COVID expanded the pool and spa market.
Consumers were inclined
toward the safety of
backyard living, while other forms of
non-essential luxury spending were
suppressed, and the money poured in
like fresh water into a newly plastered
pool.
Covid ended, and discretionary
dollars went back to a rough
approximation of their previous
apportionment. As those dollars
flowed back into their traditional
channels, such as vacations, concerts
and dining out, so began the post-Covid contraction in the pool and spa
industry.
Not a severe contraction, but a
noticeable dropoff from ‘22 to ‘25.
Everyone’s seen it — all segments of the industry, just about everywhere.
This is a story about what one
company did about it.
PROTECTING GAINS
“So, Covid grew our business from
just under 6 million to just over 9
million.” That’s Dan Lenz talking about
All Seasons Pools & Spas in suburban
Chicago.
“That’s what, a 50% increase? We
do retail, service and construction,
but service is the biggest part of our
business. I’ll say 55 to 60% of our
overall revenue comes out of service,
and that’s where most of the growth
came from. In 2019, we did just under
6 million as a company, and in 2024,
we did about the same amount in the
service department alone.
“But that was the year that travel
exploded, things went back to normal,
and the focus on the backyard suddenly
wasn’t what it was just two years
before. So as a business, we faced a
problem: How do we protect what
we gained during Covid? Our costs
were going up, and our customers
had become more price conscious.
So, we had to make up that difference
somewhere. With most of our revenue
coming from service, we had to focus
on maximizing everything we do when
we’re in the backyard.”
REMAKING THE BUSINESS
If service was going to shoulder the load
and execute the plan Lenz had in mind,
it would have to be beefed up. That
meant finding and training more service
techs and supervisors, which means a
lot of investment on the front end.
As the department expanded
and came up to scratch, All Seasons
made some fateful decisions about its
service offerings. The guideline was,
“Capitalize on everything when we’re
in the backyard,” and they started with
chemicals.
Like most service departments, they
were supplying and charging for their
customers’ pool chemicals, and making
a good profit. They now made that
mandatory. Customers would not be
allowed to use anything but All Seasons’
private-label pool chemicals.
“We got tired of seeing our
professional-grade chemicals online
and on Amazon, so we created our own
brand and basically began to force our
maintenance customers to use nothing
but our chemicals. We thought, ‘We’re
trying to maximize everything we do
in the backyard, so why should we
allow customers to buy their chemicals somewhere else?'”
CONVERSION
Anyone who knows business is
going to raise an eyebrow at the last
paragraph. Customers tend to be
resistant to change and especially
restrictions. It took a while to get them
converted to the new system.
They started by calling everyone
on the list (but you can’t get everyone
on the phone these days), and then
followed up with texts and a mailed
cover letter explaining that the new
annual contracts, signed in January,
would contain new rules.
It took time to get everyone
onboard.
“In ‘23, we had already started
insisting our customers use our
chemicals. We had maybe 60 to 70%
success that year. We were selling
a commercial brand of chemicals,
and we said our customers can
only use our chemicals, but we had
customers that were buying that same
brand online and having it on hand
and saying it was ours, and to the
technician that’s out there, it looks like
it’s ours — I mean it’s the same bottle.
“But I would see the sales history
and understand that they never bought
the chemicals from us. And I went to
those customers and said: Look, you
haven’t bought from us in five years.
You’re playing games with us.
“So the next year, 2024, we began
private labelling, and that gave us full
control. If it’s not “Poolside” — that’s
our brand name — it’s coming from
somewhere else, and we’re not putting
it in the pool. Last year, we got over
90% of them converted to our private
label.”
EQUIPMENT, TOO
It wasn’t just chemicals. There were lots
of new stipulations in the new contract,
which required an upfront commitment
for the year. Customers would have to
put down a deposit and sign up for
the full service — opening and closing,
maintenance and chemicals, all in
one contract, instead of the piecemeal
system in place before, where each
stage was handled separately.
In the new customer contracts, All
Seasons would become the exclusive
provider for all pool and spa service.
“Before that,” says Lenz, “we had
a number of people that didn’t have
us open the pool or close it, they just
wanted the weekly maintenance. They
were using someone else to open or
close who was cheaper.”
The new system was full service
or none at all, and Lenz admits, “We
lost a handful of people that said,
‘I don’t want you to open. I can get
this guy to do it for a hundred bucks less. So we replaced them, and now all our contracts are full year. Our contract says, ‘We are your exclusive service provider.’ So if we show up in the backyard, and there’s a brand new heater there, and we didn’t put it in, you’re fired.”
Another clause stipulates the
company does not need approval to
initiate small repairs. If the repair is
under $250, the tech just does the job
and puts it on the bill.
“Now, when we’re in the backyard
and we see something, we just fix
it and move on. We’re not going to
confirm with you first — we’re just
going to do it and charge you for it,
because it’s hard to get ahold of people
right away while you’re on site. It’s a
day or two later when they say, “Oh,
yeah, I wanted that fixed. Why didn’t
you just do it? But we won’t be back
for a week,” says Melanie Brzozowski,
service office manager at All Seasons.
“We have to capitalize on everything
when we’re in the yard, that’s the
principle,” she adds. “And this saves a
lot of time.”
BOTH SIDES
The new contract is a commitment
from both sides. In it, All Seasons
spells out exactly what the company
will provide. For instance, every pool,
every week, gets a dose of algaecide
and a non-chlorine shock, no
exceptions.
“We’re looking at everything, and
taking a proactive approach to prevent
problems. We’re not going to wait until
the pool turns green, and then put
algaecide in. We’re not going to wait
for combined chlorine to build up and
then try and treat it, because by that
time, they can’t swim.
“So, we use a non-chlorine shock to
burn off the organics, and they always
have a swimmable pool. And yes, those
chemicals add to our bottom line,
but these people are paying us good
money because they don’t want to
have problems in the pool. That’s what
they really want. Do they want to risk
not being able to swim for the cost of
chemicals? No.”
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE
There are pool company managers
throughout the land reading this and
saying, “Wait, you can’t take that tone
with customers. You can’t just tell them
how it’s going to be, like it or not.”
There are some circumstances that
have made this possible.
First, in the Midwest region, there
remains an imbalance between the
supply and demand for pool service. The demand is a lot bigger. And when
All Seasons first began this journey, it
had a solid waitlist of 150 customers
eager to sign a service contract. So if
some customers balked at the new
contract — and some did — they could
be replaced immediately.
And secondly, All Seasons has a
long history as a premium pool and
spa brand. As of this writing, the
company has 512 Google reviews with a
4.8 average out of 5. Its employees are
well trained, experienced and well led.
The operational machine is regularly
lubricated and smooth-running.
These two factors have inclined the
vast majority of customers to agree to
the new contract.
“Our average tenure as a company
of 55 employees is around 17 years.
So as a customer, who do you want
putting in a heater? Do you want
someone putting in a $5,000 heater
that started three months ago? Or do
you want to pay a little bit more for
someone that’s been doing it for 10, 12,
20 years?
“Alongside these changes we made,
we started doubling the manufacturer
warranty on everything we installed.
So if that heater comes with a two-year
warranty, we give it four, and that extra
two years comes out of our pocket.
We can do this because now, we’re
controlling the chemistry and the
service, so the equipment is going to
last longer. When we install a heater,
we’re checking gas pressure, and we’re
re-checking everything regularly to
make sure the heater is operating at
its optimum, so it’s not going to burn
out in two or three years because it’s
running under low gas pressure or
some other problem.”
FIGHTING THE CONTRACTION
In a nutshell, All Seasons found itself in
a tightening pool and spa market with
two big assets: high service demand and
a great brand. They decided to use these
assets to remake the service operation
on their terms.
“We were trying to maintain our
margin in the Covid contraction, so we
looked at everything in the backyard,
starting with chemicals. That bottle of
algaecide that we’re selling for $59, you
can buy that on Amazon for $45 and of
course, people were doing that when
we started. We can’t give that chemical
purchase to Amazon or Costco. We
need that. Our maintenance customers,
we sell them close to $2000 worth of
chemicals every year, and our margins
are 50%-ish. So if they’re not buying
that from us, then I’m walking away
from a thousand dollars that we need to
continue to grow and to give people jobs
that pay a good living wage, and that’s
really the foundation of our business.
“You can’t pay people well and
give them a lifelong career if you’re
not making the money to do it. Your
technicians are your front line. They
need to represent you well. You need to
pay ‘em well so they’re able to make a
career out of service.”
Still, it was a terrifying step. All
Seasons changed its service contract,
and in effect, forced its customers to
make a decision. Were there some
sleepless nights?
“Anytime you do something that’s
somewhat drastic, the biggest thing is
the fear of failure,” Lenz admits. “It is a
little scary going into it at first. You think:
‘Am I going to piss everyone off? Will
we have no maintenance this year?’ So
yeah, there’s risk, but the reward more
than offsets that risk.”
“We did have that waitlist — 150
people deep — and those people really
wanted us to maintain their pool,” adds
Brzozowski. “They couldn’t find anybody
to do it. So we kind of had that as
leverage. We could be like, ‘Well, if you
don’t want to get on board, I have 150
other people that do.’”
“And we still have a substantial
waitlist,” Lenz says. “We’ve explained to
everyone on it what our process is so
they understand if an opening comes up
and they want it, it’ll be on our terms.
So if we do bring someone in off the
waitlist, that customer is already primed
for what to expect.”
“And honestly, the customers that
we lost, these customers were a cancer
to us. When our maintenance people
go out there and see that they’re buying
cheap junk online and that they’re
having some guy working out of his
house come out and put a new pump
in, it becomes demoralizing to us. So
you get rid of those people, and you
get rid of a lot of headaches and now,
your customer base is your customer
base. They become closer, more like an
extension of your work family.”
This article first appeared in the May 2025 issue of AQUA Magazine — the top resource for retailers, builders and service pros in the pool and spa industry. Subscriptions to the print magazine are free to all industry professionals. Click here to subscribe.
