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| - Quick summary of my review: I do not recommend using California Pools.
We made an appointment with California Pools and went to their office in Chandler. Spent a couple of hours designing the pool and the decking (in retrospect, this is way longer than necessary. Since this was our first time going through the process, we didn't know any better). In the end, we compared them to a few other pool builders, and California Pools' bid was slightly higher. We believed their claims of superior quality equipment and decided to go ahead with them.
From there everything went downhill. After the initial meeting, the sales team was remarkably unresponsive. It requires multiple messages to receive a single response to a customer question. Also, they would not commit to a start date. When we asked, the response was always evasive - waiting on permit, weather is poor, no workers available. My assumption was that our project was not worth their time, and they prioritized their staff to more expensive or possibly commercial projects. Whether that was true or false, who knows! Customer perception is everything... When you do make your plans, be sure they are absolutely correct. Filing a change order is a pain, since you have to deal with the unresponsive sales team again (on top of the change order fees, if any are required).
Ultimately, my perception was that they were doing us a favor by building us a pool, rather than treating us as a valued customer. California Pools is one of the larger pool builders in the Phoenix area, and you definitely feel as if you're "just a number." Based on the older Yelp reviews, I'm guessing they used to have solid customer service and quality products. This likely resulted in expansion and increased market share. Now, in my opinion, they are relying on the brute force of their size to stay afloat since they're stretched too thin. Sustainable? Who knows. In the end, we decided to drop California Pools out of frustration and go with a completely different company. Our new pool looks fantastic and the process from beginning to end was stress-free. The entire construction process with this other pool builder was easier than those initial few weeks dealing with California Pools.
Epilogue: our electric utility company (APS) gives customers a refund for variable speed pool pumps. To get the refund, they send a third party inspector to calibrate your pump for optimal efficiency. While he was calibrating our pump, this inspector commented offhand that our current equipment is better than the equipment California Pools uses (and was cheaper for us!). Go figure.
There are many pool builders of various sizes in Phoenix - just look them up in your favorite search engine. My advice: move on to one of the other companies.
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