Does door-to-door sales work? Review the outcomes

Set the outcome before you count it

Write down what you want this review to answer. For example: did the survey bookings generated by this canvassing campaign lead to attended surveys and completed jobs, and where is the follow-up unresolved?

Keep a callback request separate from an agreed survey booking. Decide what counts as an attended survey, a quote issued and a completed job in your own process. Use the same definitions throughout the review. The door-knocking KPI guide covers the activity and conversion measures that sit before this point.

Choose one group of records you can follow. You might use all survey bookings first generated by a named canvassing campaign during a particular week. Record the inclusion dates and keep the original group intact. A cancelled booking stays in the group; a new booking from a later week belongs in its own group.

If a household already had an open enquiry from another source, keep that history visible. A later doorstep visit does not, by itself, establish that canvassing generated the opportunity. Put uncertain origins in an unresolved category rather than assigning credit to whichever team logged the latest contact.

Door-knocking KPI guide

Bring the two sides of the record together

The canvassing record tells you what the rep logged. The survey, quoting or job record tells you what happened afterwards. Ask the people responsible for those stages to reconcile the records using a consistent reference.

For each opportunity, record its original campaign reference, agreed next step and current owner. Add the latest known outcome, the date checked and the record that supports it. A rearranged appointment should remain linked to the same opportunity rather than appear as a second new lead.

Use a summary with references to your normal records. You do not need to copy household details into another report. If records cannot be matched, mark them for review. A missing update is not a confirmed rejection.

Set a review date that fits your own survey and job process. Keep unfinished work visible at that date. When comparing groups, allow the same elapsed follow-up time or clearly explain the difference; a recently booked group has had less time to reach a later stage.

A worked home-improvement example

The following figures are fictional. They illustrate record checking, not customer results, targets or a recommended review period.

A windows campaign generated 12 distinct survey bookings during one week. At the manager's chosen review date, each booking has one current survey status:

Five surveys were held and a quote was issued. Three surveys were held and no quote was issued. Two bookings were cancelled before the survey. One survey is still booked for a future date. One booking has no confirmed status update.

Those groups add up to the original 12 bookings. Eight surveys were held, two were cancelled, one remains scheduled and one needs checking. The five quotes are part of the eight attended surveys, not five extra opportunities.

The quote owner then checks those five quoted opportunities. Two led to completed jobs, one was declined and two remain open. These five outcomes belong to the same original booking group. They do not include jobs from older campaigns completed during the review week.

The team can report two completed jobs from the 12 original bookings so far. It cannot call the other ten failed jobs: some work is still open, one survey has not happened and one status is unknown. Nor do the two completed jobs establish profitability; that needs the business's own cost and margin records.

Use the review to choose the next action

Start with the unresolved record in the example. The survey owner should check what happened and update it from evidence. Then review the three attended surveys that did not produce a quote. Record the reason where it is known, rather than assuming the canvasser booked poor appointments.

If a survey found work outside the company's scope, compare that finding with the information available at the doorstep. The next action might be to clarify a qualification question. If the survey was suitable but the quote is late, the next action belongs with the quoting team. Those are different problems, and the booking count cannot distinguish them.

For every open opportunity, name the person who owns the existing agreed next step. This is a review of work already recorded, not a reason to keep contacting someone who has declined. Use the daily handover guide when context is being lost between shifts.

Finish with a short decision note. State which campaign and booking group you reviewed, what progressed, what remains unknown and who will resolve it. Set the next review date. If too much of the record is missing, fix that before using the totals to change team targets or judge the channel.

Daily handover guide