What PoolBoss Says
Split a pool route by area and drive time, not by pool count. Draw the line so each technician gets a tight group of stops with its own service days. Keep the hard pools and your biggest accounts with the experienced tech for the first month. Then tell every customer who's coming before the first new visit.
You hired your first tech, and now the route you've driven alone for years has to become two. You know every gate, every dog, and every pool that turns green if you blink. He knows none of it yet.
The fast way is to cut the customer list in half and hand him a page. That feels fair, and it sets up one easy day and one long one. Below is how to draw the line, which pools stay on your truck, what to tell customers, and when to move stops again.
At a glance
Key takeaways
- Draw the split on a map by area, then use pool count only to check that each side can pay for a truck.
- Keep problem pools, commercial accounts, and keyed gates on the experienced tech's truck for the first month.
- Tell each customer the new tech's name and day before his first visit, and say what isn't changing.
- Check finish times after four weeks and move a few stops at a time until the days are close.
How do I split a pool route between two technicians?
Start with a map, not a list. A route is a set of places, and the split has to make sense on the road. If you've forgotten how the route was built in the first place, it was built around where the pools sit. Split it the same way.
Work through it in this order.
- Put every stop on a map, one service day at a time.
- Draw one line that leaves each tech a tight area. Use a main road, a canal, or a freeway, something you'd cross only once a day.
- Give each side its own service days, so no neighborhood gets two trucks on the same day.
- Pull the hard pools and your biggest accounts back onto your own truck for the first month.
- Check each tech's longest day by time, counting the driving, and move stops across the line until the days are close.
- Tell every customer whose tech is changing before the first new visit.
- Look at it again after four weeks and move what didn't work.
Equal pool counts make unequal days
Two techs with the same number of pools can have very different days. Where a pool sits doesn't change how long you spend at it. It changes how long you spend getting there.
We ran the PoolBoss route optimizer on synthetic routes to show it. These are made-up test stops, not customer data. Each run drops stops at random inside a square, starts from a shop in the middle, and puts the stops in the shortest order it can find. Driving is figured at about 25 mph in a straight line, so true road time would run longer.
With 9 stops in a square about 2.5 miles across, the driving averaged 14 minutes. The same 9 stops in a square about 10 miles across averaged 57 minutes. That's 43 more minutes in the truck for the same pool count.
Taking pools away from the wide side doesn't fix it. With 7 stops, the wide area still averaged 51 minutes. The tight area with 11 stops averaged 16. One tech has 4 more pools and still drives a third as long.
Hypothetical example: you run 72 pools and split them 36 and 36. Your half is packed into two neighborhoods. His half has the far-out stops you picked up one at a time over the years. He'll finish late every day, and the pool count will say the split was fair.
| Service day | Area | Average driving | Range across 10 runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 pools | About 2.5 miles across | 14 min | 9-20 min |
| 11 pools | About 2.5 miles across | 16 min | 11-24 min |
| 7 pools | About 10 miles across | 51 min | 29-67 min |
| 9 pools | About 10 miles across | 57 min | 38-79 min |
What to weigh when you draw the line
Drive time comes first, but four other things move the line. Here's how to weigh each one.
Size each side against how many pools one tech can cover in a day, and give the new tech a lighter day than yours to start. You can add stops once he's finishing on time. Taking stops away after a rough first month is harder on him and on the customers.
| What to weigh | Why it matters | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Drive time | It's the part of the day that changes most from one side to the other | Draw the line here first |
| Pool count | It's what you bill on, and it's easy to count | Use it last, to check that neither side is too light to pay for a truck |
| Hard pools | A new tech can't read a problem pool yet | Keep them on the experienced tech's side for the first month |
| Customer ties | Some customers signed up for you, not your company | Keep them at first and hand them over in person |
| Service day | Customers plan gates, dogs, and yard crews around it | Keep each pool on the day it already has |
Keep the hard pools with the tech who knows them
For the first month, some pools stay on your truck no matter which side of the line they're on. A new tech is learning your stops, your truck, and your way of doing a visit all at once. Don't add your worst pools to that list.
Keep these four kinds.
- The pool that goes green. You know its bad circulation spot and how much chlorine it eats in July. He doesn't.
- Commercial and HOA pools. They carry more rules and more money, and a mistake there costs you the account.
- Pools that need a key, a code you were told in person, or a call ahead.
- The customer who calls. Some people will phone you over a leaf. Let them meet the new tech with you standing there.
Tell customers before they meet a stranger in the yard
Tell every customer on the new tech's side before his first visit. Somebody they've never seen is about to open their gate and walk into the backyard. If they hear it from you first, it's a non-event. If they find out from the doorbell camera, you get a phone call.
Keep the note short. Say his first name, the day he'll come, and that it's the same day as before. Say what stays the same: the price, the service, and your phone number. Say you trained him and you're still the one to call.
Send it about a week ahead, then again the day before the first visit. For your biggest accounts, skip the text and introduce him in person on your last visit.
Write down what each customer needs before you hand the stop over. Gate codes, dog names, where the hose bib is, which neighbor has the spare key. If it only lives in your head, it stays on your truck.
Make the split in your software, not on paper
Once the line is drawn, move the stops where the schedule lives, so each tech's phone shows the right pools on the right day.
In PoolBoss you open the route, choose Restructure route, then Split into a new route. You name the new route and check the stops that move. Suggest a balanced split picks half of them for you. When every stop's address is on the map, it groups the nearby stops together. If an address is missing, it falls back to stop order and tells you so.
That suggestion is a starting point, and it splits by count. Change it to match the line you drew. The preview shows how many stops move, how many stay, and how many upcoming visits go with them. Nothing changes until you confirm.
The new route keeps the same tech, day, and schedule as the old one. Your last step is assigning stops and service days to each technician, which here means putting the new tech on the new route.
PoolBoss doesn't write to your customers about the change. That note is yours to send.
Plan to move stops again after four weeks
Your first cut will be off. You drew it from a map and a guess about how fast a new tech works. After four weeks you'll have his real days to look at, and you'll know more about grouping stops by neighborhood than the map told you.
Look at three things. What time does each tech finish on his longest day? Which stops got skipped or pushed? Which customers called you about the change? In PoolBoss, the technician report shows visits finished per tech each week and average stops per day, and Move stops to another route shifts a few pools across the line with the same preview before anything changes.
Move a few stops at a time. Give back the hard pools one or two a week as he shows he can handle them. Each time a pool changes hands, that customer gets the same heads-up as the first time.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What if the new technician is slower than me?
He will be, and that's normal. You've had years on these pools. He's reading every gate latch and equipment pad for the first time. Plan for it by giving him a lighter day than yours at the start. Watch what time he finishes, not how many pools he did. If he's done on time and the water looks right, add a few stops near the ones he already has. If he's running late every day, ride along once before you cut his list. The slow part is often one thing you can fix, like a bad stop order, a truck that isn't stocked the way he needs, or a pool that should have stayed with you. Speed comes with repeats. A tech who rushes to keep up skips brushing and testing, and you'll pay for that later in green pools and callbacks.
Should the new tech shadow me before taking the stops?
Yes. Ride his side of the route together at least once before he runs it alone. Do it on the real service days, in the real stop order, so he sees the drive as well as the pools. You do the first few stops while he watches. Then switch, so he does the work and you watch. At each stop, show him the things a map can't: how the gate opens, where the dog is, which valve sticks, what this customer cares about. Have him write it down or put it in the pool's notes as you go. If a customer is home, introduce him. A week of riding together costs you a week of double labor on those stops. It's still cheaper than a month of callbacks on pools he was never shown.
Keep reading
- How to build a pool service route from scratch
- How to run a pool route through storm season
- How to hand off a pool route when a technician quits
- What to do when you can't get to a pool for service
- How to dispatch pool service jobs efficiently
- How to add and remove stops from a pool service route
- More pool service routes guides
