The Pool Tech Trap: Doing More Than You’re Paid For

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm going totalk to you about something that
happens very often out there,and that is doing too much,
doing providing too much serviceto the customer.
And of course, I'll unpack thisso you kind of see the
difference between your regularservice and kind of overdoing it

(02:11):
out there.
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(02:31):
I often say this and I thinkit's worth reiterating that a
lot of times us pool pros areoverly focused on kind of
getting into the customer's mindand kind of projecting what we
feel onto them.
What I mean by this is that thepool isn't quite as important to

(02:52):
most customers as we feel theythink it is.
They have a lot of thingsthey're dealing with, they're
paying their of course theirmortgage, they have other
payments, they have otherproblems that happen.
And to be honest with you, thereare a few people, of course,
that the pool is their mainfocus, especially if it's a
brand new build and they spend$150,000 for it.

(03:14):
But in most cases, after a yearor two, the ether wears off, the
pool doesn't get used that much.
The kids kind of treat it assomething that's a nuisance in
some cases with their busyschedule.
You know, they have littleleague, they have other things
they're doing.
In the summertime, yes, it issomething that is active in a

(03:35):
lot of homes, but most of thetime, most of the year, the pool
is far from their minds.
And if it's blue and it looksclean and everything looks good,
there's no algae in there,everything seems to be running,
they kind of put it out of theirmind and don't focus too much on
it.
And that's kind of how it iswith most customers.
But from our end, we're kind ofhypersensitive when we see it as

(03:58):
like the customer is going to beback there looking at their
pool.
I better get this, you know, allthese things are going through
our head.
When in reality, out of yourpool route, 90% of the people
don't really look at their poolon a regular basis.
Some don't go out in theirbackyard for weeks on end in the
winter time.
So it's not something that youshould be hyper-focused on and

(04:19):
worried about.
With that said, you should, ofcourse, provide exceptional
service to the customer, butthere are certain things that we
kind of overdo.
It's just our nature as serviceproviders to be kind of people
pleasers, and we do things to anextent sometimes that
overextends us, and we losemoney in the process.

(04:40):
So I'm going to go over a fewthings that are very common that
I've done myself that you shouldcatch yourself doing and
probably find a way to kind ofstop that either gradually or
immediately.
Something that I've kind ofbroken the habit of is going
back without charging thecustomer.
This can become veryhabit-forming for the customer

(05:02):
where the cleaner is not workingand they call you.
Let's say your service day isTuesday, Wednesday they call you
saying, hey, the automaticcleaner is not moving, can you
come back and fix it?
Now, back in the old days, Iused to swing back around and
just take it out, see what waswrong, and fix it.
But I realized over time thatthis was creating a bad habit

(05:22):
with the customer.
So everything that happened,they thought I would come back
during the week and fix.
And it's not something that youshould be doing.
Now, of course, if you're in thearea and your route loops
around, you can pop in.
And in some situations, it isappropriate to go back and fix
something.
Let's say you left the timer,you know, in service mode, which

(05:44):
has happened to me, or youforgot to do something, and you
should go back and correct that.
That's perfectly acceptable.
But I'm talking about returnvisits that really serve no
purpose, and you're kind of atthe beck and call of the
customer at that point, andthere's no actual service day at
this point, and you're doingextra services that you're not

(06:05):
getting paid for.
And one of my group memberssolved this problem really
easily with his customers.
It's it's uh it's something thatyou can implement easily, and
that is tell the customer, sure,I can go back there on Thursday
to take care of it.
And then after you do that, youinvoice them for your service
call rate, whatever it is,$95,$120, and then you zero it out

(06:28):
saying this is a courtesy visitthat you went back and no
charge, but any future visitsfor non-emergency situations
will be a service charge of$95.
And so you zero out the invoice,but the customer clearly knows
now that going back to fixsomething that's not a major

(06:49):
emergency, you know, if thefilter's cracked and leaking, of
course, you should go there andfix that without charging them.
But if they call you foranything that's minor, they'll
know, okay, yeah, I can't dothis because I'm gonna be
charged X amount of money forthis, and I don't want to be
going, I'm I don't want to paythis.
It's a method that makes a lotof sense.
It's easier than telling acustomer, oh, I'm gonna charge

(07:11):
you next time I come out there.
If they actually physically seethe invoice as zeroed out,
they'll get the point veryclearly that you're not at their
beck and call and you're notgonna return for every little
thing.
Now, I get asked a lot, like,what happens if you get to the
customer's house and a gate islocked?
Do you come back and servicethat pool later in the day?
And my answer to you, if thepool is going to survive a week

(07:34):
without service, I don'tgenerally come back and service
the pool.
Now, the first time it happens,I'll let the customer know that
as a courtesy, I'll come backduring the week and do it.
But if it happens again, I'm notable to do that without charging
them because I'm you know reallybusy and I have to come back
down this way to do your pool.

(07:54):
Sometimes I'll wait there a fewminutes and they're able to get
someone to come unlock it, orthey'll come and unlock it.
Or if I'm nearby, I'll do a stopand come back.
But I let I'll let them knowthat if it happens again,
unfortunately, because of myschedule and um, you know, I'm
busy and there's no free timeduring the rest of the week to
really come back, that I'll haveto skip it and do it the

(08:16):
following week, and they'regonna, of course, get billed for
it.
And people don't like paying forthings they're not getting, and
so they'll be more conscientiousabout leaving the gate unlocked.
There are a few customers thatare extremely paranoid and they
like to unlock the gate duringthe service day and not give you
the combination or the key.
I don't know what it is, but youyou'll run into that out there.

(08:38):
Trust me, there'll be a few ofthese kind of hyper paranoid
people that won't let you intheir backyard unless they're
present.
So it's part of, of course, theprice they pay if they forget,
and therefore you're going tohave to train them not to forget
that, of course, or you're gonnajust skip it.
Sometimes the entrance isobstructed by something.

(09:01):
It's not a common thing thathappens, but it has happened to
me where they were doingsomething, maybe they had their
jet skis and they're blockingthe gate, you can't get in.
That's also something that youtell the customer, you know, the
first time that happens as acourtesy, you can you could
probably come back, you know,sometime during the week, but
normally you can't do thatwithout charging it for return
visit.

(09:22):
That'll stop the customers fromleaving junk and blocking the
gates on you, which does happenon occasion as well.
You're basically training thecustomer that a return visit is
going to cost money, or if youcan't access the pool, you're
gonna skip it that week and makeup whatever cleaning is
necessary the following week.
Here's one that I've been veryguilty of, and something that

(09:43):
you have to fight yourself todo, and that is spending too
much time cleaning a pool that'sbeyond the normal wear and tear,
I guess, or the normal amount ofdebris that normally falls in
there.
And this could happen in anumber of circumstances.
They may have the trees trimmedthat day or that week and the
tree trimmer left a bunch ofjunk in there, or you may have

(10:04):
had a mild windstorm and thepool got kind of toasted.
Now, you shouldn't be spendingmore than a set amount of time
at each pool, no matter what.
And I talk about this all thetime when you're dealing with
the winds, you know, 25 minutesis your maximum at each pool
because you have to drivebetween stops and get your pool
route done before the sun sets.

(10:25):
So you can't spend 30, 40, 50minutes, an hour cleaning a
pool, especially if it's beenhit by a windstorm.
So the customers need to betrained that you're not gonna
stay there and get the poolspotless for them.
Invariably, what happens anywayis that it's gonna rain that
following day or a few dayslater, or another windstorm

(10:47):
hits, and so it's really futileif we just spend all that time
there cleaning it anyway, andit's not part of your normal
service.
If you get a major windstorm,you should have a service
agreement.
I have a one-page agreement, youcan get it from me if you email
me at swimming at david atswimming poollearning.com.
That's David atswimmingpoollearning.com.

(11:07):
I'll get you that one pageagreement, and it has a wind
policy in there where it says itwill take sometimes up to three
weeks to get the pool back inshape.
And the customer needs to beeducated that you are on a
timer, you can't spend 50minutes at their pool because
you're never gonna finish yourroute and you'll be doing your
last pools with the pool lighton, or you're gonna put them on

(11:27):
the next day, which you're kindof setting yourself up for a
disaster if you have three poolsleft at the end of the day you
couldn't get to, and you'removing them from like a

(11:57):
Wednesday to a Thursday, thenyou're never gonna finish your
Thursday pools or your Fridaypools.
So set a mental limit of 25minutes if the pool has been hit
by a windstorm or if they needsome kind of special cleanup
because you can't spend thattime there.
Now, of course, during normalnormal circumstances where it's

(12:17):
just an isolated pool where theyhad the tree trimmers trim, you
can spend a little extra time,but I would not spend an hour
there or an hour and a halfgetting that pool cleaned up.
And believe me, sometimes I'vebeen to pools where the tree
trimmers left such a mess thatyes, an hour would be probably
how long it would take to cleanit up.
So I'll just clean the surfacedebris and I'll get the leaves
off the bottom.
I'll tell the customer that youknow the tree trimmers made a

(12:40):
mess.
They probably should havecovered the pool, they didn't,
and I'll be back the followingweek to vacuum up the rest of
it.
And I did the best I couldwithin 40 minutes, whatever you
want to give them extra time,that's fine.
But it should not be a habit ofextra time, especially if the
pool is one where there's a lotof leaf debris every week and
you're spending extra time thereall the time without charging.

(13:02):
You should set your ratesaccordingly so that if you do
have a pool with heavy debris,it's not gonna be$180 like the
other pools on your route.
It'll be more like$250 becauseof the extra time you're
spending there, or whatever yourrate is, add a little more to it
for those pools that takelonger, and you know which pools
those are, and so you kind ofhave to figure out you know how

(13:23):
you want to set your rates.
They're gonna vary pool to poolin some cases, and that's one
area where it should vary.
Another area is when we shock apool or add extra chemicals
without passing the charge on tothe customer.
Now, sometimes you feelobligated to do this, and it's

(13:45):
okay if there's a new customerand you know, maybe they've left
the pump off all week, you know,they were using their pool, they
forgot to turn the VS pump backon, or they left the pool in spa
mode and the pool has some algaein it, and you add three gallons
of liquid chlorine.
Now, new customer, I would letthem know that you know I
shocked the pool, took care ofthe algae, but if there's any

(14:07):
kind of if this happens in thefuture where you have to treat
the pool for something that isof course not your fault, then
you're gonna charge them.
You'll have to charge them forthe cost of the cleanup, the
cost of the chemicals and thealgae side.
And this is something that youhave to let them know ahead of
time.
This also kind of comes intoplay with those really heavy use

(14:27):
pools out there where the kidsare in there and their friends
are in there all summer and thepool's being killed week in and
week out.
The maintenance dose of chlorineis not going to keep this pool
in shape.
And so, what I usually do is buya bucket of calhypo, you know, a
50-pound bucket, leave it at thepool, or you can buy bags of
calhypo, however you want to doit, or you can stack, you know,

(14:49):
two cases of liquid chlorinethere, whatever you want to do.
But the point is the customer ispaying for those chemicals and
you're not taking it out of yourpocket because that's an unusual
situation where the kids arekilling the pool each week, and
also when there's algae orsomething wrong with the pool,
and it's not your fault, thatalso falls in that category of

(15:09):
it's on the customer at thatpoint, and they should pay for
that.
So don't add anything to thepool besides maybe a courtesy
one-time thing, and alwayscharge extra for those pools or
leave chemicals and charge thecustomer.
I should say, that's kind ofwhat I do.
It's easier to sell that to themthan to raise their rate in a
lot of cases.

(15:30):
You know, if you're doing thepool for 200 and you're like,
hey, since you guys are killingthe pool, I'm gonna charge you
230.
But it's better just to keep therate the same, but charge them
for the chemicals and leave themthere.
Basically, anything extra youadd to the pool,
phosphorylmovers, enzymes, poolRX, anything like borates,
whatever you're adding to thepool.
There's not a maintenance dose,you know, of acid and chlorine.

(15:54):
You're going to charge thecustomer for the three-inch
trichlor tablets.
I always charge the customerretail price or a little bit
below retail price if they don'twant to get it themselves for a
bucket of tablets and leave itat the stop by the equipment
area with a lid securely on, ofcourse.
And it's perfectly fine to passon those chemical charges to the

(16:14):
customers.
In my opinion, that's kind ofthe way it has to be because
you're going to lose money onthose pools that you know have
problems that aren't caused byyou or have heavy usage.
These last two are kind of areadependent, and I think you
should be charging for filtercleaning.
If you have the larger D filtersor the quad cartridge filters,

(16:36):
there should be an extra chargefor cleaning the filters twice a
year or every four months,however, you want to set up your
model.
But typically, here the chargefor filter cleaning is anywhere
from$85 to$120 to clean thefilter, take it apart, clean it,
put it back together.
And some areas of Florida youmay want to include it because

(16:56):
you have the single cartridgefilter that you're cleaning
every month or so, and it's hardto bill if you're you know kind
of cleaning it all the time.
But for the larger filters ofthe areas of the larger filters,
I definitely would suggestimplementing a filter cleaning
charge.
It's kind of customary here inSouthern California, so it's to
be expected the customers aren'tgoing to be shocked by it
because most companies do chargeextra for filter cleanings.

(17:19):
Now, the salt cell cleaning alsokind of falls into that
category.
Some areas, if the water isreally soft and there's not a
lot of calcium, you're notreally taking the salt cells
apart a lot, maybe every sixmonths here in my area, but
every four months we're cleaningthe salt cells.
A lot of companies haveimplemented a charge for that.

(17:40):
They'll charge the customer forthe cleaning anywhere from$25 to
$45 because it does take time.
You have to take the cell off,you have to soak it in the water
acid mixture, put it backtogether.
Sometimes putting the cell on isa headache, and it's one of
those things that does take sometime.
Now, what I do a lot is I'llclean the filter and clean the

(18:02):
salt cell at the same time.
And I generally don't charge forthe salt cell cleaning when I
clean the filter in the saltcell with you know in
conjunction with each other, butyou can charge for the salt cell
cleaning because it will takeyou some time.
And you know, a lot of pool guysdon't charge because we're there
cleaning the pool while it'ssoaking in the acid water mix,
it's not a big deal to us to dothat.

(18:23):
Others charge because they feellike it's a service that has
value to it, and it's somethingthat is really up to you to do.
If you feel like it's not reallytaking up too much of your time
to do, and you want to make itpart of the service for the salt
pools, you can you're welcome todo that.
And if you want to charge forit, you're also welcome to do
that because it is an extraservice that you're providing

(18:45):
for the customer that has a saltwater generator.
Cleaning the salt cells issomething that you're going to
do for them, and it's somethingthat you may want to charge for,
and it's something I think thatis somewhat area dependent.
I think in my area it's about50-50 that are charging for salt
cell cleanings and those thatdon't, so you can implement that

(19:07):
as well.
Whatever you feel like you needto charge for, it's your
business, and you should chargefor whatever you feel that is
necessary.
And I wouldn't, you know, sayone way is better than another,
but there are certain thingsthat I think really hurt your
bottom line, and that is ofcourse putting extra chemicals
in the pool, not charging forthe filter cleaning, the time

(19:29):
you spend doing that, and in alot of cases not charging for
the salt cell cleaning, whichdoes consume your time out
there, especially if you haveemployees doing it, they would
want to be compensated for thelittle extra work they're doing
to clean that salt cell, and itkind of motivates them to
actually do that, you know, thecheck to cell, take it apart and
clean it.
So these are all things thatI've seen happen out there, and

(19:52):
I think you can overdo it withthe customers in a lot of cases
pretty easily if you're notcareful and watchful of your own
time, and of course, your profitmargin when you're when you're
allowing them to have freechemicals.
That's not a good thing overallfor business.
It's like it's not like therestaurants that charge for like
ranch sauce or extra sauces.

(20:13):
There's a food cost there.
It's really different.
You're charging for your timeand you're charging for your
services that you're providingfor the customer.
If you're looking for thepodcast, you can find those by
going to my website,swingingpoolearning.com.
On the banner, there's a podcasticon.
Click on that, there'll be adrop-down menu, over 1800
podcasts for you there.

(20:34):
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atPoolGuyCoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have a rest of your week and Godbless.

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