Pool Cost Estimators Turn Operating Costs into Business Opportunities
Despite the skyrocketing demand for all things pool and outdoor living, it is still important to continue marketing products and services to both new and existing customers. With so many clients re-investing in their existing pool or new pool owners entering the market, it’s imperative to explain to clients how to estimate and manage the costs of running a pool. In fact, a pool cost estimator opens the discussion about products and services that clients may want to purchase to make pool maintenance easier.
Using business software to create a pool cost estimator for your clients is an excellent way to market and sell everything from energy-efficient pool equipment, specialty chemicals, and salt-chlorine generators to pool covers, automatic pool cleaners, or monthly maintenance services. The goal is to align the time and money your clients want to spend on their pool, so they are happy with their swimming pool investment.
Creating a Pool Cost Estimator
Pool professionals agree that it is vital to discuss pool operational and maintenance costs to ensure their clients have realistic expectations about what is involved in owning a pool. Things like the size of the pool, treatable gallons of water, the size and type of pool pump, the sanitation system, whether or not the pool has a heater, and the location of the pool (covered by trees with falling leaves, dry desert, etc.) will all affect monthly costs. Best practices show that a pool cost estimator form (or series of questions) is ideal for walking clients through the various costs associated with running the pool of their dreams. All of the information about the pool should be incorporated into your business software and accessible to all retail, service, and marketing staff.
For example, an existing pool might have a large, single-speed pool pump that uses a lot of electricity and can be expensive to operate. If the pool owner is re-investing in their pool, this is an opportunity to bring up new, energy-efficient equipment like a variable-speed pool pump. Upgrading to a variable-speed pool pump or an energy-efficient pool heater can significantly lower monthly pool operating costs. In fact, several pool equipment manufacturers have cost calculators available to help pool professionals come up with actual figures to compare the savings. Often, the cost of new pool equipment can be recovered in the first year of operation.
Be sure that your pool cost estimator is programmed into your business software so that your staff is prompted to ask questions that align with the various products and services your company offers. By estimating the cost of chemicals, staff might be able to suggest products that make maintenance easier. For example, a specialty chemical like borates can be added to the pool water once a year to help keep pool water balanced, allowing the owner to spend less time and money on balancing the pool’s water chemistry. Or perhaps the pool owner isn’t interested in spending a lot of time or money on cleaning the pool surfaces. In this case, your staff might suggest a robotic pool cleaner.
Marketing Products and Services that Affect Pool Costs
To create marketing and sales campaigns that strategically target products and services that lower pool operating costs, it’s imperative to have a fully integrated business software program with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) component from which to pull targeted marketing lists. Remember, the main benefit of having a CRM database is to manage the relationship you have with your past, present, and future customers to increase your sales and grow your business. Using your CRM database, you can unlock and target information to identify new business opportunities that are relevant and timely to each customer. Having an e-commerce solution working in tandem with your CRM database will also ensure you meet the current needs of your customers while also connecting with new potential business.
It’s critical to have a CRM database that is integrated with your business software so staff doesn’t enter redundant information. Forcing staff to enter basic customer information will distract them from capturing more powerful profile information for use in future sales and marketing campaigns. Eliminating the need to re-enter basic data will also boost staff productivity—which will be particularly important this summer.
Capturing Transactional Details
Be sure your CRM database automatically captures all transactional details like the pool brand, serial number, size, and all other products purchased by the customer. This information can quickly help staff estimate pool operating costs.
Capturing Profile Details
Your CRM should also capture all the basic customer profile details such as names, addresses, phone numbers and emails. With all the basic transactional and profile details captured, staff can focus on obtaining and entering more valuable, user-defined fields and customer profile details.
Capturing User-Defined Details
Choose specific profile details you want your team to capture while they have clients in the store, on the phone, or in the field. For example, your CRM software should allow you to define fields and prompt staff to ask customers if they have a salt-chlorine generator, how old the pool or spa is, whether they have a vinyl liner, gunite, or fiberglass pool, and whether or not they have a winter cover, solar blanket, or automatic pool cover. With this information, you can quickly run reports that allow you to target specific groups of customers with service and product offers that affect monthly pool cost estimates.
Categorizing customers through user-defined fields allows pool and spa businesses to create targeted sales campaigns. A powerful CRM database will allow you to easily determine who has an older heater or a single-speed pump, or who doesn’t have a pool cover — all factors that affect the pool’s monthly operating costs. Once you know the target audience, use direct mail, regular emailing, and social media to bring these people into your store to sell to them. Your CRM database is the ideal way to generate emails, texts, and phone calls to drive customers to your online store, retail location, or construction/service department.
Offering Service Helps Control Pool Cost Estimates
Part of providing accurate pool cost estimates is the ability to keep pools consistently serviced –balanced water chemistry, clean filters, scrubbed surfaces, etc. If your company offers pool service, you can help pool owners better control pool cost estimates through regular maintenance. Especially this year, when pools are used more frequently, service professionals can keep pool water clean and clear with tools that control pool operating costs.
RB Retail software designed a unique component of its software program specifically to help service professionals manage their service contracts for additional profitability during busy times. This component saves service professionals hours of valuable time by allowing them to set up tasks just once. The program creates service orders and schedules tasks for the duration of the maintenance contract. This eliminates the need to create a service order for each weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly visit.
The RB Service program also allows you to run a report to show when contracts are expiring so you can quickly renew a contract. Save time by mass invoicing weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly — simply highlight multiple invoices to print or email hundreds of invoices simultaneously. The system even allows service professionals to determine the profitability of a job by displaying revenue earned to date, percentage completed, total completed tasks, balance due, and overdue balance.
Additionally, RB Retail and Service Solutions has a Revolving Service feature that provides service technicians with flexibility and options for managing service contracts. For example, revolving service allows users to schedule a customer’s preferred service person, their preferred day of the week, frequency, location, type, and time of service.
Service technicians can create multiple types of revolving services for each customer, such as weekly or monthly cleanings. Services can be weekly, multiple days per week, monthly, or annually. When you create your contract service plans for a customer, the software will automatically:
- Place all appointments on the schedule
- Create all necessary sales orders or accounts receivable invoices
- Create all necessary in-field service forms and checklists
- Inform technicians and managers of any schedule conflicts
This software feature also allows technicians to bypass the schedule if the calls are routine.
Keeping Pool Cost Estimates in Check
Helping your clients estimate and manage pool costs not only provides a regular stream of revenue to your business, but also ensures that your clients can budget and control their monthly pool operating costs. The best pool professionals work to align the client’s desire to balance the time and effort of maintaining their pool so that both new and existing customers are happy with their swimming pool investment for many years to come. Discussing eco-friendly equipment to lower long-term operating costs or offering a routine service and maintenance program can create long-term customer loyalty for your business.
Creating a pool cost estimator and using online cost calculators will help meet and exceed client expectations of owning a swimming pool. And remember, by maximizing the utility of your business software’s CRM program, you can create marketing campaigns for specific products and services that help ensure the pool cost estimates you discuss with your customers align perfectly with the reality of pool ownership. Helping clients understand the cost of owning a pool and the many options they have to control those costs will ensure long-term customer loyalty that will keep bringing customers to your store well beyond the craze of this season.
