Joe Trusty, CEO of Pool Magazine, recently asked us to collaborate on an article called 10 Habits of Highly Effective Pool Companies.
To write it, we sent a survey to pool professionals around the country and asked the questions we actually wanted answers to. How do you train? How do you price? What do you measure? What would you do differently?
The answers were too good to leave in one article. So we are running the best of them as a series, one question at a time.
This one started simple: what tool or technology has had the biggest impact on how your business runs day-to-day?
We did not offer a list. We did not name a single brand. Pool Brain came up anyway, named by working pool pros in an open-ended question.
One of those answers came from Drew Coppolino, who runs sales and growth at Pools Etc in the San Francisco Bay Area. He did not name a feature. He described a before and after:
“We went from a more paper-based, reactive system to platforms like Jobber, and ultimately transitioned to Pool Brain, which has been a game changer for our service business. Having everything centralized (scheduling, customer history, job notes, invoicing, and communication) has completely changed how we operate.” – Drew Coppolino, Pools Etc
That is the kind of answer that makes you want to look closer. So we did.
Pool Brain was built around problems its founder, Adam Beech, faced inside his own pool service company: long technician training, green pools, customer disputes over completed work, and difficulty tracking chemical usage and cost.
The problem it was built around
Adam Beech, founder and CEO of Pool Brain, answered the same survey we sent everyone else. His answer to where pool companies waste the most time and money:
“Chemicals by FAR. No matter how much training you give a technician, they simply aren’t going to be doing complex equations at every pool based on the variables specific to that pool. They’re guessing at the pool size, guessing at the proper chemical to use, and guessing at the amount to use. This leads to extreme waste.” – Adam Beech, Pool Brain (Phoenix, AZ)
Notice what Adam is not saying. He is not saying technicians are careless. He is saying the task is unreasonable: we ask techs to make precision chemistry decisions in field conditions, from memory, on every stop. Pool Brain’s automated chemical dosing was built to take that decision off the tech’s plate.
Before Pool Brain, Adam built and operated Pool Agency, a pool service company that had nearly 20 trucks on the road by 2014. Pool Brain grew out of operational problems he could not solve with the software then available.
Adam first built the system to solve problems inside his own pool service company. Those internal solutions eventually became Pool Brain.
What Pool Brain actually does
Three functions do most of the work:
1. Standardized & automated chemistry on every pool. The platform calculates dosing from a specific pool’s volume, readings, and your customizable settings. Dose amounts are auto-entered into correct fields in Pool Brain via Orenda’s built-in calculator. The tech confirms they’ve entered the chemical amounts shown, and moves on. No manual calculation or data logging, no training on dose logic or equations, no waste, and no human error. The technician app works offline, so no cell signal is not a work stoppage. Adam called it the single best feature that “changed our business for the better.”
2. Workflow and customer communication. Service-day notifications go out automatically when schedules shift. Past-due invoices follow up on their own. Quotes that have not closed get a nudge. In Adam’s words, the system:
”…allows customers to be notified automatically when their service day changes… follows up automatically on past due invoices, open quotes, auto-sends invoice and billing info, list goes on. All without training or paying office staff to perform the same tasks.”
3. Visibility for the company owner. A centralized view of routes, jobs, workflows, invoices, payments, alerts, and chemical history, with real-time progress indicators and graphs. The data lives in the system instead of in a tech’s head or on last week’s paperwork, so the owner can check the state of the business without chasing anyone. Potential issues are surfaced automatically instead of having to be found manually, and the owner has an unprecedented level of control of their product.
Pool Brain reports the following results from companies using its guided workflows, automated chemical dosing, custom alerts, proof-of-service emails, and customer feedback tools:
- Technician training time reduced by 60%+
- Green pool occurrences reduced by 78%
- Customer complaint calls reduced by 84%
- Client retention increased by 212%
A decision the numbers forced
Software buyers rarely get to see how a vendor makes decisions. Adam’s answer to one of our survey questions is useful for exactly that reason. We asked for an example of something he changed course on because the numbers told him to:
“Originally, I developed the first version of Pool Brain to include a variety of hardware sensors that I thought would be necessary to truly guarantee quality service without burdening the technician in the field. After about 1 year worth of field trials, it became obvious that 90% of the benefit was in the Pool Brain software itself which exceeded all of our expectations and the hardware benefit wasn’t worth the overhead. It was painful to scrap it after 2 years of development and significant expense occurred but it proved to be the correct decision.” – Adam Beech, Pool Brain
Two years of development, scrapped, because the field data showed the software alone delivered most of the benefit. That is the same discipline the platform is meant to support in a pool business: keep the data, look at it honestly, act on what it says.
Who is a Good Fit for Pool Brain
- Service businesses with multiple trucks or growing teams.
- Companies that want to ensure quality service is provided consistently.
- Owners who want to step out of day-to-day chemistry and dispatch decisions.
- Companies with enough volume that operational waste shows up in the margin.
- Companies that struggle with technician turnover and training
Start small
We asked Adam what advice he would give a pool company owner who is hesitant to adopt new technology:
“Don’t try to eat the whole elephant in one bite. Start out with one route, then two, then add in repair department, then billing, and so on. Each step will make the next one easier and your business, personal life, and resell value will be drastically improved.” – Adam Beech, Pool Brain
That is the practical way to adopt any operational software. Convert one route. Let the team get comfortable. Add the next piece when the first one is routine. A staged rollout costs a little patience but worth setting up the strongest foundation.
The support side
One more answer worth including. When we asked Adam what else he would want pool company owners to know, his response was about his team:
“Whatever issue you’re having in your business, there is someone on the Pool Brain team who has experienced the same thing when managing or working in a pool company for many years. Our team has been in your shoes and solved the problems you’re experiencing.” – Adam Beech, Pool Brain
Most software companies hire engineers first. Pool Brain hires pool people and teaches them the software. When a pool pro contacts support, they’re talking to a team built around both pool operations and the software itself. In a niche service industry, that difference matters when choosing a software for your business.
How to know if it is time
Stuck in a technician turnover and training cycle you can’t escape? Pools growing algae and you don’t know why? Looking to reduce technician training, standardize workflows, automate chemical dosing and billing, automate customer communication, or give the office better field visibility and control?
Mostly yes: schedule a demo and see how Pool Brain would fit your current operation.
