How to Seamlessly Sell During Busy Season, Despite COVID-19

-by Rachael Pritz, RB Pool & Spa

Summer has finally arrived for most of the U.S. and Canada! Although Memorial Day weekend generally kicks off the summer season in the U.S., most of the industry reported the summer-selling-season arrived early, as quarantined consumers began preparing their backyards for a summer stay-cation.

Since summer is the most profitable time of year for our industry, it’s imperative to take advantage of every tool available to ensure maximum profitability while demand is high. Fortunately, today’s software technology allows for safe social distancing, or even the complete elimination of physical contact with consumers. Point of sale (POS) systems with mobile apps for retail stores, service professionals, and construction crews are designed to ensure you never miss a sales opportunity, despite the fast-paced, busy summer season. Now is the time to be sure you are maximizing the selling features built into your pool service software, whether it’s over the phone, behind the plexiglass at your checkout counter, or by staff using tablets in the store, packing lot, or in the backyard. Read on to learn how.

Build Accurate Quotes

As pool professionals respond to inquiries for new pool construction or spa sales and installation, building comprehensive quotes will ensure you include every possible up-sell opportunity. There are many ways to do this with the RB Retail software.

• Custom Kit Builder and Estimator: Allows you to enter customized template questions specific to your business, so that salespeople do not miss any job specifications necessary for creating a quote or estimating a job. This is particularly useful in the construction of pools and backyard living spaces.
• RB Construction Feature: Allows you to estimate the cost of each job by using the RB Kit Builder as a worksheet to calculate the job’s selling price. This feature helps you add inventory, labor, and subcontractor expenses so you can quickly provide an accurate quote. Note, if the customer wants to change anything in their kit, such as the ladder or liner, the amount you assigned to that item will be deducted from the kit, not the retail price. Therefore, you will not lose money when customers change out kit items. Kits allow you to package and discount items without the customer seeing the individual prices.
• Related Items: When selling spas and other products, the RB POS system provides a “related item” sales suggestion, which pops up to increase sales at the counter or on the show floor using a mobile device. For example, if you sell hoses, a related item to suggest would be hose clamps. Or, if you sell a wall cleaner, you could suggest a scrub mitt or brush.
• General Information Pop-Ups: Allows sales staff to inform the customer of important information about the item they purchased, or remind themselves of a task they need to complete at the time of the sale. For example, when selling shock, you can remind the customer to premix the shock in a bucket of water, leave the filter on, and keep the solar cover off for 24 hours.
• Integrated Chemical Maintenance: Includes calendars, chemical trouble-shooting forms, and tip sheets where products are highlighted in yellow, so your staff won’t forget which items to promote. New sales staff will be well-equipped and made to look like experts when they provide handouts and emails to customers. This will eliminate phone calls with questions later on.

Build Comprehensive Contracts

Building comprehensive contracts is another area where opportunities can be missed during the busy season. The RB Retail & Service software includes a contract building module that instantly allows you to create a professional contract for every job. This module automatically sets up steps to manage the progress of the job and track the job costs. There is even a “Hidden items” section that allows you to add special items to Picking Tickets, Job Costing, and Purchase Orders that will not appear on the customer’s Sales Order.

RB Retail & Service makes it easy to build quotes, convert sales leads, and sell kits, layaways, special orders, service orders, and big-ticket items through the sales order section. Apply contracts and utilize the exclusive Smart Contracting feature to ensure your sales staff has asked all necessary questions to complete a contract. Print a picking ticket and send service appointments, deliveries and onsite sales calls directly to the “scheduler” from the sales orders for a streamlined process.

Reduce Wait Times

Pool and spa professionals know that delivering exceptional experience can be challenging during the busy summer months. Insufficient checkout resources at peak times lead to long lines, frustrated customers, and lost sales. The uncertainty of the global pandemic and the post-quarantine pent-up-demand will make it even more difficult.

There is a solution! Retailers can reduce wait times and set themselves apart from the competition with RB Mobile Live Retail. In fact, retailers that implement the Line Buster feature in the RB Mobile Live Retail module will find they can provide better and faster service to customers. Additionally, by using this feature on a tablet with an integrated magnetic stripe reader and pocket barcode scanner, staff can complete sales transactions and process credit cards and email receipts from the showroom floor or the parking lot!

By implementing mobile shopping and checkout in your pool and spa store, in addition to your POS registers, you’ll create a shopping experience that flows seamlessly. Not only will this powerful tool boost your business performance and profitability, it will also make your customers feel more comfortable with efficient, touch-free systems.

Stay in Control with ‘Mobile Live’ Management Reports

Any experienced pool and spa business owner wants to know how the business is performing, especially when the phones are ringing off the hooks and the volume of customers triples.  Being able to access business figures anytime and anywhere is a powerful tool for business owners and managers. To help, RB Mobile Live offers Management Reports to keep you connected to your pool and spa business from your smartphone or tablet – anywhere, any time. View charts and figures of your booked and delivered sales, deposit totals, and employee work shifts throughout the company or by location. Choose to default your Mobile Live to the reports screen for instant access of the daily snapshot and from there you can select any date range desired.

Software Features Increase Profits

Pool and spa stores and service professionals need to take advantage of every technology tool available to keep up with demand this summer and foster deep customer loyalty that will continue on long after this crisis has passed. Whether it is providing a touch-free retail environment, providing a personal shopper for every customer that comes to your store, delivering chemicals to the client’s doorstep or doing interactive phone calls to troubleshoot problems, it is time to make the most of the mobile technology and software systems available to maintain customer loyalty while maximizing profits.