A season that triples, on a team that doesn’t
Hire bikes going out, holiday repairs coming in, and eight weeks that decide the year. How a coastal shop stopped turning work away in August.
- Industry
- Bikes
- What they do
- Sales, hire and service
- Team
- 9 in season, 4 out of it
- Where
- Hunstanton, Norfolk
- Country
United Kingdom- On Workshop since
- 2023
“August used to be the month we stopped answering the phone. Now the diary tells the truth about what we can take, and we take more of it.”
Before
Two businesses in one unit: a hire fleet going out by the hour and a repair workshop with a two-week queue. Both ran on the same paper diary, and in July that diary became the single point of failure.
The hire fleet was the worst of it. Sixty bikes, no record of which had been serviced when, and a booking process that came down to whether someone remembered the blue hybrid was already out.
Off-season the shop runs on four people. In season it is nine, most of them new each year, and every one of them needed the diary explained to them.
What they actually use
- Capacity that matches the season
Slots follow how many mechanics are actually on that week, so summer stops being oversold in spring. Booking management
- The hire fleet as stock
Every hire bike is a tracked item with its own service history, not a line on a clipboard. Stock management
- Updates that save the phone
Holiday customers get told when the bike is ready instead of walking back to ask. Messaging
Eight weeks that make the year
Peak season out front, and what the workshop looks like behind it.
What changed, measurably
the winter workload, squeezed into eight weeks of summer.
jobs in the busiest month, booked without a paper diary.
hire bikes tracked as stock, each with its own service record.
In the shop
A hire counter at the front, a workshop through the back, and a whiteboard that used to hold the whole summer.
