When Corporate Buyouts Kill Technical Support

What happens when the people who actually know the product disappear—and customer service becomes a phone tree, a 90-minute hold, or an ordering department that cannot answer a technical question?

This week, Steve Sherwood and Wayne Ivusich examine the decline of accessible technical support across the pool and spa industry. Wayne reflects on his 32 years with Taylor Technologies, where he answered technical questions, developed educational materials, and taught an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 industry professionals. Since Taylor’s acquisition by Fluidra, much of that direct technical access—and even some of Wayne’s educational content—appears to have disappeared.

The conversation expands into a larger industry problem: corporate consolidation may preserve a product name, but it does not necessarily preserve the people, knowledge, or customer relationships that built the brand.

Before that, Steve is joined by Pat from the California Pool Association for the Insurance Interlude. They discuss how installers can protect themselves when equipment works correctly at completion but fails—or gets damaged—months later. Photos, service records, clearly defined warranty terms, and a documented follow-up may be the only things standing between you and somebody else’s blame game.

Topics discussed include:

• Protecting your company after completing equipment installations
• Documenting that equipment was operational when you left
• Why a written follow-up can become valuable evidence
• Distinguishing parts warranties from free labor
• Damage caused by homeowners or subsequent service technicians
• The importance of maintaining complete water-chemistry records
• Wayne’s 32-year career with Taylor Technologies
• What Fluidra’s acquisition of Taylor meant for technical support
• The loss of experienced educators and product specialists
• Steve’s experience waiting 90 minutes for manufacturer assistance
• Why sales representatives have become unofficial technical-support channels
• The value—and danger—of relying on Facebook groups for answers
• Knowing not only what questions to ask, but whom to ask
• Why genuine mentorship teaches people to investigate instead of merely supplying answers
• How Talking Pools can serve as an industry resource when manufacturers cannot

The label may survive an acquisition, but the institutional knowledge does not survive unless somebody deliberately protects it. When the experts disappear, customers are left owning products without reliable access to the people who understand them.

Have a pool, spa, chemistry, equipment, service, or business question you cannot get answered? Email the Talking Pools Podcast team at talkingpools@gmail.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

A lot of them were not. They were overdosing acid. This is one of the more controversial things that that I said. I kept still do it today. Measure and dilute your acid, people. And it's not me trying to criticize you. It's me understanding what that's actually doing. When you overdose or you don't dilute your acid enough, it goes to the bottom, it can etch a cement surface, it can cause a vinyl liner to weaken and eventually wrinkle, lose pigment, all these things, their consequences. We're trying to look out for you that a lot of pros just developed habits because they have to get to the next pool.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Pools can't be treated in a reactive way. You can't just ship things instantly. I I've actually used cruise ships for a really long time. Is it a bit of an analogy of swimming pools? You can't turn a cruise ship on a dime. You've got to make calculated adjustments and move very gently. Same as pools. If your pH is off, if your ORP is off, you can't instantly change that. You need to come up with a plan and slowly make those changes. If you just if your pH is 7.9 and you need to get down to 7.4, there's no way you can go and dump 40 liters of acid directly into that pool.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

You've just become their preferred shit bucket. Because the truth is a shit talker can't survive without a shit bucket. They live to talk shit, spread shit, stir shit, and make their shit everyone else's shit, but all that shit needs somewhere to go. So they find a shit bucket. The person willing to sit there, listen to shit, absorb the shit, validate the shit, and eventually carry that shit around for them. Take away the shit bucket and the shit talkers left standing there holding their own shit with nobody to give a shit.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

The views, opinions, and statements expressed by Wayne in this episode are his own and do not reflect those of the Talking Pools podcast. Its hosts, producers, sponsors, affiliates, or network partners.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Hi everybody, and happy Thursday. Welcome to the Talking Pools Podcast with Steve and Wayne. Hope everybody has had a great week. Like Steve on the West Coast and me on the East Coast, it's pretty fucking hot out there. Boiling. Well, well, right now, I'll tell you, it's it's only 89 degrees here only. But the problem with me is the humidity is like 83%. So it feels like uh a frickin' sauna out there uh every time you walk outside. So that that ain't fun.

SPEAKER_08 3:13

88's okay when the humidity is low, but the humidity's been pretty bad here too in California with uh like the heat waves that we've been having. But those the crazy part about it is like we'll have like a 55 degree swing. Wow. Where it's like a hundred during the day and then it'll go down to fifty or forty. Yeah, like uh 105 and then 55. It's like uh or 50. It's it's kind of a crazy swing. So at night, when you're walking your dog and stuff, like you're you have a chill for sure. But then when you go in your house, because nobody really has air conditioning unless you have central air, then it's hot and you need to use like fans and and different things like that. So I've been waking up in the middle of the night with like sweat on my face. I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

That's all you need.

SPEAKER_08 3:59

It's only for like it's only for this month and next month, though, and then it should cool off, especially here in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

So we we always have a running joke here that that the mid-Atlantic area has five seasons summer, spring, winter, fall, and August. So, I mean, it's it's it's ridiculous. But anyhow, I want to start off with something as a result of some things that have been happening the last couple weeks that uh kind of personal, as as hopefully most of you know.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

Yeah, boom, starting to do it, but it's a good idea. See you next Thursday.

SPEAKER_08 7:07

Hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Do Do Do, the insurance interlude, with your host, Steve Sherwood, and our co-host Pat Rignol from California Pool Association. So, Pat, the last couple interludes was kind of a like what's what of going on with our daily service business, right? So, like we had somebody and they they didn't go with us for the renovation. We didn't know them yet. They renovated the pool. These guys got concrete in the pool, messed it up a bunch. Now we're kind of left to deal with it. Now, this is the first time that I've ever had this happen, right? Because there's always a lot of firsts. But I have had happen in the past where the shoe is kind of on the other foot, and I am the service company and I install an equipment pad. And, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be Hayward, it could be Penthair, it could be Jandy. Like it's it doesn't matter about the equipment, the brand. What matters is that, you know, we went and put it in, and you know, we don't service the pool. It was a one-off, it was a one-off thing, right? So now they have a new a service guy that comes in and service guy either breaks something. You know, I've had it happen where on the top mount multi-port guy was definitely touching it while the pump was was was rearing, you know, and uh the handle broke off. And like it's almost impossible to just put on a new handle. They have them, but it's very, very hard. It's like a key that you need. So you would just buy like a whole new multi-port top for it, but like uh that's something that's stupid. And like if the client was like, hey, this guy said you broke it, and like we were really in that big of an argument, I would be like, you know what, guys, like screw it. I'm gonna go warranty it, and I go get one from Hayward or whatever, and I just go install it, and now see yeah. What if it's something that's more intricate than that? Like, what if they're saying what if the lines are now clogged and they're blaming you? And this is six months down the road, you know, like how do we prove that we did a good job? And how do you also leave a job and say, like, everything is fine, you know, with the with the way that it is, and you know, the the biggest example that I could give you is that if you resurface a pool for the first six months, like if you're at the pool every day and it's a commercial pool, I tell them, like, do the LSI, the Langolir Saturation Index, every day. And if you do the Langolir saturation index every day and your water chemistry is good, and eight months go by, and you have the people come out and they test your water and everything was in line, and you could show them records of, hey, we've been taking care of the pool, they're gonna be like, All right, you know what, we're gonna have to fix this. Yeah, but that almost never happens, right? Because people don't take good, they're not they're not good record keepers, right? So now the pool company goes back that did the renovation and they're like, hey, we tested your water, the TDF is through the roof, the cyanuric acid is through the roof, because obviously you guys are putting in tablets every week, and uh the calcium's through the roof, you know, in the last eight months or whatever. So what do all what what do we have to protect ourselves, you know, when someone comes after us about you know shoddy work and it might be might be fucked up now, but it wasn't fucked up when we were there, and like we haven't touched it in a long time. So what what's our recourse there?

SPEAKER_07 10:46

Yeah, yeah, look, but blame game, right? I I think about, you know, like the like you install an equipment pad or you replace an equipment pad, right? You're there, you're not the servicing company, you're just there to do the equipment work, and that's that. You think about like who could you blame if the heater fails two months down the road, three months down the road? Um you know, one of the major, major pieces of equipment. You got manufacturer that could be a problem, you got distributor, you got installer, you got the service company, and you got the homeowner, right? You think about all the parties involved that could have broken the heater. So, you know, it's pretty easy to get into a, you know, to get into a a blank game and finger pointing, right? So, you know, in that in that instance, you know, again, that we always talk about it, and it's a pain in the ass. It isn't life, it isn't business, but you know, better records, you know, better records, you know, the better off you are. I've actually seen a lot of uh a lot of folks out there, they come back, you know, jobs done, walk away, shake hands, money in the bank, everyone's happy, rock and roll. And then, you know, coming, coming and scheduling like a a checkup or a wellness check or something, whether that's a week, two weeks, four weeks, depending on the the work, where you know, even sending an email, so it's in writing, meaning like, hey, just want to follow back up, everything cool with the equipment, everything working good, no problems. Like, oh yeah, everything's great, you know, service company loves it, everything's working perfect. Like, that's a really easy, like, and it's it's pretty good business practice as well that people would appreciate, but it's a good, it's an easy way for CYA, you know, if you can, if you can show that, like, yeah, sorry, like if something happened out of these seven parties that could be the issue, like it ain't me, right? If something happened after a month, well, that's that's certain certainly gonna be something that's not the installer at that point. So, you know, that's not the end all be all. There's never only one bullet in the gun, but it is a bullet in the gun, and you know, it's it'd be helpful for you if something were to come up and there is the blame game finger pointing.

SPEAKER_08 12:45

Yeah, and like the biggest thing, you know, you're talking about the heater, and like generally for the most part, like heaters don't just fail. Totally. Yeah. You know, where I think the more common thing, and this has happened a couple times, where like uh something's wrong with like the breaker or something, and like the service guy really doesn't know what he's doing, so he opens up like the aqua link system, like takes the panel off and like touches the board with like a flathead screwdriver, shorts the board out. You know, like that's something that that could totally happen. You know, first time I did that, I was like, What just happened? I'm like, why did that just spark like that? And I called my you know, called my service manager and he was like, Did you fucking touch the board with fucking and I was like, I didn't mean to!

SPEAKER_07 13:36

Never never did it again, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_08 13:38

No, I mean like but now I now I now that that happened, like I know that you know that's a common issue, you know, and it's what it's like the can't tell you how many guys will will call me and they're like Steve, we need your help. There's no power, you know, like there's no power anywhere. Like I'm like, okay, I'm like the pump's not working, the heater is not working, like the automation, everything is off. And they're like, Yeah, but the breaker, you know, it's good, it's got power. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, have you checked the you know, the emergency stop button for the spa? And they're like, Yeah, but the pool and the spa are off. And I'm like, okay, I'm like, did you ever think that the guy who installed it maybe tied the pool to the spa and they they all turn off at the same time? And sure enough, that's what it was, you know. But like, I remember when I first became a service guy and I had my first couple commercial pools, and you just for an hour you're just sitting there, like, what could be the problem with this? And then someone comes over and they're like and they like click the thing, and I guess everything's like wah wah wah. And you're like, get out of here. Like, I just wasted so much time. But you know, someone could do that. So so let's let's this specific instance uh because boards aren't cheap, right? They're like the they're they're pretty expensive, they're usually a couple thousand dollars. So all of a sudden the board doesn't work anymore and it needs a new board. I mean, I guess that wouldn't really be for me to figure out. You would probably have like uh and this is like you know, Penter and Hayward and Jandy, they always want to send out their their warranty companies to kind of find out what's going on and stuff. And you know, it's very seldom that I'll be like, hey, we already troubleshot the problem, like we know what it is, and they're like, okay, cool, we'll just send you the parts. And I think if it is, it's from one of my reps that like knows me really well and knows that like knows my manager and knows that like we actually troubleshot it and like we actually were on hold for an hour and a half or whatever it was, you know. But that's why I love the you know the Facebook groups and stuff, because you can go on there and you can get some pretty good information. Like uh, we're gonna talk about this later on, but like I had a a client that had like a step that was broken and I can't find the step anywhere, you know. And like I've I've looked through like all the magazines, I'm like I'm putting in like hours now looking for these steps. And I just put it into a couple of the Facebook groups and like uh I already got some great info on it. I haven't found it yet, but at least we're checking some boxes off of the list, you know. So what I'm what I'm really hearing is after you do a job and you're not the service company anymore, is to, you know, reach out to these people a few weeks after or you know, wi within within a month and you know, make sure that they're still happy. And then, you know, everyone would have the assumption that like you're good and everything's good, and anything that happened after that is basically, you know, not your fault and not your deal because you're you're not the one that's coming, you know, every week.

SPEAKER_07 16:30

Every week, yeah, exactly. It's a nice touch too. I mean, you know, you call them back and yeah, really, you know, that multifaceted, but yeah, it's it's a good CYA for sure. If you're you're getting a thumbs up that everything's good, it's been if you know a reasonable amount of time that it's been working correctly. And you know, at that point, it's like, hey, the thing broke and it's two months later. Like they're saying you didn't install it correctly. It's like, all right, well, it wouldn't have worked for two months straight if if I didn't install it correctly, right? So you tell I'm going back to somebody's house on Saturday.

SPEAKER_08 16:59

I was there last week and uh or tomorrow, I guess. And she's like a little she's like an older lady, and she basically said that like the pump's not working, but like but the pool is still at 90 degrees. You know what I mean? So like I was like that I'm like that's not really that possible, but like I'm gonna come out and you know take care of that for you. But I know that like she's got like an older pent air pump where you you have to like really go into the menu to start changing stuff. Like I just looked at the schedule, you know. So like there's no way that I changed the schedule because she was like, You must have changed the schedule. And I was like, okay, I'm like, I'll come check it out for you.

SPEAKER_07 17:35

50 buttons later, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_08 17:38

But like uh, you know, sometimes those are the things where like uh if they're your client, you gotta go out and just kind of make sure that they're but it's a totally it's a totally different story when someone's not your client and now they're calling you back out and they're expecting you to fix something for free or you know, whatever it is. And that's why like I'm super clear that like I am not a Pentair warranty station, I'm not a RayPack or Hayward warranty station. And if I'm gonna warranty something for you, you're paying for us to put it in. Like we warranty parts only. Like I'm not coming back for two years and also putting this shit in for free because like if you have a saltwater pool and you know, you decide that you don't want to put in the ASME Cooper Nickel heater, and you know, I agree to put in a lower level heater because that's what you want for money-wise, you know, and that's what you can afford. I'm not gonna be responsible six months later when the high limit switch goes, you know what I mean, to put that back in for you. And I feel like that's that's a lot that goes on a lot because like people don't educate their clients on like you have a saltwater pool, like there's only really one heater you can put in. Like there's only one, you know, like we're gonna put in the commercial, the commercially rated salt, the commercial one that's rated for salt cells. Like, come on. Yeah. So, all right, Pat, great segment today. As always, if you need anything from California Pool Association, please reach out to them. And if you jump on for a general liability annual policy, they will actually give you one month free, which is pretty cool. Pat will be linking up next week. And guys and listeners out there, thank you so much for listening in. And uh, we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, Steve.

SPEAKER_04 19:12

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SPEAKER_09 20:54

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SPEAKER_02 21:23

I was with Taylor for 32 years. From 1991 to a total of 32 years until September of 2022. So in a few weeks I'll be have I will have been retired almost four years. When I was with Taylor, one of the primary duties that I had was essentially customer service in the sense that I was the person that answered all the technical calls. And they were calls from 91 to like 2000 when email suddenly popped in. And inquiries through through the website. And so my my primary responsibility was that. And then my secondary responsibility was tied into that. And Steve is is the beneficiary of that. And that is education and teaching. And I doing seminars at trade shows and other venues and things like that. I think just before I left Taylor, we figured out that I probably taught at at least in 32 years, somewhere around 45 to 50,000 people. That's a fucking large number, and uh on a vr in a variety of different subjects. So it includes, you know, seminars and CPO and it includes everything. And that was all done and based on something that the then owner of Taylor. back then asked me to do. He said, I want you to become visible within the industry. And I think I kind of did that. People knew me. I was the Taylor guy. And I always would joke, if I was the real Taylor guy, would I be here? Kind of deal. But you know, I own the company. I don't even be here. My last name's not Taylor. But um and I did that and I accomplished that. And and people got to know me. You know, talk to the Taylor guy, you know, call Taylor, call Wayne Taylor, that kind of thing. And it it in one hand it felt really good for that that that I knew that people in the industry could call Taylor and get an answer on something. Or get a no answer and say, you know, I really don't know. You know, well let's go find out the answer. And that happened too many times over the years. But but you know for the most part I I was pretty good, I think. Uh pat myself in the back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 23:45

Steve can probably attest to that, but I mean in the mentor like with the, you know, obviously we have the the mentor thing going on. That's right. And we're not eligible to be part of part of it. Because number one, we're we're part of the judging panel, right? Because we get to look at all the anonymous people and stuff. But I would say 1000% that uh you know if you weren't part of the Talking Pools podcast, that number one, you'd be nominated by one of those 50,000 people. And if all of those 5000 people decided to say okay we're not going to nominate him like you would be my guy without a doubt.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Like you know there's people that there's people that that help in in the industry but being a mentor that's kind of where I'm I'm going a little bit here is that you know for the longest time when Taylor was privately owned that's what we did was and and we were known as the people to you know I'm gonna answer questions about things that I had no not no knowledge but that it wasn't really within my realm. I mean non-testing non-chemistry things I get the calls why is my pool cloudy why is it leaky? Why is it you know this and that and and over the years I gained a pretty decent amount of knowledge overall in the industry and not just my area of expertise. And it felt really good to be able to help people in person on the phone, emails, whatever felt really, really good. Then come the fall of 2021 and Taylor was sold to Fluidra and became part of the Fluidra group and kind of was the writing on the wall for me that that pushed me to retire because I could I could sense what was going to happen and it wound up and eventually did but back then you know you just got a one of those weird feelings you know that something's going on here something's gonna happen. Well what what actually happened was and it was brought to my attention by a colleague of mine that some of you may know or have experience with her name is Katie Chrysdale and Katie is up in Alberta Canada and uh she is a member of a number of committees at PHTA that that I am on or chair of and she's a CPO instructor and so so she's very very knowledgeable very very good person. She actually told me that she was using webinars that I gave back in 2020 and 2019 when she teaches CPO and teaches classes that I had done about water testing and balance you know so it's still out there. I mean I might have gained a little weight might have lost a little weight might have lost a lot of hair but uh she's still using them and she said what you what you did you meaning me what you did was invaluable and it just shows to show you even the stuff that you talked about five 10 15 years ago is still valid and still good because you were able to explain things to people on a pretty basic level that had no knowledge. So all the newbies in the industry I was able to help and that that felt really good. Well Katie called me not called me Katie emailed me the other day and she told me about these webinars she was going to use and I thanked her of course and she said yeah when you call Taylor now everything that you did as far as technical information webinars uh you know YouTube videos things like that gone and there is no way to contact Taylor to get a technical question answered it doesn't happen easily. So in other words there's no there's an 800 number but it goes into ordering and the 800 number used to also go into me and somebody calls up with a technical question about a test kit or chemistry they can't get a hold of anybody you know is that good no does it help with the Taylor brand nope and so so it doesn't keep it up with the same way so at the same level. So adding to that not only floregia and I'll I'll be honest with you when Florida came on board there were a lot of promises made but and which were never kept which is typical but I Floregia doesn't have anybody that can answer technical questions about water chemistry and testing because Taylor is the only company that they have in that line of things that they own that has anything to do with testing or chemistry. So there are people who don't know okay so customers have to go to other sources which is fine which is great. Lamot's got a great thank you Lamont for being a sponsor because Taylor never did Lamont Lamont has a really good customer service department and in fact Rudy had God I forgot the guy's name already it's terrible happens when you hit 70 Steven to be fair but they have a really good guy there that kind of was like kind of does what I used to do but at Taylor he does at Lamont so he's available to answer questions and and uh and uh and to give proper responses then you have other in the people other people in industry Eric Knight some of you may know Eric I don't know if you know Eric or not yeah of course yeah he was yeah um Eric really good guy I just I'm patting myself on the back he just moved over to pool brain from right exactly right well that that's what I was like kind of getting to but when Eric first started with Arenda I was one of the people that helped train him at least in the testing and chemistry. So you know pat me on the back and you know good boy Eric you you were a good student back then and I've seen him grow and develop and he he did he did he kind of did for Arenda what I did for Taylor. He was always available to answer questions always there. And then he moved on to taking over Watershape University and being a director of education there which is fine.

SPEAKER_08 29:30

But then he recently moved over to pool brain and and I know Eric well and Eric hopefully you're you're listening and I really appreciate you and really admire what you're doing uh but I kind of understand why you went over over there because you're not you're not feeling it you or you weren't feeling it you you didn't you didn't have that that that warm fuzziness that you get when you when you know you're able to help somebody help somebody at a level so as a third party outside what I mean what happened to Orenda a few years ago well yeah that's they got they got bought by somebody else yeah exactly which which is which which is really the you know I think the underlying thing with this whole thing is is that it's actually not surprising to to hear this because okay and I'll give you an example Wayne I called Pant Air the other day and or I told my my service manager Carlos I was like hey we this salt cell it's something's going on with it I was like you need to call right so he calls and he texts me and he's like I've been on hold for 90 minutes. He's like wow he's like what what do you want me to do here? You know he's like I I can't stay here any longer like I I've got to go and I was like all right just go and I I did call my rep who is is amazing you know he really is and uh he was like just call me he was like you know I'll help you with the technical stuff and he is really technical he used to own his own electrical company really really smart guy in like automation and technical stuff and you know I have him as a resource and I didn't even think of it at the time but you know if you don't have a a back channel to to get to someone like I do with you where like I'm like okay we got a question like I stopped class I'm like I'm calling my guy Wayne boom 90% of the time unless you're in the middle of something you're you're you're picking up. I'm waiting for you to FaceTime me one time in the middle of so you know and I I think what's really sad about the whole thing is that you know not that it's not there anymore but more so that it's not yours. Right. You know what I mean? Like you did this for and I worked for another company for a really long time and you know built up a bunch of stuff. Like I actually we started the Facebook I started the Facebook group the certified operator one in 2010 while I was working for that company you know right but that was something that was like my intellectual property because it was my Facebook like handle on there. It wasn't like the companies you know but we had started that to help answer questions just because we were getting too many questions from students. Like it was like a it would take us like a day or two to get back to people and we were like what if we just like started a group where you know and now it's turned into it's its own thing on the internet right so like there's almost its own life now it's just a lot of great groups out there but there's also you know a lot of guys where when I'm trying to show my guys something I haven't done it in a while I'll go watch a YouTube video and I'll be like okay cool like that's you know he goes through all the steps and like we do it a little different like this but what whatever. And if I like what it is I mean I'll send it over to my guys and be like hey before you go do this you know go ahead and watch this video. Now am I sending out a guy that's never done electrical before to go change a pump like no I'm not doing that. You know like I'm talking about cleaning odd filters you know like the S2000 and the S4000 where it's got the stainless steel lid on it and like you have to like there's tricks that you can kind of use to you know make it happen. And if you don't you know like taking apart DE filter screens if you don't have the the like grid on top of it if it's missing and you don't do a lot of filter cleanings good luck getting that thing back together. You know like you gotta turn it upside down. You gotta like and I you know I'm I was doing a lot of filter cleanings and I was pretty seasoned and there'd be times where I'm like fucking missing the bolt you know like this bolt where did this thing fall you know and I'm like 40 minutes looking for a a bolt or whatever. But you know in the age of of information it's wild to hear that that they wouldn't want to you know keep that because that's it's actually theirs you know what I mean like they could they could blaster it you could be you could be tailor forever you know and that's that's that's really the more the disappointing part because there are so many good things that you have put out and we also use some of your stuff you know in the CPO class and obviously we we talk about a lot of the you know fundamentals that you've you've kind of you know instilled in in us and I think the biggest thing is you've never just given me an answer you know you've always been like okay let's think about this like all right did you get this you know like give me that reading like first you need a full panel reading and it's really important to to see the whole picture and this is something that Rudy talks a lot about on his show. He actually just I just listened to his show today he was talking about that um but you really just need to to ask the right questions and sometimes when if you just go into it without asking questions you can kind of get you know bit in the butt a little bit and you know it's it's always absolutely 100% true but add on to that is that you know the ask asking the questions but know who to ask the questions.

unknown 35:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

You know that that's the other thing and and again here I am patting myself on the back I was the person for testing in chemistry. And it wasn't just for Taylor it was within the industry too as there were others also there was probably a core of about 10 or 12 of us that between somewhere in North America and Europe and Australia we all kind of knew what to do kind of deal. I mean remember this yeah you wrote it as part of every test kid guess who wrote it so this seems like this seems like an opportunity well yeah I know I know and and I know where you're going on that and I've been approached about it but quite honestly I'm I'm na I don't want to get I don't want to go there at least not not yet but I I guess my whole point for this little rant thing is that it kind of hurt me a little when I found out that that Taylor wasn't as helpful let's put it that way as it was when I was there. And that that was a little bit of a you know jab jab me and stab me kind of thing but it and it and it hurt and it's not just Taylor. It's a lot of like your experience with Pentair and it's not just the pool industry it's other things. Like I'm in the process now of I've talked to four different customer service reps over as many days regarding some medical equipment that I needed to order and nobody's calling me back like they promised. Nobody's sending me an email with the information I need like they promised and it's very very frustrating. So it's not just pool and spot the industry but it but it's everybody. So I I I guess what I'm saying is oh what the hell am I saying? I guess what I'm saying is uh make sure that when you have a question about something that one you know who to go to or you find out who to go to that's going to give you an answer whether it's a customer service rep, a sales rep, whatever. And and do your research as best you possibly can. And hello here at Talking pools look at who we have on our on our uh staff our hosting staff I mean I've got 32 years in Steve you've been around for what 800 900 years now? Just under just under just under like uh just under 20 but about 20 if I'm from when I really started so yeah and and Rudy and I started around the same time so I'm gonna say the same amount I mean and and the other hosts we've got a lot of experience a lot of good experience and if you have a question that you're not getting an answer to or you don't think the answer is right or whatever send us an email talkingpools at gmail.com we will answer it that's a guarantee we will answer it we will we will uh with your permission share your question and our answer and our response and it doesn't have to be on chemistry and testing it could be on pretty much any aspect aspect of the industry. I mean Steve's got incredible experience not only in the service industry but how to run a business successfully you know which is part of part of you know survival for him not so much for me because I have a different a different focus but you know we we've got a ton of experience so I guess the thing is utilize the people that are out there within the industry because we can help okay just don't leave us in the in the lurch like a couple companies did the one that makes the blue test so I'm stepping off my soapbox now Steve so go your turn so follow that one bud I think we should take this into another episode maybe I think this is I think this is a good enough one as it is okay that's fine yeah we don't want to really inundate too many people with this but yeah okay that sounds good that I got the hint so guys this is talking pools Stephen Wayne we've got a ton of other people as hosts that that can that can help you uh we're running the um mentor of the year uh situation if you go to talking pools on Facebook and uh in Instagram a couple places you'll see the list of people who have been nominated some of them that are very well known in the industry some of them were local today and again talkingpools at gmail dot com email us let us know we're we're here to help you and not only to be two talking heads about about old and spa stuff okay we're a resource for you so Steven thank you as always take care give my best to Jen and everybody out there on the West Coast good luck.

SPEAKER_06 39:27

Okay stay cool stay cool right take care guys bye bye the opinions expressed in this episode belong solely to the individuals who expressed them and do not reflect the views of the Talking pools podcast its sponsors affiliates or network partners