Problem guide
Promises made by sales never reach the crew
Promises made by sales never reach the crew because the job moves from sales to scheduling to the field as a scope and a price, while the commitments behind it stay in the salesperson's head, email or notes. Write every commitment down at the moment the job is sold, and send it with the job to the people who do the work.
What it usually looks like
A sales rep closes a paving job at a medical office. To win it, he agrees the crew will not start before seven, will keep one entrance open for patients, and will call the practice manager the day before. He writes it in his email to the customer and nowhere else. Scheduling gets a signed quote with square footage and a price. The crew arrives at six, blocks both entrances, and nobody called ahead. The practice manager calls the owner. The rep, when asked, says he told them.
Signs you have this problem
- Customers tell the crew about something they were promised that the crew has never heard of
- Crews call the salesperson from the job to ask what was agreed
- Work gets redone because the crew did not know about a customer preference or restriction
- Complaints mention start dates, working hours or cleanup that sales agreed to
- The work order shows scope and price but nothing about how or when
What usually causes it
- The job passes from sales to scheduling to the crew, and the commitments are not part of what gets handed overThe handoff gap
- Promises are recorded in sales emails and notes, far from the work order the crew actually readsThe field-to-office split
- Special requests are handled as one-off favors, so each one has to be remembered instead of recordedThe exception swamp
What to try this week
- Collect the broken promisesGo through recent complaints, callbacks and crew calls and list every case where the customer expected something the crew did not know about. Note what was promised and where it was written, if anywhere.
- Name the kinds of promises sales makesMost commitments fall into a few types, such as dates, working hours, access, protection of the site, cleanup and people to contact. List them so sales has a short set of things to always record.
- Add a commitments section to the jobGive every sold job a short, plain section listing what was promised, in the salesperson's words, on the same sheet or record the crew receives.
- Hold a short handoff before the first dayFor larger or unusual jobs, have the salesperson and the crew lead spend a few minutes going over the commitments before work starts. Keep it brief so it actually happens.
Where do-it-yourself stops
These steps catch more commitments and make missed ones easier to trace. They still depend on sales remembering to write them down and on the right sheet reaching the right crew, and they break down on busy weeks. A lasting fix is a tool built around your own sales records and your own work orders, so a commitment made at the sale arrives with the job in the field. That is what a Workflow Spec designs.
Questions people ask
Why don't promises made by sales reach the crew?
Because the handoff from sales to operations usually carries the scope and the price, not the conditions and commitments behind them. Those stay with the salesperson.
Should we stop sales from making promises?
No. Customers buy on those commitments. The goal is to record them so the people doing the work can keep them.
Is a note field in the CRM enough?
Only if the crew sees it and sales is required to fill it. A note the field never reads does not carry anything to the job.
How do we tell if this is costing us?
Look at complaints, callbacks and change disputes over a few months and count how many trace back to something sales agreed to. That is your own measure.
Who should own the handoff from sales to the crew?
Name one person, often the salesperson or a project coordinator, who is responsible for making sure commitments reach the crew lead before work starts.