This is a suggested planning method for managers of UK solar and home-improvement canvassing teams. Use it alongside your campaign rules and the instructions householders have given your team.
Key takeaways
- Use the same boundary when comparing the record with the plan.
- Hold uncertain addresses out of the next allocation until you can explain their status.
- Keep agreed callbacks tied to the household's requested next step and time.
- One small test does not establish a best time for every patch.
In this article
What useful work remains here?
Before sending a rep back into a canvassing patch, decide what the next shift is for: finishing unworked addresses, making agreed callbacks or testing a specific reason for another visit. Check the records behind that choice, give the work a named owner and decide what you will review afterwards.
Start with the decision you need to make
Write down the patch boundary, the shifts you are reviewing and the time available for the next shift. Use the same boundary when comparing the record with the plan.
Then ask one question: what useful work remains here?
Your answer might be to finish part of a street, honour an agreed callback or check whether a different visit window changes the response from previously unanswered doors. Each needs a different list. A general instruction to "go over the patch again" leaves the rep to decide which one you meant.
Keep unresolved records out of the allocation
A blank result does not establish that a door is unworked. Ask whether the rep missed it, could not access it or has not recorded the visit yet. Hold uncertain addresses out of the next allocation until you can explain their status.
Check for repeat attempts at the same address too. Use unique addresses to understand coverage; use the individual visits to understand what happened. The door-knocking KPI guide explains the counting rules if you need to check your figures.
You do not need a perfect historic record to make a bounded decision. You do need enough confidence in the specific addresses you are about to assign. If one street's records are unclear, resolve that street rather than treating the whole patch as fresh territory.
Choose between finishing, revisiting and moving on
Finish the remaining coverage when you can identify genuinely unworked addresses that fit the campaign. Give the rep that list, including any access restrictions already known to the team.
Keep agreed callbacks tied to the household's requested next step and time. A callback belongs with the person responsible for it, even when someone else works nearby doors.
Consider another pass at unanswered doors only when you can state what you want to learn. For example, you might compare a different visit window with the previous one. Record that as a test for your campaign, not a proven best time to knock. Check any contact restrictions before including an address. Keep refusals and requests for no further contact out of a general revisit list.
Move the rep to a fresh patch when there is no suitable work available in the current one for that shift. Before doing so, confirm the new boundary and check who else has been assigned there. Leave existing follow-ups with their named owners.
A worked patch decision
Imagine a fictional solar canvassing team reviewing a patch of 120 addresses after two shifts. These numbers illustrate a planning decision; they are not a target or customer result.
The manager confirms that 70 different addresses have a recorded visit. The remaining 50 are confirmed unworked. For this example, each visited address has one current outcome:
34 had no answer. 20 declined further discussion. 8 have an agreed callback. 8 need no further action for this campaign.
The manager has two reps available for the next shift. Three of the eight callbacks have agreed times during that shift; the other five are due later.
The plan is to give one rep the three due callbacks, allowing for travel and the conversations themselves. If that rep has time left, the manager assigns a clearly identified part of the unworked list. The second rep receives a different part of that list. They agree the split before leaving.
The 34 unanswered doors stay outside this shift's allocation. The manager has chosen to finish unworked coverage first and can consider a separate revisit test later. The 20 refusals and eight addresses needing no further action are also excluded.
The 50 unworked addresses are a pool to allocate from, not a promise that two reps will finish them in one shift. Size each allocation using the available time, travel and the team's experience of comparable work. Record any remainder for the next review.
What would change that decision?
If there were no unworked addresses left, the manager would need a reason to test another pass or move to a fresh patch. If the three callbacks required most of the available time, the remaining coverage would need a smaller allocation. If some supposedly unworked records were uncertain, those addresses would wait for clarification.
This is the point of the review: make the next assignment depend on the work you can justify, rather than on a patch total alone.
Write a short decision note
Before the team leaves, record the chosen work, the address list, the owner and the review point. Keep any revisit test separate from agreed callbacks so you can judge what happened to each.
After the shift, compare the planned list with the recorded visits. Check which callbacks happened, what remains unworked and whether any records need clarification. If you ran a revisit test, review its results before widening it. One small test does not establish a best time for every patch.
Use the paper knocksheet handover guide when the information itself is difficult to carry between reps. This review sits one step later: deciding what work to allocate from a usable record.