Forced Availability

[gloryboy]

surprise, the standard reaction to being busy........
force extra availability into diaries.

bigger surprise decision and notification goes out late Friday afternoon negating the chance to remove the additional slots.


this lot are really getting me down at the moment.

[desmorse]

Same old head-in-the-sand approach. We can't manage the business, it manages us.
Perhaps someone could explain to me, how a fit that I estimate will take 3 hours, will now be done in 2 so I can do the extra call.
I'd love to know - really, I would.

Gonna be a lot of disappointed customers sitting waiting for a visit that ain't going to happen. Never mind, they'll just be re-booked with a discount

[dolly]

It amazes me how some of you do 4/5 slots in an evening for example anyway. Yes sometimes we are in and out but their is always one that thinks we have all day. I dont think i could fit 4 in 3 hours even if they were all in the same street. Rushing will only add to chance of a DOR. Wont have time for my coffee and biscuits. d**n!!!!

[hereticus]

I also got the email from our 'new - as yet unseen or even spoken to' FSM to advise that diaries are to be forced and we should be laughing all the way to the bank at the increased earnings potential. As I only have five leads booked in my diary for the whole of next week, I don't understand why I should be 'forced' to do anything different.

What really confuses me, however, is what exactly do they mean - how are they intending to force the diary. The email today gives no information at all on how this will be achieved. Are they going to increase the number of slots so that we only have twenty minutes per appointment ? Are they going to expect us to work slots or days when we are not normally avaialable ? If we don't know what they have in mind it is very difficult to form an opinion on whether or not we can live with it.

There are, of course, ways to confound them at their own game but I will hold back from posting any hints and tips until I understand their intentions and am able to judge whether or not they are going about it in a responsible way or just treating us like cannon fodder. If anybody knows what is really going on, please post whatever you know.

[RED]

dolly said:

It amazes me how some of you do 4/5 slots in an evening for example anyway. Yes sometimes we are in and out but their is always one that thinks we have all day. I dont think i could fit 4 in 3 hours even if they were all in the same street. Rushing will only add to chance of a DOR. Wont have time for my coffee and biscuits. d**n!!!!

Hi Dolly. I originally asked for only 3 in any slot. IE 3 early pm, 3 late pm and 3 evening. It is comfortable and you could give a customer the time they need. Then some bright spark decided to force our diaries and 3 became 4. Then they played around with the amount of time per slot like conservatories 6 slots and service calls 2 slots and then 4 became 5.
3 is comfortable, 4 is pushing it and 5 can be done but only by rushing your first 2 or 3 customers so by probably loosing the sale and so lead to sale drops and average order value. I have had 5 in the late pm and 5 in the evening and had to miss out a few here and there just to keep up. Some days you can do it if they all want one or two blinds but as you say, there will always be the one that wants a whole house doing and so puts pressure on us and inevitably we dont get the sale. How inconsiderate of them wanting more than 2 blinds.
Then we are asked why our sale/quote ratio is so bad and that if we cant do 5 slots then they will bring in a new adviser because you cant cope so your moral drops and you keep the 5 bookings in a 3 hour slot and end up getting even less sales because you are cheesed off running here there and everywhere. So Dolly, you have it right, 3 slots is easily manageable. 4 is pushing it a bit and 5 is mental stress and not good, but then who are we to make decisions, we are only the agents and don't know any better.

Incidentaly, I was told by a lady recently that her Friend had had me out but did not order due to the fact that she felt rushed as it was 8.20pm on a Friday night and I still had 2 more customers to see. I know the day she was on about. 5 in the late pm which spilled over into the 5 in the evening. I have since decided to do them in the most likely sales first order and any that can not be fitted in are missed out for the customers and my own sanity sake. The lady that told me this is a sales force manager and when I explained the Hillarys way she was totally gobsmacked at their attitude towards advisors and customers.

Red

[desmorse]

Mike,
I'm suddenly getting 3 slot (45 minutes) leads, so they can fit 4 leads in to 3 hours.

[thelloydgang]

Hi all

I met with my new FSM Paul Stothard on Wednesday and he informed me then about "forced" availability.

It's because of the bank holiday and is for the week before and after to make up for losing one days trading as the majority of Advisors will take Bank Hol off.

If you have 4 slots booked in 1 session it will remain 4.
If you have 3, 2 or 1 these will all be increased by 1 slot.

I informed him that increasing my 3 epm slots to 4 would cause a problem for me and he took this on board with no problems and my lead availability will stay exactly the same.

If you don't want your availability increased during the next two weeks I suggest you email your FSM and copy to Diary Maintenance.

Hope this of some use to you all

K ;D

[thelloydgang]

Red

Why on earth do you carry on doing 5 appts in each session. Ask Diary maintenance to change all your conservatory leads to a 4 slot........this has really helped me. All con and awnings are now booked in for 4 slots and find this quite manageable.

I certainly couldn't cope with 5 lpm and 5 eve. And definately would be letting customers down on a regular basis.

I always do 4 in the morning, this is manageable as I tend to get to last customer about 11.30'ish. If i'm running a bit late I always call my last cust before 11 and so far all have been ok and thanked me for calling them.

I do 3 epm so if I run over with the morning appointments I'm always finished in time to pick up kids.

4 in evening and try to make sure I'm at first appt dead on 6pm so very rarely have to let cust down..........but if I have to I'd always ring them asap.

I'm sure Hillarys wouldn't expect you to carry on doing 5 leads in each slot.........

Is your availability always full.............if so you must be making a packet!!!

K ;D

[thelloydgang]

Hi Des

I've always done 4 leads in the am and 4 leads in eve but this is just selling and not fits.

K ;D

[*Star*man*]

hereticus said:

I also got the email from our 'new - as yet unseen or even spoken to' FSM to advise that diaries are to be forced and we should be laughing all the way to the bank at the increased earnings potential. As I only have five leads booked in my diary for the whole of next week, I don't understand why I should be 'forced' to do anything different.

What really confuses me, however, is what exactly do they mean - how are they intending to force the diary. The email today gives no information at all on how this will be achieved. Are they going to increase the number of slots so that we only have twenty minutes per appointment ? Are they going to expect us to work slots or days when we are not normally avaialable ? If we don't know what they have in mind it is very difficult to form an opinion on whether or not we can live with it.

There are, of course, ways to confound them at their own game but I will hold back from posting any hints and tips until I understand their intentions and am able to judge whether or not they are going about it in a responsible way or just treating us like cannon fodder. If anybody knows what is really going on, please post whatever you know.

I Thought RK stated here a while back said that hillarys will NOT alter availability and increase diary slots in this way again.

Was this another False Promise ?

Any Extra slots in my diary will be zapped!

[RED]

thelloydgang said:

Red

Why on earth do you carry on doing 5 appts in each session. Ask Diary maintenance to change all your conservatory leads to a 4 slot........this has really helped me. All con and awnings are now booked in for 4 slots and find this quite manageable.

I certainly couldn't cope with 5 lpm and 5 eve. And definately would be letting customers down on a regular basis.

I always do 4 in the morning, this is manageable as I tend to get to last customer about 11.30'ish. If i'm running a bit late I always call my last cust before 11 and so far all have been ok and thanked me for calling them.

I do 3 epm so if I run over with the morning appointments I'm always finished in time to pick up kids.

4 in evening and try to make sure I'm at first appt dead on 6pm so very rarely have to let cust down..........but if I have to I'd always ring them asap.

I'm sure Hillarys wouldn't expect you to carry on doing 5 leads in each slot.........

Is your availability always full.............if so you must be making a packet!!!

K ;D

I have appointments at four slots each. Then someone puts one in at 2 lots, then another at 3 slots and before you know it 3 has become 5 and there is nothing I can do about it. If I drop it down to 2 appointments at 4 slots each they put a conservatory in for 6 slots and then nothing else. I have tried every imaginable way to get them to put just 3 sales in whether conservatory or not but I can have 5 in the late pm and 5 in the evening and the next sales day one in the late pm and one in the evening. There is just no common sense when booking diary's.
As for the making a packet, the appointments on any particular day usually are 2 or 3 not ins,
2 or 3 wanting 3 for 99, 2 or 3 no sales and maybe one decent order above 200 quid.
So from around 25 leads a week I get around 3k of sales. Not a great return for a lot of running around really.
The thing is, half of the people I go out to I would never have booked them in as the estates they live in are know as drug city round here and you just dont go there. So the appointments are wasted on no hoper's.

Red

[Augustus]

Be interesting to see/hear the reaction of my own reply to my new manager. I will be meeting him for the first time tuesday.

Hopefully I will have put the recent BS behind me so we can have a constructive meeting rather than me dismantling the whole company.


P.

[dolly]

I thought something was brewing before this email arrived. The last 2 days i have had appointments booked in when i only had 2 slots left.
RED your right with the 6 slot issue i too changed availability from 8 -10, 12 -14 etc to cope with the consevatory/awnings leads.But often you would get someone wanting only one side in a conservatory doing and still given a 6 slot.
These "6 slots" have been a burden on an already stretched diary booking system and for the most part not necessary.
Discussions with customers lately it seems CLG are asking customers requirements on the phone including number of blinds etc, so should really be able to assess and treat each appointment on its own merit. The biggest problem is and always will be CLG dont know our own areas and often have us zig-zagging across towns using up valuable time, again in the old days we would have been able to book them in when in the area.
This enforced increase is becoming a more regular occurence and i for one know i am at full capacity, there are after all only 24 hours in a day.

[dolly]

Sorry if i am boring you all on this.
Another point and my FSM agreed with this, with increased sales/conversions means in 2/3 weeks even more unavailability as we will need more time for fitting. YOU CANT WIN!

[mendipmagpie]

There should be no such thing as increased availability without prior agreement. You know your own area and what time you need to be successful. After all you are Self Employed. The easy way out is to use the agent not available option on SAM. I personally prefer to give a customer that little extra attention and believe it improves the conversion rate. The other alternative is to control your diary by using fit date and duration, no-one can tell you how long a fit will take. This prevents it being messed about with
Seems towork for me .
MM