Almost three years ago I wrote about “The
New Normal” for commercial pool professionals – the pressure of too much
business, too few employees, and customers who expect too much, too
quickly and for too little compensation.
What’s happened since
then? Certainly all three of these conditions still exist today, but now
we’re contending with even more challenges as we enter the busy summer
season. Consider these issues:
-Commercial
pool owners and managers are beholden to social media reviews, whether
they are posted on sites such as Trip Advisor or Yelp, or on
property-specific pages – most large HOA’s and condos have a Facebook
page for their community center or pool. Here’s a typical scenario: Your
service professional left the property at 7:30 a.m. and it was perfect –
chemistry is right on, filter cleaned, tile scrubbed and the pool
surface vacuumed and brushed. By 9:30 a.m., guests have tracked sand
onto the steps, the “waterproof” sunscreen is all over the tile, and
someone’s grandchild is complaining about stinging eyes. So it’s
terrible, and it’s all your fault, and someone has already posted a
terrible review of the pool, its management, and your service on social
media. Is your customer service team prepared? Consider having your pool
techs take a photo of the pool before they leave the property and
having a conversation with each commercial customer about their
expectations and your responsibility to head off problems. It also helps
to have a few happy clients and friends at the ready to post positive
comments about your company to quickly move the unfair negative reviews
off of the first page!
-More
and more, maintenance staff employed by the property are making repairs
to piping, pumps and other systems WHICH THEY ARE NOT LICENSED TO
PERFORM! Recently a maintenance person at a Daytona Beach hotel
installed an incorrectly-sized pump motor he bought online (he told his
manager the larger motor would clean the pool better!) and when the
motor overheated he blamed us for not cleaning the filter often enough –
never mind that it’s a seven-days-per week service account and we have
photos of each filter clean! It didn’t take very long for our customer
service team to show the hotel manager what went wrong and why the few
dollars their maintenance man tried to save ended up costing them
hundreds, not to mention closing the pool again (see item 1 above). They
will be calling us in the future for repairs.
Education
is the key. Help your customers understand how they save money in the
long run by using only trained, licensed, FSPA member professionals to
maintain and repair their pools. And get involved in their social media
programs – that’s the new normal.