When a Handshake Becomes a Headache

A handshake can’t stop a chargeback, clean a windblown pool in one visit, or explain why you took a sick day. We dig into the real-world moments that turn friendly client relationships into friction, and show how a simple one-page service agreement replaces tension with trust. From setting owner responsibilities like maintaining water level and providing clear access, to outlining late fees, service pauses, and repair payments, we share practical language you can adopt today without turning your business into a legal minefield.

We walk through a lean wind policy that lays out the exact cleanup sequence and sets a realistic timeline of up to three weeks for full recovery after severe weather. You’ll hear how vague-but-useful phrasing preserves flexibility while still creating clarity. We also compare monthly vs weekly billing so clients understand why five-service-week months or missed visits don’t trigger endless debates. The focus is on alignment: when clients know what you do, what they do, and how exceptions work, your schedule, sanity, and cash flow improve.

We make the case for putting pool service agreements in writing, from wind policies to billing and late fees. We share practical wording, how to roll it out to existing clients, and why one page can save weeks of headaches and unpaid labor.

• reasons to use a written service agreement
• how to introduce agreements to current clients
• key owner responsibilities like water level and access
• late fee rules and when service pauses
• clear wind policy and multi-visit cleanup timeline
• monthly vs weekly billing expectations
• vacation and sick day coverage explained
• using waivers for green pools and acid wash
• spotting red-flag clients early with paperwork
• presenting as a professional, credible service

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Chapters

• 1:53 Why Written Agreements Matter
• 2:34 Overcoming Pushback From Existing Clients
• 4:01 What To Include In A One-Page Agreement
• 5:18 Water Level, Access, And Late Fees
• 7:16 Paused Service And Repair Payments
• 9:08 Vacation, Sick Days, And Weather Policies
• 10:31 Windstorms And The Three-Week Cleanup Plan
• 13:26 Billing Methods And Expectations
• 15:53 Using Agreements To Screen Clients
• 17:17 Professionalism, Waivers, And Risk Protection
• 19:04 Final Resources And Coaching Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm gonna dive into why it's always better to have things in writing with service agreements, different things that you want to address with the customers. It's best if everything is done in writing and not done with a simple handshake. And I'll go over some really good reasons why you should really think about adopting a service agreement for your customers. 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. And one of the difficulties, I'll just say this first, is that if you already have an established route, let's say you have 70 clients and you never had any kind of service agreement, you may feel reluctant to have them sign a service agreement because you feel like it might be pushy, or may turn them off to your service, or they may want to search for someone else. And there's simple ways to introduce this to the customers. You can say something like, Oh, you know, I had a problem with a customer recently. It of course wasn't you, and it it is one of these things where I decided that I need to have everyone sign the service agreement. Now, this is not a binding legal agreement in any way. You can, of course, still cancel service whenever you feel like it, and there's there's nothing, there's no monetary difference with what I'm charging now. This agreement is just showing you basically what I'm expected to be doing at the pool and kind of your responsibilities. And if you wouldn't mind signing it, I know that it's retroactive because you've been a client of mine for two years now. I just appreciate it, it would just make things clear for both of us, and it's not anything that you've done yourself. And kind of just preface it that way. And you can, of course, I'm just talking here off the top of my head of how I would preface this if I was trying to sign someone up who had not signed one prior to getting on service. Now, again, this is exactly what the service agreement is for. It's to clarify what you're gonna do at the pool, and then it clarifies what they're responsible for. Now, I do have a simple one-page one that I've been using for many, many years that that's really effective, and it's something that I would recommend that you implement, of course. And you can get a copy of mine by emailing me at David Smeanpoollearning.com, and I can send you over that service agreement template. It's really basic, and again, I keep it one page so that it's not imposing to the customer, and it has all the basic stuff in here that I'm responsible for now. The owner's responsibility, the pool owner's responsibility is to maintain proper water level. This is really critical because a lot of times the liability that we incur here in the industry is with someone adding water to the pool. You add it or the employee adds it. I just had recently a member of my group where the water to the house was off, and the employee turned the water to the house back on to add water to the pool because it was low, but the water to the house was off because they had disconnected the water heater, and that's why they had turned the water off to the house. So you can imagine the liability that's entailed there in that situation. So we should not be the ones adding water to the pool. The customer should be adding water to the pool. Again, clear access to the pool area. This has happened to me, and it probably happened to you. Maybe it's a it's a tenant-occupied property, but you just can't get anything back there because there's so much junk by the gate by the back, and there's just no way to access anything. So they have to clear that so you can get to the pool. I've had people modify this and add also that the customer needs to clean up any dog waste that's around the pool area. Probably one of the worst things that happens out there that can ruin your day, at least briefly for a few minutes, is stepping in something and then having to go over to the side by the garden hose and hosing off your boot. The worst is when you don't rec realize that and you get in your truck already, and then you're cleaning your floor mat. So that can be a problem. So that's something that some people add to it. But again, you want to try to keep it one page so that you don't want to overdo it by adding too much minutiae here. Also, it clearly states to keep vegetation away from the pool equipment. If you're like me, you've cleaned pump baskets where there's weeds growing and you're having trouble getting the pump lid on because weeds are blocking the pump lid ovaring from getting secured on there. And then there's the late fee. You know, payments are due by the 10th of the month, late fee. I put$10 here. You can of course make that higher. It's just basically to let them know that the payments due by the 10th. And then if payment is from the previous month is not received by the 15th, that's five days after the 10th, service will be paused. And that's important to note when do you stop service? So if the payment for that month is 15 days late, payment is paused. And so these are just kind of the remind them that hey, I have a pool payment, pool invoice due for pool service, I better pay this thing. And then also number six, submit payment for repair work upon completion. This is something that you can, of course, be a little bit lenient on with some of your clients if they're long-term clients and you want to build them after the fact for that. You can do that. But these are all things that you can put in your contract and you can get my copy of mine as well. And it says this agreement can be canceled anytime by rent or oral notice by either party. Ten days before the date service is to be discontinued. So it's really something that's simple and easy, and it has all the things that you're supposed to do at the stop, too. I'm not going to go over all those, but there's a lot of things I have included here, and all the extra charges. I also have my vacation day listed here, the four um weeks off during the year, and also sick and injured injury injury policy, as well as the rainy day, windy day policies in there. This is all to protect you and to also protect the client so that you are providing really competent pool service. Most people don't mind signing one of these, and if you have any other service like pest control, they always send you a service agreement before they go out there outlining everything that they're going to do, things that may be not, you know, not included in the service. All these are there to protect them as well, so that there's no misunderstanding in the service. It's interesting that if you don't have one of these service contracts, which are pretty simple again and basically, they're not legally binding, there's no lawyers involved, there's something that you draw up yourself. I mean, you could make legal binding agreements if you wanted to, but it's one of those things where customers may shy away from that. I once was doing a bid on a pool, and it was an attorney that owned the property, and he came out, his wife was really nice. He came out and he's like, Hey, I need a copy of your liability insurance, I need this and this, I need a copy of this and that. And I was like, Well, I don't think I'm gonna do this pool. And I say that to him, but I didn't follow up with the bid and let that one go. And that could be a little over-aggressive for a customer if it's a legal binding agreement, which you probably don't want to do in most cases. And you can also have agreements for I have a few of these also here. I have other ones here that I have created. I have a green pool cleanup waiver, I have an acid wash waiver. These are all created to make your service look legitimate, and I can give you a copy of those as well with the service agreement, and that's kind of what you're going for, is like a legitimate service, has kind of these agreements that people sign. Your plumber would have you sign one. Anyone that's doing any kind of work on your property again usually has you sign some kind of agreement, it's not a handshake, it goes beyond that because you want to make sure that there's clear communication to what your pool service is going to do weekly, monthly, quarterly. Here's some real-world examples of where I've run into this before when I didn't have a service agreement. So, during a windstorm here in Southern California, of course, the Santa Ana winds can wreck a pool pretty badly. And before I had these agreements, I would clean the pool, and the customer would of course call me and say, Hey, the pool is still really dirty after you were here, you need to come back and clean it. And then I would be on the phone trying to explain to them that it does take two or three weeks for this to happen, and then they come back at me and say, Well, where does that where is that stated? You know, I hired you, you told me you're gonna keep the pool clean every week, and the pool's obviously not clean this week because of the wind, and you're supposed to clean it, and so I want you to come back and clean the pool. You can see where that would cause a lot of conflict, problems for you because hey, you don't have it written anywhere that you're gonna take three weeks to clean a pool after a windstorm, and you did tell them when you bid the pool that you're gonna maintain the pool and keep it clean every week for them, they don't have to worry about anything, it's gonna be spotless, whatever you shook hands on. And then now you're holding the bag because the wind destroyed the pool. There's nothing written about it's gonna take three weeks to clean the pool, and you're kind of obligated to go back there and clean the pool at that point because you have nothing otherwise stating that you have this policy. So, here is my wind policy. It's basically just two sentences here, or not even two sentences, it's kind of like a numbered step system that I created. So, wind policy. Pools affected by wind will be cleaned in the following manner. Number one, clean out filtration system. I left that vague because what does that mean? I mean for me that means pump basket, skimmer basket. It does mean maybe cleaning the filter if I need to. I just leave it open-ended so that I'm not bound by anything. Two is skimming the top. And then three, clean up leaves on the bottom, and then four pool vacuuming. And notice how I separated three and four. Cleaning up leaves on the bottom. I've separated because sometimes you're using a vacuum system and you're not technically getting all the dirt off the bottom at that point. And pool vacuuming, again, very vague. That means I'm vacuuming the pool. Could be a vacuum system as well, but this generally means you're vacuuming the pool with a manual vacuum and you're getting the dirt out. So leaving it vague does help me, but also it does have a creates a policy that I can refer to with the customer. And of course, finally, there's a note here that says, This process could take up to three weeks. And typically here, it's really bad, is that we'll get a Santa Ana windstorm, and then two weeks later we'll get a hit by the wind again, sometimes rain. And so it's one of those things where it's gonna take some time to clean the pool up, and you really need to have disagreement in writing for the customers so that they can, of course, know that you're not gonna have that pool spotless in one week. Another thing to really emphasize and to put out there front and center is your six-day vacation policy. This is where a lot of misunderstandings can also happen. Now, there's two ways of building the customers. Some people do it differently, but I like doing just a standard monthly service rate. And as you know, there's extra days in each calendar month, and it's one of those things where those extra service days you're not charging for. So some months have five Thursday service calls, you're only billing the customer for four of them. The other billing method is to bill weekly, and that is that you're billing everyone weekly, and so if there's a five-week period during that month, the customer gets an extra bill and the service rate is higher. And if you go on vacation, you just don't bill them for that week. That works for some people. For me, it just kind of changes the monthly rate four times a year, too much for me, causes some confusion for those customers on auto draft. So I just like doing the monthly billing where I automatically get four weeks off, and you can cash those days off in as vacation time, or days you just want to take off to go to maybe a family parent meeting with at the school or something like that, or three-day weekend, whatever you want to use that for. And the customer should know about this, but if you don't have it written anywhere, they assume that you don't take the extra time off and that you're just billing them monthly, and that extra service call that you do, they don't charge them for. It's just something that your company does, and they don't understand that you actually take that time off later on and use that. It really makes no sense if you're standing there trying to explain that to the customer. In my opinion, I've tried doing this before where I'm like, yeah, you know, this this this month here, like I'll look at the calendar and I'll pull it off my phone. And if I'm standing in front of them, November's a bad month in 2025 because the extra the extra days are Saturday, and during the week there's no extra day, Saturday, Sunday. So that's like right there, you're in a bad position because you just have a calendar that's not helping you. But in December, you have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with five service days, so that helps. And you can just kind of point that out to them and again spend a lot of time there, waste time trying to explain this to them. But you can just put it in a service agreement where it says sick day vacation policy. In the event of a sick day or injury, we will do our best to make up the service day for you. If we aren't able to make up the service day, note that since you are billed monthly, there are at least four extra free service days per year that you receive. These will be made up by us as either sick days or vacation days on our end. Pretty clear, pretty concise, and there's no argument there, I don't think, with the customer at that point. Believe it or not, the service agreement also will help you kind of weed out these problem clients early. If someone is giving you trouble saying, you know, you need to do this every week or this, or if they're not willing to add water to the pool, or if they don't pay their payment on time, the service agreement will kind of be an indicator right away that this customer is someone you don't want to do long-term business with. So the service agreement is a good tool for you to weed out these customers that don't want to abide by it. It's pretty simple, it's pretty easy to abide by. And if they're unwilling to do this, then they're probably not a customer you would want on your route. But if you don't have one of these ahead of time, there's really no way to gauge their level of resistance, I guess, or defiance to your service. And in that case, you're kind of left wondering. But this is clear, and the service agreement, I should say, is clear, and it's a good way to kind of weed out those customers that just are going to be trouble. And on the other side of it, I did mention, and this is important, that this does make you look like a really professional service business. You know, if you're doing any kind of again, work with vendors, there has to be some kind of paperwork exchange between you and them pest control, plumber, contractor that outlines payment, scope of work, and you feel more comfortable with that company because professional companies do have these agreements. And if you want to look professional and look like a real pool service, you should be using these kind of agreements, service agreements, green pool waivers, acid wash waivers, anything that's going to help the customer understand what you're gonna do, what service you're gonna perform, and kind of some of the expectations and some of the things that can't be achieved during an acid wash or green pool cleanup. You know, for the green pool cleanup, you want to note existing stains that may be there that you can't see, and that you're not gonna be held responsible for these stains. A lot of times you get in trouble with the green pool cleanup after the fact your customer's like, hey, that gigantic rust stain wasn't there before, you you created it. And so having that kind of waiver that they sign indicates that they can't, of course, pull that stunt on you because you have this paper and you're gonna hold them to the fact that that was a pre-existing stain that you're exempt from, and they signed off on that. And you know, will these hold up in court? More than likely if it gets that far, but most of the time customers don't go that far to begin with, and having these agreements are there to protect you as well as the customer. Again, you can email me at David at swingingpoollearning.com and I'll email these waivers over to you. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those on my website, swingingpoollearning.com. Click on the podcast icon on the banner. That'll take you to a drop down menu of over close to 1800 podcasts there for you as well. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at poolguycoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good rest of your week. God bless.