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Question

How do you handle "the entitlement"?

  • September 12, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 55 views
N
General Member

We have a small pool cleaning business, owner operated with 1 tech.  We cater to large property managment companies that have luxury homes with pools.  The rental rates can range from 5K to 15K per week to rent.  Some are beach or lake front.  Most have small pools.  We recently took over this account with 10 pools.  Yea right?  wrong…  Almost every other day, we get a call from management, that “the guest are not happy”  (not happy because pool was being cleaned and it “took away their pool time”.   “ The guest wanted to know “what if” they were not there when chemicals were added?:  The guest states there is debris in the pool (we go running over there and there are nats in the pool due to environment (lake front).    Pool heat needs to be on,  its 96 degrees outside.  Guests want a refund/credit because they didn’t get to be in the pool (heater was fried) as much as they wanted to.

After about 2 weeks of this, I called the managment company and let them know we needed to start charging for every “trip” we make trying to appease the guests  We agreed to $30-$50 per trip depending on fault and issues.      

Any advice?  If we lose one, we will probably lose all  which at this point, we are ok with

twalsh
KerryS
Chlorine King

2 replies

J
MVP Contributor
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  • JandyPoolGuy
  • MVP Contributor
  • September 13, 2025

I would treat each property as if it was a unique client. Don't look at it as a big account. Mentally if you look at it as a big account you will treat them differently and that differently will be to their advantage because you will try to keep them happy. I am not saying you should not have good customer service, but it should be the same standard all your other clients get. if you try to provide something more than what you do in other places of your business you will likely fall short, or become disgruntled because it is not “you”. If you can provide that better customer service , then you should evaluate why you don't do that for other clients, because if you treated them on that level, and it was profitable, you would probable grow your business with more referrals And UNIQUE clients that won't have multiple account leverage over you. 

 

Big accounts are great starting out, and can help you get to the next stage of your business, but if it's not a good fit, then it is not worth it. better to get out now before you scale up another technician to accommodate and then lose the account once you have more business overhead, that's when you would truly be upset.

 

For this specific situation, maybe a commercial style contract would be in order, multiple stops a week, or don't do a set route and service the day prior to guest arrival (charge a premium for flex scheduling). maybe they have a budget for a up-sale on the service package that will meet guest expectations and provide you the compensation you need.

T
Rookie Member
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We have a small pool cleaning business, owner operated with 1 tech.  We cater to large property managment companies that have luxury homes with pools.  The rental rates can range from 5K to 15K per week to rent.  Some are beach or lake front.  Most have small pools.  We recently took over this account with 10 pools.  Yea right?  wrong…  Almost every other day, we get a call from management, that “the guest are not happy”  (not happy because pool was being cleaned and it “took away their pool time”.   “ The guest wanted to know “what if” they were not there when chemicals were added?:  The guest states there is debris in the pool (we go running over there and there are nats in the pool due to environment (lake front).    Pool heat needs to be on,  its 96 degrees outside.  Guests want a refund/credit because they didn’t get to be in the pool (heater was fried) as much as they wanted to.

After about 2 weeks of this, I called the managment company and let them know we needed to start charging for every “trip” we make trying to appease the guests  We agreed to $30-$50 per trip depending on fault and issues.      

Any advice?  If we lose one, we will probably lose all  which at this point, we are ok with

I’ll be honest, it sounds to me like you need to set boundaries with this company and increase the rates significantly to make this worth your time if you plan to spend a large part of your company's resources on one set of accounts.  Going back to accounts for $30-$50 isn’t high enough, nor is it worth your time.  Having them call you multiple times per week and expecting you to be at their disposal is also not worth your time.  I’d imagine if you sat down and did a cost vs profit analysis on these accounts, it would be eye-opening.    

J
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