
Congratulations! Youโre halfway through the 2022 season, which means youโre probably loaded to capacity with multiple projects you hope to wrap up before the end of this year. In fact, in what is likely your third year in a row of near-record demand and construction activity, youโve probably got more unfinished projects in construction at one time than ever before.
And that, unfortunately, is the rub.
A lot of builders are telling me that โwrapping up projectsโ is now one of their greatest challenges. Projects are typically taking two to three times longer than usual, thanks to the ongoing labor challenges, materials delays, and other permit and supply chain issues.
Of course, you warned your new clients upfront when they signed the contract that there would be unavoidable delays and challenges. But that doesnโt sway their expectant anxiety as they wait for the completion of their project. I mean, letโs be honest โ even if you could do it in half the time, that still wouldnโt be fast enough for them.
So what are these homeowners doing with all this extra time, as theyโre anxiously waiting for their project to complete? Theyโre micro-analyzing you.
Small issues, actions or decisions that might have slipped by unnoticed during a speedy, two-month build are suddenly prickly and annoying, and gnawing at their gut as they find themselves dragging into month seven of their project.
So now youโre getting more phone calls, complaints, and special requests for you and your team to follow up on, in an effort to keep these people happy.
And of course, with all of these special requests, your warranty and construction costs are going up. And your profitability, in a record-revenue year, might very well be going down. And taking your online reputation down with it. So what are we to do?
Well, we canโt speed up delivery of backordered parts or materials, so that wonโt work. And if there was a way to complete the construction process sooner, youโd already be doing it. So weโve got to find a different solution.
I suggest the next best thing to do is try to make this longer, more frustrating process less annoying for the homeowner. And that starts with communication.
When a homeowner doesnโt hear from a contractor for several weeks, and/ or doesnโt see anything happening in their backyard, thatโs when they start to get antsy. So letโs keep them distracted. Letโs not give them so much quiet time to overanalyze things.
Letโs over-communicate as much as necessary to assure them and convince them we are 100% on top of everything. Despite these excruciating delays, we really do have the situation in hand. (And we donโt need their help reminding us about every little delay.)
One way to do this is with a simple โHow are we doing?โ email that goes out automatically at the end of every week. This worked great a few years ago, when pool construction typically took only a few months. But now that homeowners are sometimes experiencing delays of four to six weeks where nothing is happening, that friendly little weekly reminder might actually be pouring salt into the wound.
A more sophisticated approach, and still at least partially automated, would be to craft a series of ongoing educational messages to drip onto the homeowner throughout the construction process. I think this would be surprisingly easy for most pool builders, because:
1. You understand the pool construction process intimately, and admit it, you could talk about it for hours.
2. By contrast, they donโt have a clue about the construction process. So anything you can share with them is new and most likely highly interesting to them, since youโre talking about whatโs going to happen in their very own backyard.
You may already have a โConstruction Guideโ or โHereโs What to Expect During Pool Constructionโ eBook that you give your homeowners when they first sign a contract. (A very smart idea, by the way, even if not everyone reads it.) Thatโs exactly the kind of educational information you could trickle out to your homeowners on a week-to-week basis, as they transition from one phase to the next.
Even if they read the eBook already, itโs now been several months, and itโs probably not fresh on their minds. They probably donโt remember the details of stages six, seven, eight etc., five months after they first read the eBook.
The information in your email would not only be more timely, but more interesting as well, because now they know exactly what youโre talking about. Youโre describing whatโs happening right there in their own backyard.
Donโt get me wrong, Iโm not suggesting you should write a custom email to every single homeowner every week, to tell them exactly whatโs happening in their own backyard. That would be nice, but it would also be a full-time job. Iโm suggesting instead that a generic explanation of what happens before, during and after each step would be immensely valuable.
For example, for everyone who just completed the gunite process, they would get a nice, easy-to-read email that tells them everything they need to know, such as:
- โWeโve just completed the gunite stage...โ
- โThe next 30 days are crucial in the life of all new guniteโฆโ
- โHereโs what you need to do to maximize the life of your new gunite poolโฆโ
- โYou probably wonโt see much of us for at least the next three weeksโฆโ
- Etc.
I would continue these messages every week, even when nothing is happening. For example, in the case of โpost-guniteโ above, I would probably follow up with further weekly emails such as:
- โWell, itโs been two weeks since we first applied your gunite...โ
- โWell, itโs been three weeks since we first applied your gunite. At this point, the shell is around 75% cured...โ
- โOkay, itโs been four weeks since we applied your gunite. That means...โ
I donโt know about you, but if I received timely, helpful emails from my pool contractor (or any long-term contractor, for that matter) every week, I would feel a lot more confident in their capabilities, sense of ownership and attention to my project.
Even if I havenโt seen anyone in a month, if theyโve still been communicating with me, I know they havenโt forgotten about me.
Brett Lloyd Abbott is the founder and CEO of Pool Builder Marketing LLC (www.PoolBuilderMarketing.com), a marketing consulting agency that works exclusively with swimming pool builders, pool service companies and high-end landscape professionals throughout the world. He is a frequent keynote speaker and leader of workshops and seminars.
This article first appeared in the July 2022 issue of AQUA Magazine โ the top resource for retailers, builders and service pros in the pool and spa industry. Subscriptions to the print magazine are free to all industry professionals. Click here to subscribe.