Pool Maintenance: Looking for a Company

Pool maintenance is the key to having a sparkling oasis that will make the neighbors jealous and keep you cool in the summer months. Unfortunately, while homeowners will spend a fortune putting one in the backyard, they will spend only a fraction of the time and money required to keep it clean and healthy. While there are many aspects of maintaining your swimming pool that you can do on your own, you may not have the time or inclination to do them. If that is true, you need a company that can do it for you. Here are the things you should look for.

Good Customer Service

Nothing is more important than making sure you hire a pool maintenance company that excels at customer service. Anyone can learn what they need to do the job. It takes a special company, however, to make sure they are giving the customers that extra service that separates a good company from a great one. Fortunately, it is usually very easy to see what type of company you're dealing with right off the bat. How long did it take them to answer their phone? Did they treat the prospect of your business like an honor or a nuisance? It boggles the mind why any company would be put out by having new customers, but it happens all the time! Don't hire a company that is annoyed by your call.

Professionalism

Nothing is stopping you from hiring the beach bum down the street to do your pool maintenance. You may even get a few good sessions out of him before he flakes out. If you want to forge a working relationship that will be worth the expense, however, you should look for signs of professionalism in the company you hire. Just because you're dealing with a leisure activity doesn't mean the company should be any less serious about the job than they would be if the subject was the stock market. Does their shop look professional? What about their uniforms? These details may mean little on their own, but they can be important windows into how the company does business.

Price

While it would be ridiculous to suggest that price won't play some role in determining which pool maintenance company you hire, you should make sure that it isn't the main role. What you want to weigh is the ratio between cost and service. While you can hire the neighbor's kid for a fraction of what you would pay to a professional team, imagine the difference in how much value you're going to get.