Well its that time of year again. Seasons are changing, snowbirds are coming back, and along with them we’ve been seeing a lot more pool poles dangling out of the back of beat up trucks trying to make a quick buck. To be clear from the start we don’t have anything against legitimate new startups, heck we were one at one time!

On a recent visit with a potential client we quoted her a price of $150 per month for our elite service package and her jaw just dropped. She was visibly taken aback. “Wow, you’re really expensive!” she said. So we ask her what she’s currently paying. “Sixty dollars a month,” she said.

“Well, how do you like it?” we asked. She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say much. “So why are you looking to switch to a new service company?”

It was like a light switch went off. She started rattling off a bunch of things: “They don’t show up regularly, my pool turns green all the time, they don’t ever answer the phone, they’re only here for a couple of minutes a visit…”

“Well,” we said, “That’s the kind of service you can expect for $60 a month.”

We see this again and again in the pool service industry — people trying to pay peanuts for quality service. And they seem genuinely surprised when it doesn’t work out.

Let’s take a look at why $60/month pool service is a bad idea, not only from your point of view, but also from a licensed, bonded and insurance pool companies view.

The homeowners perspective:

Initially your going to be happy paying $60 a month. (At least, you are at first.) But at the same time, your expecting the pool guy to do pretty much everything. Being in Green Valley we have countless clients who have bad knees or other health issues and have a hard time cleaning out the baskets in between our visits, so during the windy times of the year, or monsoon storms, we drive over there and empty it for them to help eliminate equipment problems. That’s something we’re able to do because we’re priced right.

Even if we make an extra stop out of the week here and there, We’re still going to make something whereas $60/month services are just not. You pay us because you want us to take care of everything. You call with questions, you send emails, there’s all kinds of things expected of us, and if we’re priced right and not doing a million pools a day, we can give you the time you deserve.

Going back to the customer we gave the estimate to — she continued to list off a bunch of issues with her service company, all of which we could solve with our service, which is why our service requires a larger investment. You really get what you pay for in this industry, and we always explain to potential customers the pitfalls of hiring someone “on the cheap” and 99% of the time we are right. The other 1% of the time whoever the homeowner ultimately hired almost immediately raised the rate. The math simply never works out in the homeowners favor in the end.

From a licensed, bonded, and insured pool companies perspective:

To put it bluntly, $60/month is just not sustainable.

There’s 4.3 weeks per month, on average, but for this example we’ll just use four weeks as a baseline. Sixty dollars a month from a customer means we’re getting $15 a stop. That’s before anything else comes into play, like the costs of gas, vehicle maintenance, equipment, wages, workman’s comp insurance, liability insurance, commercial vehicle insurance, chemicals, taxes…the list goes on. Operating as a legitimate, legal, and insured business, we can expect to take about 75% off the top of our revenue to cover basic expenses.

So now we’re down to $3.75 per home serviced. If we’re spending 15-30 minutes at a stop — which is the time it takes to do quality work — the company is making $7.50 an hour and that doesn’t even include travel time between homes and only if there’s nothing wrong with the pools we visit. Here in Arizona, which the vast majority of pools are uncovered, making some stops require even more time.

To sustain this we would have to do a lot more pools to make any profits. Each of our techs would have to do 30 or more pools a day just to make any kind of money and stay in business. And because they’re doing so many pools, they don’t have time to dedicate to the clients that call with a question or they need to stop by because their vacuum is not working properly.

Our clients really expect to have everything taken out of their hands so all they need to do is enjoy their pool — why else are they paying for service?

Things to look for (and ask) when hiring a pool company

• Google is your friend. Research the company or individual.
• Ask if they have the most basic things like a general liability insurance and commercial vehicle insurance.
• Ask them if they are Licensed and verify the license on this web site: https://roc.az.gov/contractor-search

Other things to ask may be:

• Are they CPO certified? See this web site for more information: https://www.nspf.org/content/certified-pool-spa-operator-cpo-certification-program
• Are they certified in Pima County?
• How will they be testing the water? Strips, reagents, or spintouch? (strips are notoriously inaccurate)
• Are all chemicals included including when the pool turns cloudy or worse…green

These are just some basic things. We hope you take the time to read our web site in detail to see what makes us different and then give us a call! We never ask for money up front and we’d love to show you the TotalCare difference!