Kyle Peter rapidly grew his pool service business, Nevergreen, from one customer in 2018 to 650 by 2023. Initially, managing this growth was not an issue. But by the fall of 2023, they were gaining 50 new customers a month and losing 15-20.
“Up until then, we had never really lost a customer due to poor service and were known for giving the best service in the world,” says Kyle. “This was the first year where we lost some customers, and it was scary.”
This churn wasn’t due to any technical failure on Nevergreen’s part. Kyle’s team was still providing excellent service, but cracks were showing up in communication. “Some balls were dropped that year, and the customers that got upset about it left,” he says.
Realizing that this level of churn was unsustainable, Kyle knew he had to make a change. He turned his attention to improving his systems, and pool service software proved instrumental during this process.
After implementing software, Kyle was able to create a detailed library of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for different types of jobs so his technicians maintained service consistency. He was also able to improve communication systems through automated workflows: If a technician saw an issue on the job, they could create and complete work orders, which triggered follow-up emails that customers could respond to directly.
The result? By using pool service software, Kyle slowed the churn and positioned the business for the next wave of growth.
If you’re currently struggling with customer service or looking to optimize your operations, this post is for you. You’ll learn how pool service software can help you deliver a seamless customer experience and discover how Skimmer stands out as a solution that truly adds value. But before diving in, let’s explore why delivering a great customer experience is essential for success.
Why is delivering a great customer experience crucial for pool and spa service companies?
Delivering a great customer experience is crucial for pool and spa service companies because it directly impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat business. Constantly providing a seamless customer experience that exceeds customer expectations leads to satisfied customers who are more likely to remain loyal.
Loyal customers, in turn, drive repeat business and consistent revenue, which is essential in the pool care industry, where seasonal fluctuations are commonplace. Not only are loyal customers more open to upselling opportunities like pool maintenance packages or equipment upgrades, but they’re also far more likely to recommend you to family and friends and leave positive online reviews.
These recommendations carry a high level of trust that no other form of marketing can match and can help potential customers make purchase decisions. Ultimately, delivering seamless customer experiences allows you to differentiate yourself in a crowded market where many pool care businesses may offer the same services.
How does pool service software help you create a great customer experience?
Here are six ways pool service software generally helps you deliver a great customer experience:
1. Automation for smoother service. Pool service software minimizes the need for human input by automating key tasks such as billing, scheduling, service tracking, and client communication.
This leads to fewer errors, which ensures that service appointments, maintenance schedules, and billing details are consistently accurate. This ultimately leads to a smoother customer experience for clients. It also streamlines overall client communication by informing clients with automated appointment reminders and follow-ups.
By automating these routine tasks, technicians can dedicate more time to delivering high-quality service and building strong customer relationships rather than getting bogged down by time-consuming administrative tasks.
2. Efficient service history and maintenance schedule tracking. By keeping detailed records of past services and upcoming maintenance tasks in the software, your technicians can proactively manage clients’ needs, ensuring that routine pool care is performed on time and that they arrive with everything they need to do the job properly.
They’ll be better prepared for each visit and won’t waste time rescheduling missed appointments, which can negatively impact your company.
3. Streamlined customer communication features for managing customer relationships. Good pool service software understands the value of good communication for delivering a seamless customer experience and, therefore, offers robust features for communicating efficiently.
Examples include service texts to keep customers informed about upcoming appointments, automated service emails to show service completion and broadcast emails to keep a group of customers informed at once without having to type separate emails.
4. Optimized scheduling and routing for prompt service. These features help you build efficient routes, so you’re not wasting time between jobs, technicians arrive on time, and customer appointments proceed without delays. This improves overall customer satisfaction and builds trust in your service.
5. Access to centralized data for efficient service delivery. All customer data is accessible in one place, so technicians don’t waste time sifting through emails or multiple systems to find what they’re looking for. Instead, they can act quickly.
For example, if a technician is dispatched to sort out a customer’s concern about water clarity, they can quickly access the customer’s service history in one central location to review previous treatments and maintenance schedules. This speeds up the time it takes to respond to customer issues and queries, allowing them to provide prompt and efficient service.
6. Integrated tools for water quality management and optimal pool care. Quality pool service software includes integrated tools that streamline water quality management and simplify maintenance.
These tools allow technicians to effortlessly take water quality readings and receive real-time insights into the current balance of chemicals. By allowing users to enter readings to achieve a specific LSI value, the software can generate tailored dosing recommendations, ensuring pools are properly maintained.
How does Skimmer help pool pros delight their customers?
While Skimmer covers all the general features expected of pool service software (like automation, centralized data, and optimized scheduling) when it comes to delivering a seamless customer experience, certain core features really differentiate it from the competition.
From customer communication tools that easily keep clients in the loop to route management features that ensure you arrive on time to a mobile app that assists in delivering high-quality service, here’s how to use Skimmer to provide a smooth customer experience.
1. Use tags, broadcast & service emails, and texts to keep customers informed and delight them
We’ve all experienced the frustration of booking a job with a service provider only to have them arrive late without any notice or apology, leaving us with a bad taste that can deter us from using their services again.
Good communication demonstrates that you’re professional, organized and value your customers enough to keep them informed. It also reflects your dedication to customer care as it ensures clients feel appreciated and valued in all interactions.
Skimmer understands the value of good communication for delighting customers and provides the following essential features to help you communicate efficiently to customers.
Tags to segment customers for communication
Tags are labels you can attach to customer profiles in Skimmer to categorize and segment them for targeted communication. You can tag customers by anything, including city, body of water, type of filter, or even lead source.
After searching for this tag in Skimmer, you can send a targeted bulk email to all customers with that tag (see “Broadcast emails” in the next section). In addition to improving communication, you can use tags to run reports, spot trends, and measure marketing effectiveness.
Check out the video below to learn more about the power of tags.
Broadcast emails to keep a group of customers informed about their pool care
With broadcast emails, you can send one message to an entire group without having to email each customer individually. You can easily email groups of customers based on specific criteria such as tags, service dates, days of the week for service, or even service technicians.
For example, you might tag customers with specific seasonal needs (e.g., “Summer Prep”) and send a friendly broadcast email reminding that group to schedule pre-summer maintenance or pool openings. This proactive approach shows customers you’re anticipating their needs and helping them get the most out of their pool season, which they’ll appreciate.
Or, if severe weather is expected to negatively impact service, you can notify all affected customers in one friendly message. Reaching out with timely information ensures they are kept in the loop and reduces any potential frustration they may experience.
Check out the video below to learn more about sending emails to customers in bulk.
Service report emails to “wow” customers
Also known as “digital door hangers” or proof-of-service emails, the Service Email is a customized report that’s automatically sent after each service. You can customize it to include readings, chemical dosages, technicians’ names, completed checklist items, and even before and after photos.
By including personalized information (technicians’ names, chemical dosages, etc.) in the service emails, you show your customers that you’re attentive to their pool needs. This demonstrates a professional commitment to transparency and high-quality service, which they’ll truly appreciate. As an added bonus, it also serves as proof of work done.
“Every once in a while, a customer will call and say they didn’t see a certain employee. Being able to send a report is great because you have proof of work done. I can say, ‘He was here at this time, this is what he put in your pool, and this is what your readings were.’” - Tom Walsh, Integrity Pool Service
Service texts to keep customers in the loop and show them you value their time
Send automated notifications to your customers via text to let them know their tech is on the way, that service has been completed, or that their stop has been skipped. This is great for clients who need to open gates or put pets away before your techs show up.
Example service texts include:
- On my way: Automatically notify customers when a technician is on route so they know when to expect you.
- Finished service: Inform customers when a technician has completed the job, whether routine maintenance or a completed work order.
- Skipped stop: Alert customers if a technician cannot service their location. This provides them with transparent communication and the opportunity to reschedule.
Use route management features for prompt service
Hands up if the following scenario sounds familiar:
Your technician starts the day by driving by the office to pick up their printed paper schedules. Armed with nothing more than a binder outlining the pools they need to service, they’re unaware of last-minute changes or specific details.
When a customer calls with a special request or an issue arises, your team doesn’t know until after the job, which can result in frustration for both the technician and the client. And if the schedule changes, your techs don’t find out until much later (or you end up spending hours per day on the phone managing tech in the field).
With Skimmer’s route management features, you can optimize route management to enhance service delivery and ensure customers are always satisfied.
1. Route Builder: Avoid printed paper schedules that can lead to errors and unhappy customers. Instead, use Skimmer’s Route Builder to quickly create and assign routes to technicians throughout the week.
2. Route Dashboard: Track current schedules and routes, make permanent or one-time changes, and add work orders directly to routes. Technicians can access schedules on their mobile devices via the Skimmer app, which keeps them informed and ready to meet their customers’ pool care needs without unnecessary trips to the office.
They’ll also receive real-time notifications of any last-minute changes so that they always have the latest information at their fingertips.
3. Route Assignments: Review and manage route schedules for all technicians, compare workloads, and make changes to schedules to prevent burnout. A well-rested technician is more likely to deliver better customer service.
4. Route Optimizer: Pool pros can reduce driving time between stops and minimize delays in getting to customers (for improved service reliability) by using the optimization feature in the Skimmer app. This feature allows technicians to efficiently rearrange their daily schedules for maximum productivity. By simply selecting starting and ending points, they can ensure that the order of service locations minimizes travel distance and time.
Use the technician mobile app to deliver a consistent, high level of service
Skimmer’s mobile app allows technicians to access important information and conduct specific tasks on-site, which helps deliver a smooth customer experience. Here’s how the app’s features contribute to this experience.
1. Shopping lists: Easily add products, parts, and chemicals needed for specific jobs from the mobile app, with these items automatically linking to corresponding customer work orders. Before heading out, technicians will receive an alert on the app to ensure they load the required supplies.
They can mark items as purchased and indicate whether they’re already on the truck. This streamlined process helps prevent service delays by ensuring technicians have everything they need on hand, eliminating unnecessary trips to pick up forgotten items.
2. Service checklists: With this feature, you create a list of tasks that technicians must complete at each stop to ensure technicians don’t miss anything and maintain service consistency.
These checklists can be tailored depending on the nature of the job. Once created in the back end, your technicians can access them in real-time on the app and tick off items on the checklist as they complete them. Each completed task is recorded and appears within the service history record, which can be included in the Service Email report we discussed earlier.
3. Photo upload: Technicians can document their work visually by taking photos directly within the app. They can also upload photos to customer profiles to capture essential information about the pool area, equipment, special considerations, or access points.
This feature not only provides customers with proof of service but also helps technicians maintain accurate records for easy future reference.
4. LSI & Dosing Calculator powered by Orenda: This feature equips technicians with the tools to make informed decisions about water chemistry in real time. Skimmer supports taking initial readings and observing the LSI value in real-time. Technicians can then enter target readings to produce a desired LSI value and receive dosing recommendations to achieve it.
This allows technicians to adjust water treatments based on each pool's specific needs, helping maintain optimal water balance and ensuring customers' pools are properly cared for.
Use streamlined billing to give customers the convenient digital experience they expect
The rise of technology and the widespread use of apps have led to customers expecting seamless interactions in all aspects of their lives, including shopping and banking. They have become accustomed to convenience and efficiency, which naturally extends to their interactions with businesses.
Skimmer’s billing features let you provide a frictionless digital experience that caters to this expectation. Here’s how:
1. Flexible payment options: By letting customers pay the way they want, you make it easier for them to settle their bills. Skimmer lets customers pay online via card, ACH (direct transfer), and AutoPay.
2. AutoPay for routine services: Automatically charge a customer’s card after each job to speed up billing and reduce payment delays.
3. Automatic invoice reminders: Send friendly automated email reminders to overdue customers, encouraging them to pay without having to personally deal with constant follow-ups.
4. Recurring invoices for regular services: Set invoices to go out on autopilot on the same day each month to create a dependable billing routine your customers can count on.
5. Integrated quoting, scheduling, and invoicing: Skimmer combines quoting, scheduling, and invoicing in one system to reduce billing errors and make the entire billing process more efficient for your team and customers.
Deliver a smooth customer experience with pool service software today
Delivering a smooth customer experience is crucial if you want to keep your customers loyal and drive revenue. As Kyle Peter discovered, without it, maintaining a sustainable pool business becomes challenging, and you’re likely to experience high customer churn.
But by investing in pool service software, you can optimize your operations and enhance your customer experience. Skimmer offers a comprehensive set of features to help you achieve this:
- Tags, broadcast emails, and service texts will help streamline communication, keeping your customers informed and making them feel valued.
- Route management features will assist in building, optimizing, and managing your routes to deliver prompt service without delays.
- The mobile app allows technicians to perform various tasks, such as managing water quality, uploading photos, and following service checklists, to deliver better service.
- Streamlined billing features like AutoPay and flexible payment options give customers the convenient and frictionless digital experience they expect.
Ready to optimize your pool service operations?
Book a demo to learn more about how Skimmer can help you deliver a seamless customer experience.
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