make us crazy! It often makes spaghetti out of our schedule!  Yes, our own work goes faster sometimes and slower sometimes than we planned for … but what is this about schedule problems due to customers.

 

Well, it might be hard to understand, but many times, more often than we’d like talk about, customers themselves are the very reason that the schedule is turned upside-down. It is often the very customers anxiously calling about start dates that end up causing schedule problems and sometimes don’t even realize what they are doing.

 

Once we zero in on a projected start date for a customer or worse yet, when we have actually started the job, customers ask for a schedule change … something like these:

 

“Well, I’m still not sure what color we want the patio to be… can you give us another week to go look at some of your other jobs, then we’ll get back to you…”

 

“I know we were anxious for you to start next Monday, but it looks like Aunt Bessie is coming to visit for a week … can you start a week from Monday instead?”

 

“I’m happy to see that the crew is hear making good progress on my new patio, and I hate to tell you this, but I actually forgot that I need to get HOA (home owners assoc) approval before you can pour the patio … can you just leave it alone for about 2 weeks? I’m sure I’ll hear back from HOA soon…”

 

“Ok, Thursday is good to start the project …. (10am in person) Yes the formwork looks good,  I like the curve and shape of the new patio ….  (8pm phone call) … actually, I know I approved the shape and curve of the patio today, but on 2nd thought, I’d like it to look different, so can you come tomorrow and change the formwork?  And also, did I mention we won’t be in town for the next 3 days, and we really want to be here when you pour concrete, so maybe best if we delay until next Thursday when we get back….”

 

“ … its great to see the crew here …  I know you are planning to pour the patio today, and I know we want the lighting integrated into the new concrete stairs as we discussed, and I know I was suppose to have bought the lights and had them here for you today … but I had to work late last night and didn’t get a chance to buy them … any way you can take the crew to work on another job for today, then come back and pour in a few days?”

 

“… Jack hammering out the old concrete porch in the morning, building formwork and pouring concrete in the afternoon.  Once the old concrete was broken up and moved out of the way, customer sees rotten wood … instead of pouring this afternoon, can you wait until I can get this wood replaced? I’ll call some contractors tomorrow and I’ll let you know when I’m ready to resume the concrete work…. Likely in a couple of weeks…” 

 

“Great to see the crew here today to get started on my project. I know we signed up for a small 400 sq ft patio, but we’ve been thinking about it … if we’re going to do this project, we’d like to get what we really wanted in the beginning, the 800 sq ft patio, the sitting wall, stairs, and lighting …. Can you do that additional work for us? I hope that won’t mess up your schedule too much … “

 

“…I know we agreed that you’d start next Tuesday, but the roofing contractor still isn’t done, so you’ll have to delay start until sometime the following week, or maybe as soon as the other contractor is done, we’ll let you know as soon as we know…”

These are just a few real situations that we work with over and over. We really do “bend over backwards” to accommodate customers schedules, requests, etc. But at the same time, our willingness to be accommodating makes the schedule more complex and overall less stable.

 

A Vacation Day…….

 

Often customers tell us that they would like to be at home when we pour the concrete, but they’ll need to take a vacation day in order to be home and plan for that vacation day at work … so they ask which day this week should they take off?  We give our best estimate, Wednesday, as an example.  So we are planning to pour that job on Wednesday and planning to start the next job in line on Thursday. Early Wednesday morning, the weather forecast has changed and now is not suitable (see notes on weather below) to pour concrete. So we call that customer at 7am to tell them we are not pouring that day and we’ll try on Thursday.  Then we call the Thursday customer to tell them we’ll be there today instead, ie a day early to start preparation (not as weather sensitive). So on Thursday, we circle back (assuming good forecast) and pour the job that had planned for Wednesday

 

This is just another example of how our schedule is a puzzle, a bit different everyday, and a moving target everyday. We really do our best to try to keep all customers informed as to our progress, our schedule and accommodate everyone’s needs. Please be patient with us … all customers will get their jobs done just as soon as we can. All jobs will be a beautiful creation and our goal is to exceed your best expectations. All customers will get our best work and our crews focused attention.

 

Thanks again for your patience and cooperation!!

 

The weather

 

Another reason that we are not able to give start dates is due to weather conditions.

 

We assume 100% risk and responsibility for damage due to rain. Rain before a concrete pour is fine. Rain a few hours after a concrete pour is fine. However, rain during the pour can be catastrophic! That’s why we typically stay conservative on our guidelines.

We use the following guidelines for rain:

 

“If the weather forecast for the day in your zip code using weather.com, is 30% chance of rain or more we assume it will rain and typically do not schedule to pour concrete, apply resurfacing or any sealers.”

 

Customer has the final say….

If you would like us to move forward pouring your job even though the weather forecast is outside of our guidelines, that’s fine, but you are now 100% responsible for rain damage. We’ll ask you to send us an email confirming that you have requested to move forward with the pour. We will also require payment in full prior to the pour. This is a highly unusual circumstance, but none-the-less we like to be accommodating.

Since we are 100% responsible for the pour, we ask your cooperation and patience. Let’s work together … we’ll get your job poured just as soon as we can….

 

Summary

 

One reason many customers love working with us is our excellent reputation for communication, flexibility, and being super-accommodating.

Yes, this is all true, but at the same time can contribute to the schedule problems. If we simply said “NO” to any customer requests, and went ahead and poured in the rain, then sure, we could give you a very accurate start date. However, nobody wants that. Everyone wants us to be accommodating and to watch the weather conditions responsibly.  As you can see, this all comes at a price …. that is, the stability of our work schedule.

Well, we hope this gives you some insight into working with our scheduling issues. We hope this encourages you to be a bit more understand when schedule issues aren’t perfect. We promise to work through it together and get everyone’s job done just as soon as we can with the best outcome possible!

 

Thanks again for trusting us with your concrete project!

 

-Salzano Custom Concrete-