Check

How can you evaluate a pool management company before you sign a pool management contract?

Pool management and pool passes for apartment communities

The selection of the pool management company to manage your community swimming pool is one of the most important decisions that a property manager can make. If your pool management company is great, then your residents will be happy. If your pool is constantly green, full of leaves with floating bugs, and lifeguards are constantly late, then the property manager will have residents complaining. A negative review can greatly affect your community by swaying potential residents away. There is nothing worse than a few negative reviews from your current residents about your community pool with pictures for potential residents to see.

Give the pool company a call.

The first step in selecting a pool management company is giving them a call. In today’s busy world it might be tempting to request a proposal from a pool management company on their website. Most pool management companies allow you to fill out a form on their website and fill out basic information about your community, such as the pool opening date, pool closing date, pool hours and the number of lifeguards. Even though submitting a request for a proposal online is easy, it is worth it to take the time to call and get a feel of the pool management company. If you are requesting a pool management proposal, you should call the main number and see how difficult it is to talk to an actual person. If there is an automated message prompting you to select from 10 different options, it is usually a bad sign. If you call and nobody answers your call and you are forwarded to a generic voicemail, then you should be skeptical about the quality of service of the pool company. Most pool management companies in the Mid-Atlantic area, including Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut area, are family-owned companies, generally with a few year-round employees. If you can’t get a hold of anybody when you call to request a proposal it is not a good sign of the pool company operations. If the pool company doesn’t answer your call when you are requesting a proposal from the pool management company, then you can imagine that they most likely will not answer your phone call when their lifeguard doesn’t show up at the pool or the pool turns green overnight.

Ask 3 questions.

Second, when you are requesting a pool management proposal, you should prepare and ask three questions about the pool company. Good questions to ask are “Where you are located”, “Do you have any pools around my community pool” and “How do you deal with the lifeguard shortage”. Those questions should be easy to answer. If the person who answered the call doesn’t know the answer to these questions, then most likely the company is using a call service to answer your phone call. This should be another red flag.

Check online reviews

Third, check online reviews about the pool management company. Before you put too much weight to online reviews, you need to remember that unhappy customers are 7 times more likely to leave a negative review. This means that even though the company has negative reviews, they most likely have a lot of satisfied customers who just don’t leave a positive review about their experience with the pool management company. The overall reviews might give you a general idea about the pool management company performance.

See what the current and former employees say about the pool management company

Fourth, browse websites where the former and current employees, such as pool managers, lifeguards, area pool supervisors, leave feedback for the pool management company. If you see a company that has a lot of positive reviews from its current and former employees, you can assume that the company is a good company and provides a good quality service.

How far is the pool company located from your community

Fifth, find out if the pool management company is located near you. Ask if the pool company has an office close to your community. Many pool management companies operate swimming pools that are quite far from their main office. A pool company often manages swimming pools that are located in a different state than their main office. Most pool management companies in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, besides hiring local workers, hire international students as lifeguards. They usually provide them with housing, usually a short-term apartment rental close to your community. It is important to know how far the pool area supervisor is located from your community swimming pool and how many swimming pools the supervisor manages. The number of pools that the supervisor oversees should be somewhere between 10-20 pools.

Request Proposal for Your Community

REQUEST PROPOSAL