Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!!!

[Mugsy]

Hey guys, been reading your forum for the past few days and find it enlightening, engrossing and educational. A few things, 1. Name is Stuart,, Hi Stuart...2. birthday is 12/28, Hi Mendo... 3. Live in Delaware so the climate is a mild 3 seasons 4. Have 3 dealers of consequnece within 20 miles, D1, Coleman and Hot Springs.
D1 dealer has his own service staff and a $25K parts inventory, both Hot Springs and Coleman use service companies.
Wet tested Coleman C641 and D1 Aurora II. Both are satisfactory, Hot Springs dealer is a little flaky about when wet testing can occur, so we have not agreed on a time yet.
Can somebody give me a little advice and guidance please, regarding the technical comparisons and the warranty comparisons?? Is a dealer employee service organization enough to swing a $1500 difference in price?
Thanks in advance for your brains to pick...

[stuart]

Hey Stuart! What a cool name you have!

I think you have answered most of your own questions! It the D1 dealer stands out above the others and the spa is equal to anything else you've seen then I would say you've found your spa. I think the Aurora II is one of the best performing spas I've ever sat in! In addition to that the seating is personally more comfortable to me than most spas I've tried over the years.

Having an onsite service staff and a large inventory of parts will give them ability to service you quickly and efficiently. D1 takes a strong stand to have the dealers keep factory-trained technicians on staff. We could not qualify for some incentives price wise and other perk if we did not send our techs to D1 training once a year....

Let me put it this way; would you buy a new $30K vehicle from a dealer that said we use a local mechanic over a dealership that has a full service dept? I doubt it…..

[Bill_Stevenson]

Well my take is a bit different.  First of all let's talk about the dealer.  You must be comfortable with the dealer.  Are they friendly, knowledgable, in business for the long haul, etcetera.  In-house service vs. farming it out to a service company, though, is not so clear cut.  I think a good case could be made either way.  A service company that supports multiple dealers could be more stable financially and they want your business too.  I think you could get excellent service either way, all dependant on the companies involved.

You really need to wet test the spas.  There is no substitute for climbing into a few spas and giving them a try.  All of the brands you are looking at are good ones that are likely to last for a long time.  They will all feel different to you, though, and that is why you need to get wet to decide.  

Remember to have fun.

Regards,

Bill

[Spatech_tuo]

Farming out the service is not a big deal as long as the dealer is still ultimately repsonsible for making sure you're cared for whether they're doing it or having a sevice care for you. Since its Hot spring and Coleman I'd think you are fine but ask questions. Stuart makes a great point about factory training. Does the service they use get sent to the manufacturer for training? I know of a large local dealer who uses a service and I know those guys get the factory training and to the customer they would never know they are techincally independent of the dealer. Ask questions on this and if you have reservations about how they explain their process give the D1 dealer a big plus. Otherwise, I wouldn't see it as much of an issue since Hot Springs and Coleman back their product well. After that its all about value and wet testing.

[Mendocino101]

Hey Mugsy,

Hello and welcome...I think you are looking at three nice spas...For me it would come to down to the dealer and who you felt offered the most value which may in the end "not be" the least expensive...I would focus on what spa do you think over the years you will be most happy with....again all three are fine spas....

[spahappy]

Mugsy,

I agree all three spa's are good and each will have good warranties backed by solid companies.

I sell Coleman and we have our own in house service department. Our service techs go in every so often  to be recertified and trained by Coleman. I wouldn't be surprized if the service company the Coleman dealer uses has sent one of their techs to a Coleman school.

As far as a parts inventory, I'd assume that the service department doing the work for Coleman would have main parts such as heaters, pumps, boards, jets, valves, and other important parts on hand.

Even with ur own service department there's times we have to order a part in from Coleman. This is usually only for the older model spas. You have to remember many of the parts such as pumps, heaters, jets,valves and ozone systems are the same on many of the most popular Coleman models.

Go with your wet test and the way you feel about your dealer. Good luck!



Spahappy

[stuart]

I’m sure that this will draw this topic off a bit but lets examine the in-house service vs contractor… We do both

We use a contractor for off brands that we don’t carry but only for overflow. For our brands we use factory certified technicians and I believe that there are some important things for you to understand between the two.

1.      I carry 4 million dollars in liability insurance, contractors are not covered under this only company employees.
2.      Most private service companies consist of one guy who may have an assistant. Most are not factory trained and up to date on any changes or adjustments to your spa. although most understand troubleshooting, plumbing, electrical and mechanical switches it would be hard for them to keep up with the weekly service bulletins sent out to most dealers for every brand.
3.      All of my technicians are on a pay scale that allows bonus’s, raises and reprimands based on their customer service toward the customer. With a contractor I can choose to either use him or not and quite often they just need to be “good enough”. There really is no incentive for them to be better, they get paid the same no matter what.
4.      Most contractors are not loyal to one company and therefore have no direct need to go overboard to keep that customer for the dealer. Good enough is typically “Good enough”.
5.      We have on-going training for our technicians that reflects the service bulletins, changes and retrofits (that I mention earlier) every week if not daily.
6.      My employees drive my service vehicles equipped with our brand specific parts to complete the call in one visit while many contractors need to troubleshoot the problem and then get parts. I have not the time, energy nor resources to equip an outside contractor’s vehicle with our brand specific parts, inventory and restock those parts in addition to the cash outlay when he is working for my direct competitor at the same time.
7.      We even require our technicians to wear uniform shirts for the confidence of the people that have them coming to their houses to know who they are and where they are from at all times.

I will give you an example of one incident that was handled wrong by a contractor that became a negative that should have been a positive. Marquis has a maintenance reminder on their spas that comes up as a CL code to remind the customer once a month to clean their filters -  once you hit any button on the panel it clears. Last year Marquis received some Circuit boards from Balboa that the chips on the board where not programmed correctly and the CL code could not be cleared. Before we ever had our first spa with an incident Marquis sent me a description of the problem, new chips for the board, a tool to remove/replace the old ones and serial #’s of all of the spas we purchased with potential problems. We thought this was a quick easy fix and we had a technician out sick so we sent out a contractor to take care of a few of these. Shortly after he did I had two customers call and say that “our technician” told them that Marquis was having a lot of problems with this and many spas were failing! He also said that he worked on many brands and this was the first time he had ever come across this. You want to build doubt in a new customer tell them spas like theirs are failing all over!

The reality was that this was a proactive factory recall that should have made the customer feel that Marquis was an incredible company to have a fix in place before they ever had a problem and go to the extent of not “waiting to see if it happened”. This tech also made a similar comment to a competitive salesman at another dealership who changed it to “Yes sir Mr. Customer, we have a technician that works on our stuff and theirs all of the time tell me that Marquis electronics are failing”. What a lie! The truth was that tech didwork on their spas all of the time, they could not keep up with all of the issues their spas were having yet this tech rarely ever worked on Marquis!

Trying to instill our company ethics, our vision and our core values in an independent contractor is like trying to get the neighbor kid to live under your family rules! I know that there are honest, dependable, diplomatic and forthright companies doing independent service but I like the ability to supervise and work with my tech’s on a daily basis so that I have my pulse on their attitude and outlook on customer service issues, then I can instill our values.  

I also believe one loophole that is not covered here is that most Manufactures warranty’s state that service must be preformed by a factory authorized technician or service center. In a dealer agreement, in order to be a factory authorized service center you need to have a factory trained tech on site...

[spahappy]

Wow that was a mouthful.

[Spatech_tuo]

Well said Stuart! Did someone type all that for you? I do know a very large dealer who contracts out their work with a service that uses 3 to 4 guys. All are factory trained and he represents the vast majority of their work as they do all the warranty and the non warranty work for a very large area for him. While they do the service the dealer remains responsible for their work, stocks all the parts as they have a service warehouse and monitors what is done with the customer. It is really a symbiotic relationship and in most every way they are the same as having an in-house tech. However, another dealer who farms out the work may be a small % of that service guys business and he may have no official training and therefore you may be getting less than stellar service. As with many spa questions, this one needs more follow up to get more details from the 2 dealers in question as the out of house techs may be equal to in-house techs or just some glorified handyman making money on the side fixing those "hot tub things".

[Jakeman]

Where is the D1 dealer? I've wanted to look at those tubs. Did you see them in Delaware? So far we checked out Hot Springs , Coleman , Marquis, Sundance. All were very nice but liked the Sundance the best. They have a new filter system coming out that has no maintenance, after 6 months you put in a new one. The dealer said it may cost a little more but who cares I don't want to be outside this time of year rinsing out my filter. Let me know where you saw D1 that will probably be the last on our list to check out.

[Mugsy]

Jake, D1 dealer is Parker Enterprizes in Georgetown. Route 16 east from Route 13 about 2 miles on the north side of the road. Spoke with David Parker, owner, and while not extremely well versed in D1 or Spas per se. He is an interesting guy with a really good view of business and service. His salesman was not available so I got no sales pitch just 1.5 hours of conversation, company history (formerly Jacuzzi dealer for 9 years ), problems (became disenchanted due to parts situation as well as Jacuzzi poor performance in last few years). He ended up buying back a couple of Jacuzzis). He sold D1 last year, without an exclusive arrangement, and is really getting into D1 this year. Also sells swim lanes and pools as well as home remodeling. Has a 2 person service staff and is looking for a 3rd.
Would like to talk with you about the others you have seen and the dealer locations, but I presume that you live in Northern DE.

[stuart]

Well said Stuart! Did someone type all that for you?

No but my two fingers where very sore the next day...