Back to the on-screen lesson ·
An offer's limits — capacity, lead time, area, exclusions and conditions — are worked out from the business's own hours and processes, and disclosed where the customer decides, before any money moves.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will work out how many more customers the business can take and how long an order really takes, and pick the limits an honest offer must state before a customer pays.
An offer promise has a boundary, and proof shows the promise is kept. This lesson works the boundary out properly — from the business's hours, ovens and kilns — and decides which limits a customer must see before paying, and which can stay off the page.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Constraint | A limit on what the business can deliver. |
| Capacity | How many customers or orders fit in a period. |
| Lead time | How long from order to delivery, every stage added up. |
| Service area | Where the business goes or delivers. |
| Condition | A rule an order must meet, such as a minimum size or a cancellation rule. |
| Disclose | State a limit where the customer decides, before money moves. |
An owner who does not know their limits cannot state them, so start with the arithmetic. Bright Home Cleaning has 3 cleaners working 30 hours a week: 90 hours. Its 40 regular clients each take 2 hours: 80 hours. That leaves 10 free hours — room for 5 more weekly clients at 2 hours each, and no more. The honest offer this month is not 'new clients welcome'. It is 'taking five new weekly clients this month'.
$$\text{new clients that fit} = \frac{\text{hours available} - \text{hours booked}}{\text{hours one client needs}}$$
Lead time is worked out the same way, by adding every stage an order must pass through. Maya's bowls wait for the next kiln firing, fire and cool for three days, are glazed and fired again, then shipped. Her honest lead time is the sum of all of them — often three weeks — not the two days of shipping that her shop page used to show.
Another way: table
Constraints and where they come from.
| Constraint | Worked out from | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Hours available less hours booked | Five new weekly clients this month |
| Lead time | Every stage added up | About three weeks for made-to-order bowls |
| Area | Travel time the promise can bear | Within two miles |
| Conditions | What makes an order worth doing | Orders of at least eight people |
Another way: steps
A limit revealed after payment is a trap, even when it is true. The couple who pay a florist's deposit and are then told their Saturday is full have lost the chance to book someone else. The office manager who discovers at 4 pm that the kitchen needed two days' notice has no lunch for tomorrow's meeting. In both cases the business kept its limit and broke its promise.
So the test for disclosure is simple: would knowing this change whether the customer buys, or when they can have it? If yes, it goes where they decide — on the offer, the quote or the checkout page — before any money moves. Details that change nothing for the customer, like the brand of the delivery bags, can stay out. Some disclosures are required by law: the Federal Trade Commission's mail-order rule, for instance, requires sellers to ship within the time they state, or within 30 days if they state none, and to tell customers about delays.
List the resources that run out. Hours, ovens, kilns, vans, seats.
Count what is available in the period. People times hours, or batches times capacity.
Take off what is booked. The regulars, the orders already confirmed.
Divide the rest by one new order's need. Round down: half a client does not fit.
Add up the lead time. Every stage in order, including waits for a batch or a firing.
Decide what to disclose. Each limit that changes whether or when a customer can buy goes on the offer.
Check the answer. The booked hours plus the hours the new orders would take must not exceed the hours available. The lead time must be at least as long as the longest single stage. And the free capacity must be a whole number of orders; if the division leaves a remainder, the remainder is spare time, not another customer.
Subtracting booked hours is allowed because those hours are promised: they will be used whether or not a new customer arrives. Dividing what is left by one order's need is allowed because each new order needs the same hours; if orders differ in size, divide by the size of the one being offered.
Adding the stages of a lead time is allowed because each must finish before the next can start. If two stages can run at the same time, as packing can while a kiln cools, only the longer one counts.
Capacity is not fixed. A cleaner on vacation, a new regular client, a busy December: each changes the free hours. The limit on the offer should change with it, so restate it each week or month from the current booking sheet. A line that says 'five slots left this week' and is updated every Monday is both honest and persuasive: a customer who sees two slots left books sooner.
A page that lists every possible limit hides the ones that matter. Lead with the two or three that decide most orders: the notice needed, the capacity, the area. Put the rarer conditions, such as a cancellation fee, in a short list beside the price. Test the page by imagining the most common way an order goes wrong, and checking that the limit behind it is impossible to miss.
A stated limit also decides who gets the capacity there is, and that should be done fairly. First come, first served is simple and easy to defend. Holding slots for regular customers is reasonable if the offer says so: 'two slots a week kept for existing clients'. What is not fair is quietly squeezing in a favored customer by breaking a promise to someone who booked first.
Write the rule down with the limit. A customer who sees 'five slots left this week, first come first served' knows exactly where they stand, and the staff know what to say when a regular calls on Friday afternoon.
If the limit is reached every week, the business has a good problem and a decision to make: raise the price, add capacity, or keep a waiting list. A waiting list is the cheapest evidence of all: twelve names waiting for a weekly slot is a count of demand the business is not yet serving. Add a cleaner for two days a week and work the arithmetic again: 16 more hours means 8 more two-hour clients, and the waiting list says whether they exist.
The worst response is to keep saying yes beyond the limit. Every extra booking squeezed into a full week raises the chance of breaking a promise to someone, and broken promises cost more than the extra booking earns.
Some lead times are not fixed, because they depend on the queue. A kiln fires once a week, so an order placed the day after a firing waits six days longer than one placed the day before. The honest statement covers the longest likely case: 'allow about three weeks', rather than the best case of twelve days.
Where the variation is large, state a range and what drives it: 'two to three weeks, depending on the kiln schedule'. Customers with a deadline can then ask, and customers without one are not misled. Track the actual lead time of every order for a quarter, find the longest nine in ten, and use that as the figure on the page. A promise built on the longest usual case is kept almost every time; one built on the average is broken about half the time, which is worse than not promising at all.
Stated well, a limit can even help sell. 'Five slots left this week' tells the customer the business is in demand and that waiting has a cost. 'Made to order, allow three weeks' signals care rather than a warehouse. The aim is never to invent scarcity, which would be dishonest, but to state real limits clearly enough that customers can plan around them and trust the business that told them.
A custom cake shop in Nashville took wedding and birthday orders by phone and online, and every spring it overbooked. On the worst Saturday it had promised 14 large cakes; its two decorators can finish about 10 in a weekend. Four customers got their cakes late or got a refund on the day of the party.
The owner worked the limit out. Two decorators, 16 decorating hours each on a Friday and Saturday: 32 hours. A large custom cake takes about 3 hours to decorate. With 2 hours kept for fixes, 30 ÷ 3 = 10 large cakes a weekend, and no more. Lead time added up too: ordering special flavors and colors needed five days, baking and cooling one day, decorating one or two.
The order page now shows a calendar with each weekend's remaining slots, out of 10, and the line 'Order at least seven days ahead.' Customers whose weekend is full see it before paying and can choose a Friday pickup or another bakery. The shop has not had a late cake since, and full weekends now sell out earlier, because customers can see the slots disappearing.
The Federal Trade Commission's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule requires a seller to have a reasonable basis for any shipping time it states, to ship within 30 days when it states no time, and to notify customers and offer a cancellation if it cannot meet the promise. Working out the honest lead time from every stage, as in this lesson, is exactly the reasonable basis the rule expects.
Hide limits until after payment. The customer can no longer go elsewhere; that turns a true limit into a broken promise.
The limit is whatever feels possible. It is worked out from hours booked and hours available.
Lead time is the delivery time. It is every stage from order to door, added up.
Disclose everything, to be safe. Disclose what changes the customer's decision; a page of trivia hides the limits that matter.
List the resources that run out.
$\text{the oven; buying time; the van}$
Three limits, each from the kitchen itself.
Work out the oven's limit.
$60 \text{ people at once}$
Capacity.
Work out the notice needed.
$2 \text{ days to buy fresh ingredients}$
Lead time.
Test each against the customer's order.
$\text{would it fail without knowing? yes, yes, yes}$
All three must be disclosed.
Write the opening line of the page.
$\text{up to 60 people, 2 days' notice, weekdays only}$
Stated where the customer decides, before any deposit.
Find the hours available.
$3 \times 30 = 90$
Three cleaners, thirty hours each.
Find the hours booked.
$40 \times 2 = 80$
Forty regulars at two hours.
Find the free hours.
$90 - 80 = 10$
Available less booked.
Divide by two hours a client.
$10 \div 2 = 5$
Five new weekly clients.
Check the total.
$80 + 5 \times 2 = 90$
Exactly full.
Write the offer line.
$\text{taking five new weekly clients this month}$
A limit worked out, not guessed.
List the stages.
$\text{wait, fire, glaze, refire, ship}$
Every stage from order to door.
Note the wait for the next firing.
$5 \text{ days}$
Firings are weekly.
Add firing and cooling.
$3 \text{ days}$
The kiln must cool.
Add glazing and the second firing.
$4 \text{ days}$
Another batch.
Add the shipping days.
$3 \text{ days}$
The part the old page showed.
Add them up.
$5 + 3 + 4 + 3 = 15$
Fifteen days, not three.
Write the checkout line.
$\text{made to order: allow about three weeks}$
A cushion for the busy weeks, stated before payment.
Find the free hours: 40 available, 15 two-hour jobs booked.
$40 - 15 \times 2 = 10$
Available less booked.
Find how many more two-hour jobs fit.
$10 \div 2 = 5$
Free hours over one job's need.
Write the line for the price board.
Neighborhood Kitchen's catering page is being rewritten. Mark every limit that must appear on the page, before anyone pays.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Complete the worked solution: Northside Repairs has $2$ mechanics, each with $36$ bench hours a week. It has $15$ jobs of $3$ hours already booked. New jobs also take $3$ hours. Find the hours booked, the free hours, and how many more jobs fit this week.
Find the hours already booked.
$(\text{jobs booked}) \times \text{three} =$ b
What the week has already promised.
Find the free hours.
$(\text{mechanics} \times \text{thirty-six}) - (\text{booked}) =$ f
Hours available less hours booked.
Find how many more jobs fit.
$(\text{free hours}) \div \text{three} =$ n
The limit the offer can state this week.
Say where the figure goes.
$\text{on the price board, before anyone books}$
Disclosed where the customer decides.
A customer is ordering a set of twelve bowls from Maya's online shop for a dinner party in $12$ days. Which limit must the shop page show before checkout?
Bright Home Cleaning has $3$ cleaners, each working $30$ hours a week. Its $32$ regular clients each have a $2$-hour weekly clean. How many more weekly clients of $2$ hours can it promise to take on?
The business can promise to take on v more weekly clients.
An order reaches Maya on day $0$. The next kiln firing starts in $1$ days; firing and cooling take $3$ days; glazing and the second firing take $4$ days; delivery takes $3$ days. Mark the earliest day the customer can have the order.
0 |——————————| 20
Mark the position with a cross, then write the value:
A tutoring center in Boston has $3$ tutors, each with $25$ hours a week. It has $63$ one-hour sessions booked. A new student needs $2$ hours a week. How many new students can the center promise to take this term?
Answer:
A florist can do the flowers for at most $3$ weddings on any one Saturday. What should her inquiry page say before a couple pays a deposit?
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
Northside Repairs has $40$ bench hours a week in each of two weeks. In week one, $10$ jobs of $2$ hours are already booked; in week two, $14$. New jobs are bike overhauls, $2$ hours each in week one, and wheel builds, $4$ hours each in week two. Fill in the free hours and how many new jobs fit in each week.
| Free hours | New jobs that fit | |
|---|---|---|
| Week one | ||
| Week two |
You can turn hours and stages into a stated limit and say which limits belong on the offer. Tell someone why a true limit revealed after payment is still a broken promise. Next: a small test that decides something.
20. Your turn: Northside Repairs in spring, step 3
$\text{five slots left this week}$
Disclosed before anyone books.