Insights at the Kitchen Table

You’re sitting at your clients’ kitchen table, putting the finishing touches on their backyard pool/spa plan and getting ready to have them sign a contract. Then they say, “We really appreciate that you listened to what we wanted. That salesperson from the other company kept telling us what kind of pool he thought we should have. He just
wouldn’t listen.

“Well, that’s why we chose you to build our pool.”

And you think, how could he have been so blind? What was he thinking? Doesn’t he see that his approach drives customers away?

The lesson to be learned from this story is simple. It’s taught in all the business schools, at countless seminars and innumerable conferences, and it boils down to one big thing: Listen to your customers!

APPLYING THE LESSON

That message may seem trite after having been repeated so many times. But it’s something that has come to mind often in recent months as we at Laars Jandy have put the finishing touches on a new product – one we developed by listening to our customers and, in fact, by working directly with them.

It’s a simple concept: Sit down with pool designers and builders – people who succeed because they have an intuitive, immediate sense of what their customers want and need – and get their ideas about products they want.

In other words, this experience saw us put into practice what we preach about listening to customers: We have institutionalized the principle, and we demand that our engineers, designers, and product planners include the feedback of our customers – the pool professionals – as part of the design process.

Let me illustrate with the story behind an upgrade for one of our products. Believe me, it would have been easier and less expensive if a few of our engineers had just sat in the back lab and come up with some new features, repackaged the device, and we started selling it. Instead, we embarked on a long (almost arduous) path of including our customers in the process.

It’s a story worth telling.

In May 1998, we were in a meeting with the founders of the Genesis 3 Design Group when they asked us if we were ready for a facelift of our Aqualink RS control panel. We listened, and after some discussion it was determined that the focus of any re-design would be to make the panel blend in with other switchplates throughout the home.

Basically, the Genesis team wanted us to reduce the obtrusiveness of the device, use fewer buttons, and have only one control panel for all the models offered. We listened, and listened some more.

WISDOM GAINED

Before we were done, the design process had been through six sketches, countless hours of discussion and study, numerous phone calls, three foam models and a lot of air miles. What made the collaboration unique, in my opinion, is that a group of customers/builders stayed with us from beginning to end of the project. Along the way, we developed a mutual trust: They knew we would listen to them and respect their ideas – and vice versa.

Each stage of the development created more and more innovations. In the beginning, the new product had 10 to 15 features that went beyond the existing model. By the time we were through, the new control had incorporated more than 30 significant changes.

This concept of design collaboration makes so much sense, but it’s clearly a tough program to put into practice. It can take more time; it can involve a lot of give and take; and, as we found, simply coordinating meetings can be complicated. But we also found that the designer/builders really do know what consumers want – and that their judgment can be trusted.

This effort has had two great outcomes: First, we exceeded our customers’ expectations. Second, consumers/pool owners get a product that will delight them and make it much easier for them to enjoy their pools every day of the year. The happy result: more pool sales!

Vance Gillette has been active in the swimming pool industry for more than 40 years. Throughout his career, which began at the age of 19 with Arneson Products, he has traveled the globe in top-level sales and marketing roles. He has spawned debate and discussion for more than 25 years with his views on the industry’s course and future.