California Pools & Landscape has a funny way of advertising.
When the company was faced with a massive product recall, it saw an opportunity to remind customers why they chose the Chandler, Ariz. firm to build their pools in the first place.
California Pools found itself in the unenviable position of having to inform more than 200 customers that the combination UV/ozone systems they had purchased were declared defective by the manufacturer. In some units, faulty wiring would spark fires. They needed to be immediately disabled and changed out.
It was a tremendous undertaking — and an expensive one at that. The product’s manufacturer had gone out of business, and the warranties were no longer valid. “We were kind of left holding the bag,” recalls Jeremy Smith, company president. The builder spent well over $100,000 to replace the systems with brand new units at no cost to the customer, an expense he categorized internally as advertising.
“We don’t spend a lot of money on advertising,” Smith says. “We rely on our customers and referrals to send us more business.”
California Pools did a full-court press to notify all affected customers by phone and email and schedule appointments. Team members fanned out in a coordinated effort to get the new equipment installed as quickly as possible. Then it was a matter of training homeowners on how to use the new sanitation systems.
Every point of contact was a chance to showcase their professionalism and generate future business. “I wanted to make sure that when we did this we got the maximum benefit out of it, that our customers are happy and know that we’re there for them,” Smith says.
He also gave his employees an important instruction: “Don’t forget to ask for a referral from them on the way in and out of that conversation.”
Customers were gracious and appreciated how the company resolved the issue.
In Smith’s view, that’s the best advertising money can buy.
