Pool Profits to test how pool companies handle new calls

Pool Profits is launching a two-week study that will call 100 pool service companies in four markets and track how often someone answers, texts back or follows up. The results, due in November, aim to put a number on a customer-service gap that could affect how many leads pool businesses convert.

Why it matters: - Pool service companies often depend on fast response times to win new work, but many operate with very small teams and no dedicated office staff. - The study is designed to measure a customer-contact moment that can make or break a lead before a homeowner ever gets a quote. - The findings could show where pool companies are losing business to missed calls, slow callbacks or no response at all.

What happened: - Pool Profits announced The Pool Company Phone Test, which the agency calls the first published study of how pool service companies respond when a homeowner calls during business hours. - The agency will call 100 pool companies over the next two weeks in Phoenix, Orange County, San Diego and Houston. - Calls will come from a consumer phone number at 1:40 p.m. on a Tuesday and 10:15 a.m. on a Thursday. - Pool Profits will publish the results in November on poolprofits.com/resources/. - Individual companies will not be named.

The details: - Each call will be scored against seven outcomes: answered live, voicemail, no voicemail box, text-back received, callback within one hour, callback within 24 hours and no response. - Pool Profits says the pool industry has benchmarks for chemical cost per stop and route density, but not for first-call response. - The agency says it has watched this gap for 14 years. - Pool Corporation's 2024 annual report says typical pool service businesses have no more than 10 employees, and many are one-person operations with a truck. - More than 80% of the 1,600-plus pool professionals surveyed in Skimmer's 2026 State of Pool Service Report expect higher revenue this year. - Harvard Business Review research found businesses contacting a new lead within five minutes are 21 times more likely to qualify it than those that wait 30 minutes.

Between the lines: - Pool Profits is testing a pain point that many service businesses know anecdotally but do not measure. - The company is also responding to a shift in lead generation, as more first contacts may come from software rather than a person. - Google announced at I/O in May 2026 that its AI Mode, used by more than 1 billion monthly users, will begin calling businesses on a searcher's behalf for select service categories. - Yelp licensed its Request a Quote feature to OpenAI in July, allowing a homeowner to ask ChatGPT for a pool service quote without leaving the conversation. - That makes missed calls more costly, because an automated lead source may not wait for a second chance. - Jonathan Johnson, co-founder of Pool Profits, said the study will publish the uncomfortable parts because a pool company cannot fix what it has never measured. - Edmund Shahbazyan, co-founder of Pool Profits and a former pool company owner, said the test is not about bad operators but busy operators without an office.

What's next: - Pool Profits plans to repeat the study in additional markets. - The agency will publish the full method with the results. - Pool service companies can follow the study and read the report when it is released at Pool Profits YouTube channel.

The bottom line: - Pool Profits is putting hard numbers on a basic but consequential question: what happens when a homeowner calls a pool company during business hours and nobody picks up.