Diagnosing Over the Phone Often your only contact with a customer is over the phone, make it count. by Robert Stuart Let’s talk a bit about taking a service call over the phone…here’s where you begin to build confidence with the customer and make life easier for everyone. Let’s face it, getting paid a full service fee to run out and reset a GFCI sounds easy ...

Servicing Swim Spas These big units require some extra planning and some extra supplies. By Robert Stuart Swim spas are rapidly becoming commonplace in our industry and as techs we will see more of them than ever. Servicing these big beasts is similar to servicing any other spa, but there are a few tricks to make your first visit a bit more productive. In the past, swim spas were ...

Outselling the Internet Selling the experience – Make your store the only place your customers will want to buy. By Robert Stuart It’s hard enough to survive in an economy where budgets are tight and everyone is holding onto their discretionary income, but then we have to add to that the hoard of online discount sites and big box stores selling our products for less. Once ...

New Season, New Attitude, New Customers Step outside of what you would normally do to find new revenue streams. By Robert Stuart The world has gone crazy. Wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, financial ruin and loss have been our headlines for the last couple of years. In the midst of this we are trying to push a luxury product when people just aren’t letting go of discretional ...

VGB Act – You Should Care You may not realize that this legislation does impact hot tub technicians. by Robert Stuart As a retail spa store or service center dealing with mostly above-ground portable spas we often are lumped in with public swimming pools and built-in spas simply because the regulatory officials who want to make public water safe have no clue as to the differences. ...

Keep Your Cash on Hand Learning how to master parts stocking and inventory will help keep your business afloat. by Robert Stuart In the last issue we covered several aspects of building a strong service department, including a brief overview of what parts to stock and how to manage the parts department. Parts always seem to be a bit of a struggle; you never know exactly what ...

The Parts Room How to create an organized and efficient system for parts storage. One thing we are always harping on in this column is organization within the service department. And if you haven’t noticed, it has been mentioned a lot in this issue alone. One of the hardest things to organize and keep track of in a service department is parts. It gets even more complicated if ...

KNOWING SOME BASIC ERROR CODES CAN SAVE YOU LOTS OF TIME WHEN YOU’RE OUT SERVICING A SPA. BY ROBERT STUART IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON, you’ve just kicked back with a cold drink to watch a game and relax after a stressful week when your cell phone rings. It’s the salesman from the store saying that he has an upset customer from a new delivery with a weird message on the topside ...

A USER-FRIENDLY SERVICE VAN WILL SAVE YOU TIME, MONEY AND PREVENT UNSATISFIED CUSTOMERS. BY ROBERT STUART WE’VE TALKED ABOUT the tools of our trade, now let’s examine the contents of our service vehicle. As a professional spa tech your van is your office, workshop and parts room in addition to your transportation. What’s in your service vehicle can save you time and a call back. ...

As a technician, I’ve spent much of my life troubleshooting - after all, troubleshooting is the basis of what we do. The ability to troubleshoot is an art. There’s a level of awareness learned through experience that allows the troubleshooter to be able to trace a negative output back to a negative input. And most importantly, fix the problem. Beginning with our winter issue, we’ll ...

The average tech would rather change every electrical component in the spa with a butter knife and pliers than hunt down and fix a plumbing leak. Spas hold water and therefore can leak. Ergo, as a tech you will (more often than not) hunt down leaks. Murphy’s Law dictates that these leaks will be in a spa 80 miles from the shop, sunk into a deck, against a house wall and with a hornet’s ...

In this last installment about common causes and solutions for leaks, we’re finally going to cover prevention. While the responsibility ultimately falls to the consumer, as a professional technician your job is to be sure that they understand the specific things they need to do to prevent leaks. The three most common causes of spa leaks consumers can help prevent are: • ...

If you’ve been in the industry for any amount of time you’ve encountered a cracked or blistered shell. I often refer to industry technicians as the spa Ph.D.s, this being the case I would have to refer to acrylic repair specialists as hot tub oncologists. Learning the ins and outs of shell repair can set you apart from common techs and make you a sought-after specialist. Those ...

Let’s face it, this economy isn’t a cakewalk for any retail store, but it’s especially tough on specialty retailers like us. Because of that, we need to create other streams of revenue to stay afloat until the tide turns. Most of us have that potential lurking right in our existing operation. Recently, I took my puppy in to get spayed; the vet worked with the pound and the cost ...