Hot Tubs and Arthritis, What Makes a Good Hot tub, Arizona hot tubs

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Sales Techniques used to victimize consumers

Have you ever spent time with a sales person and felt dirty after you leave, but you can't quite figure out what was going on, or what was it about that guy made you feel like you were being used by them? Well, don't feel alone. There are plenty of slick sales tricks used today to get you to buy.

Implications: "The forming of a conclusion from premises rather than explicit information provided in a passage."

When something is "implied" it means that it may or may not be true, but it leads you, the consumer to believe things that are simply not true. It is a way of lying, without really blatent lies.

"I don't want my kids soaking in yukky water." This is from a major manfaturer's sales representative. This company uses the ridiculous %100 no bypass filtering that doesn't even follow the basic health rules of the ANSI or UL for the amounts of water filtered daily.

The "implication" is that other spas allow your kids to soak in disgusting water. This is really funny, considering that most of the complaints we get about those spas is directly related to the amount of crap in the spa water, because of the poor filtiering.
These are the spas that sell the most chemicals to keep them cleaner.

There is on thing for sure about this company, they do have a lot of spas sold and they have the most "suckers" who own them. When I tell people who have purchased these cheaply made and overpriced spas they normally will get angry with me. Years later, they will send me an apology for the information, because these spas operate exactly as I tell people.

"Only our spas are rated for use by the Arthritis Foundation." This was told to me by a woman with arthritis who was about to buy one of their spas, based upon the salesman's false implications. This company places the Arthritis Foundation logo on advetizing, "implying" an indosement. There is no indorsement, and there is never any, but it is "implied" by just being on the page of advertising.

Inferences: "In pragmatics (linguistics), implication is the relationship between two statements where the truth of one suggests the truth of the other, but--distinguishing implication from entailment--does not require it. For example, the sentence Mary had a baby and got married strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true even if Mary had her baby after she got married. ..."

Much of my remarks are about one company that is rapent with nonsense. These are the people with the most money and the least ethics. They place some sort of advertising about an outside test, by a "prestigious" testing company.

The implication is that all of their spas are energy efficient, but in the test they use a 120V spa with a 1500 Watt heater, while most of their spas are 240V with 6000 watt water heater. The inference is that if this spa that is basically not usable in most states in winter, has a low electric consumption then the rest of the spas in the "pack" will be similar in energy use.

The test is ambiguous, to say the least, because it does not compare their spas against better designed spas and the test spa is never used by people, so the normal use of the jet pumps to clean up the water is not part of the test. No ozone running to save 60 watts to 120 watts. There is no wind in the test, and the test is of absolutely no practical value, except to concoct more sales inferences that are basically lies.

Spa Industry's Reliance upon your ignorance:

If there is one thing that spa stores rely on, more than any other thing, it is the spa shopper's ignorance when it comes to hot tubs and spas. Don't feel guilty because you don't know much about spas, you need to learn before you shop.
Here is a true story that happened in Denver.

I was in the store one day, when one of my employees called and told me to turn on the radio to the Tom Martino, consumer advocate program.

There was a fellow on the phone with Tom, who had gone shopping at a spa store and was thown out of the store for asking questions. He asked about the insulation, pumps, controls, heater, shell construction and all the stuff that an educated consumer should be asking. The sales person could not handle those questions, so he got the store manager to come and talk with this shopper. The store manager threw the shopper out of the store, because he thought he was a spy for another spa store.
I almost busted a gut laughing because the fellow had read our web site the night before he went shopping.

The sales man was caught looking inside the shopper's car, apparently, looking for evedence of this guys association with the spa industry. I guess they were looking for spa parts, pool and spa trade magazines or something.

If you want to be taken for a ride by a spa company, then go into the store blind and see how well you come out on the deal? The bare minimum information you need is the "Shopping List" I publish. I recommend the "How Spas Are Made Book."

Building Obligation and Guilt to buy:

One of the techniques of a spa company from out in New England is to teach all sorts of techniques to build "obligation" in the prospect to purchase. You may litterally feel guilty if you don't buy.

The advertising says to call for a free "site inspection" for a spa. When you call for any information on prices, they will not tell you.   If you call for the appointment for a "site inspection" they will insist that all of the "decision makers" be there when the "site inspector" comes.

What happens according to my information is the site inspector is a highly trained, high pressure sales person. They start out with spending an hour or so, doing a 5 minute job for me.   They take out the tape measure and write a bunch of notes while the "qualify you" as a buyer. This "work" will tend to create a false sense of obligation . The longer you let them stay, the more you are obligated to buy. It is psychological garbage.   You will not ever hear a price until they are ready to "close" you. These methods are used and are particularly effective on regular nice people. The commissions are very heavy and some of the stories I have heard make me want to dissassociate myself from the spa industry. A lot of what goes on makes me feel that way.

Chemical Free Spas:

I have a problem with this statement, because, we offer the most ecologically friendly non-halogen based methods of caring for spas, but it is not "chemical free". The only spas that are chemically free are empty. The "implication" is that there is no care or work involved in owing a spa.

The sales person is taught to avoid any form of words that will result in the shopper balking at purchasing, even if it is something that the shopper needs to know about before they buy.   They are taught to quickly answer with a short statement like, "I'll get into that later. It is easy." Then they go onto another part of the sales pitch and never ever discuss the spa care and maintenance the owners have to do again.

So, they imply that there is no work involved and they avoid the subject like the plague.

There are a lot more of these tricks played on consumers. Please read all of the articles on this site and read the book, How Spas are Made. It will make you a smart spa shopper.

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