Training

As usual, everyone went somewhere for some training. Look at any April Newsletter on our website, and you’ll see the kinds of things we do every year.  There were three unusual things this year, though. Patrick went to the Olhausen factory in San Diego for advanced billiard training, then flew to the Marquis Spa factory in Oregon for advanced spa product training. This was his second trip to both places. He came back for a week, then went to Chicago for Marquis Spa technician and service training. We don’t actually expect to send Patrick out to fix spas, as we already have four certified technicians working here. We had noticed that half of all spa problems could be solved on the phone without waiting for a tech and we want to always have someone here who can solve a problem on the first call. Patrick’s going to be able to do that.

We also had some great customer service training that I designed with a professional training company, and was paid for by Target Buying Group (I’m the president). We had a dozen people at each of the two full day classes in Boxborough, Massachusetts. We’re hoping to improve our ability to think of you first, to solve your problems immediately, to not get emotional or defensive when dealing with problems, and to leave the stress of our jobs here when we go home.

We also had a great day of specialized training sponsored by Target. I invited research scientists from Baquacil and N. Jonas (makers of most Target chemicals plus Relax, Enjoy, On Guard and others). My idea was to get at the scientists without sales people around.

It was very interesting, and it will make us all better at understanding pool water chemistry.