feature To much enquiry can seem overwhelming, but it can be managed with the help of automation
Controlling the flood of enquiry with automation
W
hen you ask pool builders (in Australia, the US or just about anywhere in world) about the last pool construction season, you will likely hear words such as “crazy,” “frenetic,” and “chaotic.” A great blessing, no doubt, to have so much pent-up demand suddenly released on the industry, quickly allaying any fears that
•S erious supply chain challenges, extending everywhere from pool shells to equipment, valves, plumbing and steel, to such basics as concrete and chlorine. • And rolling on-and-off restrictions and shutdowns, further cramping your ability to respond to the overwhelming demand. And while we all anxiously look forward to getting this pandemic (and all its
“That’s more than two dozen easy-to-implement steps of automation, which is two dozen things none of your people will have to do anymore.” the pandemic would crush our businesses. But my goodness! How much of this enthusiasm can we take? To put it in perspective, we have: • Overwhelming demand from homeowners, beyond anything we’ve seen before. • W idespread labour shortages in skilled trades as well as salespeople, pool techs and office staff.
66 SPLASH! October/November 2021
variants) behind us, it would seem that the “workcation” and “staycation” attitudes that fuelled the last season into a frenzy are going to continue through this new season as well. Maybe not as bad (as in “busy/crazy”) as 2020-2021, but even if this season’s increased demand is only half of what it was last year, it’s still likely to be more than you did the
year before, and more than you can gracefully handle in 2022. So it looks like you’ve got another year of being pushed to your limits, and “drinking from a fire hose ”. Now if you had access to unlimited staff, you could just keep throwing warm bodies at the problem, and balloon your operations up to handle all the added demand. But as we all know, that extra staff is exceedingly tough to find right now. That’s why all pool builders should now be looking at automation.
Working smarter not harder
When I first got into this industry 15 years ago, I quickly figured out that “drip marketing” would be a vital part of any pool industry marketing strategy. We would need a great looking website, a tempting low risk offer, and then a series of messages that would automatically drip-drip-drip on the prospects until they were finally ready to buy. That was a good start. But something was missing. It didn’t take into account any changes in the prospect’s behaviour. That’s when we evolved to “Phase 2” of marketing automation: Use a sales/marketing client relationship management system (CRM) to manage and monitor all your leads. Now the business manager and/or sales manager could more readily keep tabs on all the prospects, clients and sales activities. And with most modern CRMs, everything is now “in the cloud,” so you can check the status and activities from anywhere. But then last year, we were blind-sided with the overwhelming burst in demand for new pools (and repairs, and renovations, and just about anything else to make the home more enjoyable).