I know it’s sometimes tough to take a step back and look at your business as a whole, especially when things are busy. But consider this your monthly reminder that small tweaks to your operations can drastically improve your business.

And as we head into busy season, now is absolutely the time to carve out an hour in your day to make these tweaks. 

To make your life easier, here are 3 operational improvements you can literally make today to benefit your business tomorrow.

🛻 TIP #1: Launch Strategic Discounts to Drive Business (30 minute)

There are a few types of discounts to consider: 

• Volume discounts encourage more frequent or larger bookings
• Seasonal discounts can even out cash flow in the slower seasons
• Referral discounts turn customers into advocates

Here are some creative discount ideas to attract quality customers and enhance your business:

• Loyalty Discounts: Reward long-term customers with increasing discounts, strengthening the client-business relationship.
• First-Time Customer Discounts: Incentivize first-time customers with a discount, creating a positive initial experience that can lead to long-term loyalty.
• Referral Program: Encourage existing customers to refer new ones by offering discounts. This turns satisfied customers into brand advocates.
• Bundle Services: Offer discounts for bundled services, increasing perceived value and customer satisfaction.
• Utilize Your "Loss Leader": Consider offering a discount on pool service to secure more profitable work.
• Slow Season Activity: Encourage preventative maintenance during slow seasons with discounts.
• Clear Out Inventory: Offer discounts on seasonal items to move inventory more quickly.

Implementing discounts effectively involves setting clear terms and conditions, ensuring customer understanding, and maintaining precise messaging. Marketing discounts through various channels and monitoring their success is crucial for optimizing their impact. This data-driven approach enables strategic planning for future discounts.

🛻 TIP #2: Review & Optimize a Route (30 minutes)

One simple and easy way to improve efficiency and save money is to optimize your routes. This is where software like Skimmer makes it extremely easy to identify inefficiencies in your routes and correct them in order to save on mileage. 

Check out the video below for an overview of exactly how to optimize a route in Skimmer, courtesy of Bryce Sirrine, Owner of Beyond Pool Cleaning. 

Here are a few quick pointers from Bryce:

• Add real start and end points. Your techs don’t start the day at a customer’s home. They start at the office, at your home etc. Make sure your routes reflect the reality of the work, otherwise you won’t have an accurate idea of mileage.
• Take a look at where your techs are working– does it make sense? Is there overlap? Also consider load balance. If you’ve got one tech making 4 stops and another making 8, there might be an opportunity to even this out.
• You don’t have to make huge changes to make this work– minor tweaks can make a big difference. If you have techs that drive more than 50 miles a day and you make tweaks that cut that back by 20 percent, that can lead to substantial savings. 
• You can also choose to optimize on time. For instance, in the summer if you want to maximize your time before the sun’s at its peak, you can do that. It just depends on what your priority is at that point in time.

Just remember to keep your customers in the loop if you’re updating your routes or reassigning technicians. In Skimmer, you can easily do this with our broadcast email feature, which lets you message specific customers on specific routes.

🛻 TIP #3: Analyze Your Customer Base with Tags (1 hour)

Tags in Skimmer are a really easy way to add customer information and segment your customer base. They let you group customers by type, including:

• Geography: City, neighborhood, subdivision, county
• Body of water: Pool, spa, water feature
• Equipment type: pump type, filter type
• Lead source: Online, referral, word of mouth

Once your customer records are tagged, you can communicate with specific groups of customers. For example, you can remind people that it's time for a certain type of filter clean, or reach out to customers who have a specific type of water feature.

Setting up tags proactively can save you a lot of time when it comes to customer communication down the line. It also lets your create a more personalized comms strategy, and can be useful when implementing the discounts we discussed above.

Check out this video for more info on managing customers in Skimmer with tags.