Competence Counts: The Pool Pro’s Edge

Customers don’t judge by jargon; they judge by what they see and how their pool performs after you leave. We dive straight into the habits that signal true professionalism on a pool route: a 30–40 second equipment scan, disciplined filter decisions, and a firm stance on water-level responsibilities that keeps you out of liability trouble.

You’ll learn a simple checklist for catching leaks, reading filter pressure, and spotting a dirty salt cell before a homeowner does. We talk through the real cost of “I’ll clean the filter next week,” why a quick backwash rarely saves the day, and how to protect your margins by doing the hard work at the right moment. We also get practical about safety and optics—why you should avoid driveways, how to handle muriatic acid without scarring a brand-new deck, and the small presentation cues (uniforms, tidy trucks, clear logos) that build trust long before test strips touch water.

We break down the habits that prove competency on a pool route, from fast equipment assessments to firm water-level boundaries that prevent liability. We also cover pro presentation, customer communication for parties, and the smarter way to handle filters, chemicals, and parking.

• scanning equipment in 30 to 40 seconds for leaks, pressure, and salt cell status
• avoiding the filter clean delay that leads to algae and callbacks
• setting clear rules for water level to prevent overflow and property damage
• turning systems off and documenting low water with photos and messages
• parking off driveways, securing acid, and protecting decks from stains
• preparing for parties with shock, higher chlorine, and cleaner removal
• uniforms, clean vehicles, and first impressions that win trust
• using service agreements to define roles and reduce risk

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Standard For Competency
• 2:32 Quick Equipment Assessment That Prevents Callbacks
• 5:47 Don’t Skip Filter Cleans Under Pressure
• 8:23 Water Level Boundaries And Liability
• 12:24 Insurance, Parking, And Chemical Handling
• 14:54 Preparing Pools For Parties The Right Way
• 17:19 Uniforms, Vehicles, And First Impressions
• 19:17 Resources, Coaching, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

Hey, welcome to the Pool Grey Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to go over some common mistakes that you can make out there on your pool route. And I'll go over some things to avoid that can create liability as well. And a lot of this has to do with proper training and just being aware out there of everything that's going on around your service account. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. There's an expected level of competency in every field out there. Pool Service is not an exception. We want to hire competent people, and of course, your customers want to hire someone who knows what they're doing out there. And we get frustrated, I get frustrated myself when you're somewhere where somebody is not competent. Maybe at a restaurant they forget to put something on your order or forget to give you napkins or hot sauce or something like that. But at the higher levels, incompetence is really frustrating. And I would say pool service definitely is at the higher professional level. For example, I had an appraisal done one time on one of my rental properties to get a cash out, and it had a three-car garage, and the appraiser put on the report two-car garage. And of course, you know, you lose like$10,000 in value with that kind of thing, and it's really hard to get him to revise it. But what makes this worse is that on the cover of the appraisal is a picture of the front of the house that he took, and you can clearly see that it's a three-car garage house. Now, of course, that's frustrating and irritating when you see something at that level, someone being incompetent. So be aware that the customers are watching you and looking for a competent service. Now, here are some things that are very basic as far as being aware of your pool service accounts and not making a simple mistake. Like I just shared about two or three car garages. And it's being aware of the equipment, you know, the condition that everything is in when you get to the stop. So always when you get to the pool, and I try to remind everyone to do this, it's really important out there to do an assessment of the equipment. It should be something that you can do within like 30 seconds, 40 seconds. Look for anything odd going on, you know, any kind of leaks that are there. Because the worst thing that you can do is leave an account, then have the customer text you later saying, Hey, I noticed there's water leaking by the equipment. This is a big irritant for customers when they go out there and they see water by their equipment or water leaking. It's something that they feel that you should be aware of and they hire you to maintain their pool and you shouldn't have any leaks by the equipment area. Another thing to be aware of is is the salt water cell needing to be cleaned, and is the filter pressure high? And do you need to backwash that pool or clean that filter? These are all things that right away when you turn on the pool, you can see if this is what it is necessary to be done. The salt system will let you know when the salt cell is dirty, usually, with a flashing light or some other indicator. And of course, the filter pressure gauge is pretty easy for you to look at and read. Now, with that, that's like your primary thing is to make sure that anything obvious that the customer walking out there behind you can see. For instance, if you leave debris in the pump basket, that's also highly irritating to a lot of customers because they hire you to make sure that everything is operating smoothly, and you don't want any of that to be held against you by missing something very simple like that. Now there are different levels of customers, of course, some are extremely picky, others don't even go out to their pool and look at it, and you'll know which ones those are on your route. But in general, you just want to show competency by doing a scan of everything to make sure everything is operating correctly. Then, of course, there are a few things that you should avoid doing to show that you have a good level of competency, and that is if you get to a pool, and I'm I've been guilty of this, so it's I'm not picking on anyone out there, but it's you know, if it's a long day, it's hot out, and you get to one of your service accounts, and it looks like you have to clean the filter. And I've done this before where it's like, well, you know, I'm tired, it's really hot, I have two more pools to do, I just don't feel like cleaning the filter, and so you give it a quick backwashing, put a little bit of D back in there, and hope for the best. Typically what happens, and this has happened to me, you get back to the pool the following week and you have a pretty big algae bloom because you didn't take the time to clean the filter, the backwash wasn't gonna do anything, and you kind of knew that because you know D filters and you know when they need to be cleaned out. And it's something that you know you can avoid by not falling into the trap of kind of being a little lazy and kind of kicking the can down to the following week. And I've done this, and so again, if you've done this, I'm not picking on you. I'm just letting you know that it's possible to avoid the situation. The consequences of that, of course, is algae and the customer not being happy with you when you could have cleaned the filter. And I understand that cleaning the filter in the middle of your route when it's not scheduled to be cleaned, is a real pain, but it's something that you're gonna just have to bite the bullet and do, and that shows a level of care for the customer and kind of a high level of competency to the customer that you took the time to clean the filter and then the next week the pool looks great. I think there is a misconception from the customer that the pool service has to maintain the water level in the pool, and clearly you would want to make sure that the customer understands that it's not your job to fill the pool up. You shouldn't be doing that for a number of reasons. One, you don't have time to stand there and properly fill the pool up, usually when you're at your stop. And two, you create a huge and I'm talking huge liability issue if you were to turn the water on the fill line and forget to turn the pool off. One of my group members called me because his employee was at a pool and the water line was off to the house, and the pool was low on water, and so he figured, well, this turned the water line back onto the house. I'm not sure why they turned it off, and then of course he turned the fill line onto the pool and he didn't think anything of it, turned the fill line off and left without turning the water off again to the house. And so what was going on, they were remodeling the property, and the plumber had removed the water heater, and you kind of get where this is going. So if you remove the water heater and you turn the main line off to the house, obviously, if you turn that back on without a water heater attached, you could potentially flood the whole property. But you know, it's one of those things where you're overstepping your boundaries really of what your service entails, and that situation should never happen because it's really not your job to fill up the pool water. No, I have a one-page service agreement that I can send you. Just email me at David Aswimpoollearning.com. Again, David Aswimpoollearning.com. And in that service agreement, it's not a binding contract, but it just says what you do and what the customer is supposed to do as far as pool service, you know, your duties there and the customer's responsibilities. And in that agreement, the customer is responsible for filling the pool up with water. Now, in that situation, instead of turning on the water to the house, what the technician should have done is just turn the pool pump off and left it off until and message the customer saying the water is really low, the pool's not operational right now. I added a little bit extra chemicals to the pool and I left it off. Can you please fill the pool up? And then once it's filled, I'll you know the following week I'll turn the pool back on, or you can turn the pool back on, or whatever you want to message them. But turning the pool off is the better option than filling up the pool, and of course, let the customer know I like taking a picture of the water line when I'm there at the stop, and I'll snap a picture of it showing them how low the water is, and I'll send it to the customer and ask them if they can please fill the pool up. I'm leaving the pool off for today, and if you can turn the pool back on, or whatever how you want to handle that, but it's better to turn the pool off if it's not operating properly than you yourself to fill the pool. And of course, there's tricks of the trade like leaving your truck keys there on the fill line. But I've done this before myself as well, where I get to my truck, and of course I don't have my keys, and I'm like, oh yeah, I left the water on, so that's you know, it does work in some respects, but I've also had to go to my truck to get something out of it, so I get my keys, go over there, and I forget to put it back on the fill line, and that's happened to me as well. Thankfully, I remembered before I left the stop, but it's not a bulletproof way of preventing yourself from that liability of letting the water run floods the whole backyard, floods the customer's house, the neighbor's house, runs down the hill. And believe me, I've heard of those incidents before where you do so much damage that is a pretty big liability claim. And of course, that's an apt location for that plug because you should have liability insurance, and there's no reason not to have it in your pool service business. Something that you should also do is try to avoid parking your vehicle in the customer's driveway. Now you may not have a choice if there's no street parking, I understand that. But I generally, as a rule, 95% of the time, do not park in the customer's driveway. And there's a few reasons for this. One, you could leak chemicals on their driveway. I've done this before myself, where the mural of acid kind of leaked a little bit on their driveway. Thankfully, it was an older driveway, it didn't matter, but I always thought, well, what if this was a brand new driveway and they had pavers or whatever? That would have been a big problem or a big issue. Sometimes cars leak oil, your truck may leak something onto the driveway, so you definitely don't want to park on their driveway unless absolutely necessary. And if you ever call a vendor or someone to come do a service on your house, you'll notice that they rarely will park in your driveway as well because they kind of figure this rule and know that it's better not to you know damage anyone's property. And secondly, you also want to be very cognizant of the muradic acid that you're carrying back to the stock because not only can you damage your driveway by some of it leaking from your truck bed, but if you have maybe a service cart or a tote and you're bringing it back there, or a riptide cart, and you don't have the lid on securely, or there's some acid that leaked out, and it gets onto their decking as you're walking or anywhere in their backyard. It could be really expensive to fix it. It's really unsightly to have you know acid burn drops all over the back patio area decking. So it's one of those things where you definitely have to be extremely careful when you go back there. There's one of my members also that had this pool that had this beautiful deck that they put in. It was you know just fantastic looking and beautiful coping. And when you got to the stop one day, the customer had these blue booties right there by the entrance to the pool, and there was a note saying, Please wear this when you're walking around the pool. So that's like the highest level of the customer caring about their deck. You can't even walk on there without having booties on your shoes. And the funny thing is, this made this technician so paranoid that he would leave everything like way off to the side, walk back over to it, and then walk over to the pool. You never put anything down on the deck itself. It's kind of funny, but if the customer is that paranoid about you leaking anything or staining their deck, it's really important to respect that. But for any customer, you just don't want to spill chemicals anywhere around their deck area. And again, that just shows a level of competency in your business that you're not gonna spill chemicals and leave burn marks all over their pool deck. Here's one that I think is important. You want to make sure your customers have really good open communication back and forth with you because this is something that's really important when they're having a pool party. You should be prepared for a pool party, especially if there's gonna be 20 or 30 people in the pool, and the customer should let you know, hey, uh this weekend I'm having, you know, my kid's birthday party is gonna be like 20 of his Cub Scout friends in there in the pool. Is there any way you can shock the pool or prepare it? That should be a normal thing that your customers convey to you because when you get to that stop, you definitely want to put in some non-chlorine shock. You also want to maybe boost the chlorine up to at least 10 parts per million if there's a saltwater generator, put the output on 100%, and you just want to make sure that everything is set there. I personally like removing the automatic cleaners myself, and so if the party's on a Saturday and you're there on a Thursday, sometimes the customer wants you to stop by on a Friday before the party, which is okay sometimes. You can do that, but I prefer removing the cleaner myself in a lot of cases because I've had customers damage the cleaner. I've also have customers damage the player's quick disconnect, or they'll pull it out of the wall and break off the tabs. So it's better if you remove the cleaner, it's just an automatic cleaner in there before the party yourself. If the customer wants you to go there before to maybe shock the pool and clean it, you can definitely do that. There you may want to give them an extra service charge, they should have no problem paying you an extra charge to make sure the pool is ready for the party. But you definitely want to make sure they communicate to you that there's gonna be a party because what's gonna happen on the other end of that, if they have the party and the pool's not ready for it, when you get there that following week, it's usually a disaster. The pool looks terrible, and all that could have been prevented if they would have informed you, and you have to again let them know that there should be some kind of communication when their pool is gonna have heavy use and not the normal use that you expect. And this last one isn't anything that really has to do with the pool itself, but it does have to do with your business and how you present it. I think you should have a uniform of some type that you wear when you go to the pool. They're really affordable. You can go to you know four imprints and order shirts that have your logo on it. Anything that makes you look more professional is definitely a must, especially if you have employees. Make sure they're wearing your company logo shirt. Maybe everyone dresses the same. You know, I prefer to wear dockers, slacks out there, you look a lot more professional, and then of course your vehicle should be fairly clean. I mean, it doesn't have to be washed all the time every week, but it shouldn't look really bad. And I kind of have you know, there's a standard of you know which vehicles look good when you hire somebody, regardless of the field they're in. But if you call a plumber and it's just an unmarked white van that looks like it's from the 80s and it's never been it's all rusted on the bottom and nothing looks like it's been taken care of, you may not want to hire that person just based on the optics of it. If someone else pulls up in a truck that's wrapped and it's beautiful looking, you know, you probably are gonna hire that person or feel more comfortable with that person. Not saying that the person with the beater can't do good service, it's just that the first impression is really important when you pull up to a stop, and it does show a level of competency when you present yourself in a professional manner. So keep that in mind if you're trying to expand your route or if you're trying to do a lot of bidding, that the first impression that the customer gets is usually the impression that sticks. Whether it's true or not, it's just a reality of doing business. When you walk into a fast food restaurant, like a mom and pop place for the first time, the floor is dirty, looks really the tables aren't wiped down, you know, no one's wearing uniforms that are working there. Chances are you're probably gonna walk right back out the door and go somewhere else, and you know, you're not gonna have a high regard for someone operating a business like that. And the same goes with your service. You want to make sure that you're professional and the customer is gonna respect you just based on your appearance. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can of course subscribe Monday through Friday to my YouTube channel where I post one there each week, each day during the week. And also if you go to my website, swimmingpoollearning.com, on the banner is a podcast icon. Click on that, and there'll be over 1700 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in the coaching program that I offer, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good rest of your week and God bless.