Summer 2020: Managing Peak Season with COVID Restrictions

Peak season is here, and it looks nothing like last year. Demand is actually surging in many markets — pent-up moves from April and May are stacking on top of normal summer volume. Meanwhile, you're operating with fewer available crew members, new safety protocols that add time to every job, and customers who expect more communication than ever.

Here's how to manage the collision of high demand and constrained capacity.

How Much Extra Time Should You Budget Per Job?

COVID protocols add 30-60 minutes to a typical residential move. Here's where the time goes:

• Pre-job setup (10-15 min): Crew health screening, PPE distribution, sanitizing equipment, reviewing the customer's pre-move health questionnaire responses.
• On-site precautions (15-30 min cumulative): Maintaining distance where possible, sanitizing high-touch surfaces (doorknobs, railings, elevator buttons), washing hands between areas, mask breaks in hot weather.
• Post-job cleanup (10-15 min): Sanitizing the truck cab, equipment, and moving pads before the next job.

If you were scheduling three local moves per crew per day, plan for two and a half. That math matters when you're booking out two weeks and managing customer expectations on availability.

How Do You Handle Reduced Crew Availability?

Between quarantine requirements, childcare gaps (camps and schools closed), and crew members who choose not to work during the pandemic, most companies are running at 70-80% of normal crew strength. Strategies that help:

Cross-train office staff for basic tasks. Your dispatcher doesn't need to carry furniture, but they can drive a shuttle vehicle, handle pad wrapping at the destination, or manage the customer walkthrough. Every body helps.

Partner with other local movers. This is happening industry-wide right now. Companies that normally compete are sharing labor on big jobs. Set clear ground rules: your brand standards, your PPE requirements, hourly rate for borrowed crew.

Adjust job minimums. If you normally take any job over $300, raise your minimum during peak. A 1-bedroom apartment move that ties up a crew for 3 hours is less valuable than a 4-bedroom house that takes 8 hours when your capacity is constrained.

Stagger start times. Instead of dispatching all crews at 8 AM, stagger to 7 AM, 8 AM, and 9 AM. This spreads warehouse congestion, reduces the crew-members-in-one-space problem, and gives you flexibility when the first job runs long.

What Should Your Dispatch Process Look Like?

Summer 2020 dispatch is more complex than usual. For each job, your dispatch system needs to track:

• Crew health status — Who's cleared to work today? Who's in quarantine? Who called out with symptoms?
• PPE inventory — Do you have enough masks, gloves, and sanitizer for every crew today? Running out mid-day isn't an option.
• Job-specific COVID notes — Did the customer flag a high-risk household member? Is the building requiring temperature checks at entry? Any elevator restrictions on the number of people?
• Buffer time — The 30-60 minutes of COVID overhead needs to be visible in scheduling, not just assumed.

If your dispatch is still running on whiteboards and phone calls, this summer will break it. The number of variables per job has doubled, and the margin for error has shrunk.

How Do You Communicate Delays to Customers?

Delays will happen more often this summer. Crews will take longer, jobs will run over, and arrival windows will slip. How you handle communication determines whether a delay becomes a one-star review or a five-star one.

Set expectations at booking. "Due to enhanced safety protocols, our arrival windows this summer are wider than usual. We'll provide a 3-hour window and call you when the crew is 45 minutes out." Customers accept wider windows if you tell them upfront — they don't accept radio silence.

Proactive updates beat reactive apologies. If a crew is running behind, text the next customer before they call you. "Your crew is finishing up a job that ran a bit long. Revised ETA is 2:15 PM. We appreciate your patience." That one text eliminates an angry phone call.

Empower crew leads to communicate directly. Give your lead movers permission (and a script) to call customers with updates. The person closest to the delay should deliver the message.

Pricing Adjustments for Constrained Capacity

With demand up and capacity down, basic economics apply. Consider these adjustments:

Peak pricing transparency. If you're raising rates for June-August, say so clearly and explain why. "Due to increased safety costs and high demand, our summer rates are 10-15% above off-peak pricing." Customers who understand the reason are far more accepting.

Premium slots. Offer guaranteed morning start times at a premium. Customers who need an 8 AM start and can't risk delays will pay an extra $100-200 for priority scheduling.

Weekday incentives. Push price-sensitive customers to Tuesday-Thursday moves with a discount. This smooths your weekly demand curve and frees up weekends for premium-rate jobs.

Fuel and PPE surcharge. Some companies are adding a flat $50-75 COVID surcharge per job to cover PPE and additional sanitization time. Be upfront about it in the estimate. Hidden fees at delivery are a FMCSA complaint waiting to happen.

Protect Your Reviews

This summer's reviews will define your reputation for the next two years. Every customer who feels safe and well-communicated-with becomes an advocate. Every one who felt ignored or unsafe becomes a detractor. The multiplier effect is larger than usual because prospective customers are specifically searching for "COVID safe movers" and reading recent reviews.

Three things that generate five-star reviews right now:

1. Crews that show up in clean, matching uniforms with visible PPE
2. A text message when the crew is en route with the driver's name
3. A post-move follow-up asking how they felt about the safety measures

This summer is hard. The companies that get through it with their reputation intact — or enhanced — will reap the benefits for years. The tools you use to manage dispatch, customer communication, and crew scheduling make the difference between controlled chaos and actual chaos.

Elromco's dispatch and scheduling tools are built for exactly this kind of complexity. Let us help you manage peak season the right way.