3 Common Reasons for Project Delays & How to Mitigate Them

Project delays are common in every industry, but the impact they can have on the customer experience in the restoration industry varies. We wanted to better understand how many 1-star reviews online were due to delays, and we were surprised to find that nearly 17% of all 1-Star reviews left for companies on Google were due to frustrations over project delays; a significant portion of the 1000 reviews we analyzed.

3 Common Reasons for Restoration Project Delays

To help restoration companies understand how they can avoid low ratings in tricky situations, we rounded up the top 3 reasons for project delays. By knowing the common culprits for delays, teams can potentially mitigate these situations and avoid the dreaded 1-star reviews.

1. Chasing New Jobs Before Finishing Existing Ones

The most common reason customers complained about project delays was situations where companies wouldn’t finish what they started.

In our analysis, we found customers frequently took to Google to express frustrations about a company starting a project, only to blow off the customer for jobs with bigger pay days.

It’s extremely tempting as a business owner to get distracted by the allure of “bigger whales” that seem to have the greatest return for your business. In reality, it’s mission critical to keep every customer in the pipeline happy, because 1 bad review can drive away 22% of new prospects. This means that making a single, higher paying customer happy in the short term can be a good pay day, but if it’s done at the expense of smaller customers, in the long run you’re actually suffering a major loss.

These bad experiences were exacerbated by the fact that the business rarely provided reasoning as to why a customer's project was put on the backburner, and instead the customer was left in the dark about when their life would be back-to-normal. Most of the time, customers were quite understanding if a business was honest and upfront with them about any delays, but when they were left in limbo without explanation, their frustrations were sparked, and a bad review seemed inevitable.

Clear communication and proper follow-through is the best solution for this situation.

2. Construction Dropping The Ball

Most Restoration projects aren’t finished without the help of a construction team, either inside or outside the organization.

Over the course of our analysis, we found that most of the time, restoration companies took the brunt of a negative review that was targeted towards the construction division. From the perspective of the customer, the restoration business they hired owns the outcome of the project, even if delays that occurred were the fault of the construction team.

“Their mitigation business is excellent and does great work--please note that this review does not apply to them. Their construction division caused a 2.5 month delay in the reconstruction of my home [...].”

Unfortunately, that 1-star review is still left on your business's website, and will still negatively impact your business’s standing in the eyes of potential customers.

It’s important to keep in mind that project managers should never take their foot of the gas after the restoration component of the project has been completed. Holding yourself, your team members, and any other divisions taking over the project accountable to ensure projects are completed on the timeline promised can mean the difference between a 1, and 5-Star review. If delays do occur, which they often do, it’s important to remember to always have an open and honest line of communication with the customer.

3. Overpromising on Timeline

One situation we saw repeatedly in our research was customers complaining that they were promised a timeline at the beginning of the job, only for the restoration company to come nowhere near completing the project in the timeline promised.

In some situations, businesses would promise a timeline that was overly ambitious as a means of securing the job. Customers, not knowing what an accurate timeline would look like, happily chose the company with the shortest time to completion.

As you could imagine, this ended up doing far more damage to their business than it did good. They closed another sale, but they also made every future sale more difficult as the story of them over-promising and under-delivering remains visible for every potential customer down the line thanks to a 1-star review.

In other examples, companies would suggest a reasonable timeline, only for poor project planning to derail their estimates. Customers told numerous stories of companies that ended up facing issues ordering material, renting machinery, and arriving at a job site unprepared as a result of poor planning. While less egregious than deliberately overpromising, the impact on dashed customer expectations was the same, as was the power of the 1-star review they were given.

To avoid these pitfalls, be honest upfront when establishing the deadline. Your team should also be transparent when the deadline will shift based on supply issues.

3 Tips to Overcome Project Delays in Restoration

If your business has been hit by any of these 1-star reviews in the past, it’s okay- you definitely aren’t alone. Fortunately, we came up with a few tangible takeaways you can use going forward to start giving you a 5-star presence online.

1. Communicate, communicate, and communicate again

We can’t stress enough the role good communication plays in creating a 5-Star experience for a customer. Talk to customers, and be honest about why delays are happening. Take ownership if it’s your fault, customers will appreciate the integrity.

2. Under-Promise and Over-Deliver

Don’t let a closed sale allow you to say things your team can’t commit to. Be honest about the timeline, and plan on over-delivering. After all, nobody ever left a 1-star review because their expectations were exceeded!

3. Plan until you need a new pencil

Write down everything that needs to get done, who needs to do it, and when it needs to be done by. Make sure everyone has visibility on where your project is at all times. Failing to plan, means planning to fail. As Tim Hull, Director of Operations at Violand Management says, “The most effective way to ensure that a project gets completed on time and on budget is to put in the work on the front side”.

Don’t let the reputation you’ve worked so hard establishing be tainted by unnecessary delays. With intentionality and clear, established processes in place, you have the ability to become a Five-Star Restorer.

Want more guidance on how to become a Five-Star Restorer? Listen to the Five-Star Restorer podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.