Let's get this out of the way: You want to grow your business.
Nobody starts a company with the goal of serving the same handful of customers for a few decades and then retiring. Deep down, you want to grow bigger, get better, and turn your operation into the premier choice for pool and hot tub work in your region.
But scaling a pool and hot tub business has its own specific challenges, and it's not unusual to hit a wall along the way. In today's fast-paced, internet-driven business world, one of the biggest growth blockers is the reliance on old-fashioned data.....or worse....not using data at all.
To make the leap into the twenty-first century, wave the old ways goodbye and invest in a centralized data system that streamlines your operations and will allow you to expand quickly, all while maintaining a high level of service for your loyal customers.
Just What Is Centralized Data Anyway?
Basically, centralized data keeps all your essential business information in one place while offering multiple access points for you and your employees to get at that information you need.....when it's needed.
That's a significant step-up from old-fashioned file folders and spreadsheets. Centralized data is the difference between closing up shop for an annual inventory count -or- having a software system that keeps track of sales in several stores in real time so you can place orders exactly when you need them.
While it may have once been fine for just the owner to handle billing, scheduling, or inventory, a growing business needs to make that information available to a team of managers and eventually, across several offices, retail stores, and warehouses.
It's definitely possible to grow your business from a small shop to a seventy-five-person outfit, but not without centralized data.
How Old Systems Keep You from Successfully Scaling a Pool and Hot Tub Business
Just how much is an outdated system holding you back? There are three problems for pool and hot tub businesses without centralized data.
1. Your Inventory Can't Keep Up
If you're still counting inventory by hand, you'll have trouble expanding your business. It's already a pain to do regular hand counts and doing hand counts across multiple stores or multiple warehouses is a huge job. You may have to close for a day or two to get it done...or pay your guys overtime to do it at night.
When you rely on intermittent counting, you open yourself up to errors. Miscounts or even just a delay in getting accurate information about your supply can hold back growth more than you think. After all, you can't take on new clients if you don't have the supplies you need to service their pools, and you can't keep customers happy if your trucks don't have the right chemicals or parts for the jobs.
Enter centralized inventory data. With cloud-based software that pulls data together from all sites, you'll always know exactly how many items you have in stock, how many you've sold, and when to order more. Real-time updates make it easy to track seasonal fluctuations in sales and adjust pricing to make sure your profit margins keep pace with wholesale costs. Whenever someone rings up a sale, you can see it on the screen.
This kind of instant feedback is critical for smart, seamless growth when you're ready to expand your pool and hot tub service business.
2. Your Store Is Stuck in the Stone Age
Centralized data isn't just a back-of-the-house issue—it also affects the customer experience. Today's pool owners are looking for the convenience of seamless payments, regular updates by email or mobile messaging—along with the promise that their data is kept safe.
But pool and hot tub businesses without a centralized system will have a hard time keeping up with these demands. If you're still using a Rolodex to call customers or rifling through paper records of their service calls, you're wasting time—and you can’t do that for two or three times the customer base without dropping the ball.
Centralized data systems can organize your customers' service records so they're available at the touch of a button. Need to know when the Smiths last had service? Want to email them a coupon to nudge them to schedule a system check or chemical test? Centralized data keeps essential information within easy reach.
Full POS systems allow you to accept all forms of payment, reconcile drawers at the end of the day, and connect your retail functions to your inventory logs automatically. Now more than ever, the ability to track orders and offer contactless payment is critical, especially if your customers are looking for curbside pickup this season.
3. You're Not Making the Most of Your Service Crew
When you're looking to scale your business, you need to make the most of everyone's time on the job, especially that of your techs. If you're still assigning routes at random, you're building in wasted time. Your guys will end up driving farther and waiting longer between jobs.
Extra service vans and crew members are expensive, so smart growth means making the most of what you have. A centralized planning system helps you grow by saving you time with smart route mapping and automating recurring services. It also provides your field techs the ability to input and save instant job site records and instantly receive up-to-the-minute job site data ..... keeping their days flowing smoothly.
Less work to do back at the office means more time serving customer work orders out in the field, and logging finished job details into the customer profile - all crucial efficiencies for scaling your business effectively. Dedicated field service software lets you streamline service crew management for faster growth.
Getting You Started
At Evosus, everything we do is designed for scaling pool and hot tub businesses. LOU software does it all, from planning efficient routes to inventory that connects up your retail sales, service vans, and warehouses ....in real time. Our cloud-based software is designed specifically for pool and hot tub businesses to grow. LOU gives you everything you need to take your business to the next level.
Evosus helps pool service companies grow by giving them the visibility they need across multiple locations and between the retail and service sides of business.
To find out how Evosus can help you gain the level of visibility needed to help you scale your business, feel free to contact us today!
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