The truth is, many aquarium servicers are so occupied with their filling their appointments and booking new ones that they have no time for an objective, company-wide look at quality control.
There a few different types of aquarium service providers out there, and to see what kind of quality you can expect, let’s review them.
- The “jobber”. If you have a “guy-and-a-bucket” type one or two man operation, what you probably have is someone that has a full or part time “real” jobs and is servicing aquariums on the side for a little money or to facilitate his hobby of aquarium keeping.
- The Local Aquarium Shop. If you’re having your local aquarium shop service your aquarium, remember, despite the fact the Chicagoland area boasts some beautiful aquarium shops, their priority tends to be the storefront first, service and installation second. Often, a distant second at that. Your technician is often someone who is splitting time between the shop and the field, and with the main purpose of simply selling more fish and product for the storefront’s benefit.
- Dedicated Service Provider. Lastly, there are organized companies such as Blue Planet that take time to train their staff, feature benefits such as 24 hour emergency service, are fully insured, have 9-5 office support and take aquarium servicing seriously.
The one thing that sets Blue Planet apart from everyone else offering aquarium service is quality control.
Every week at Blue Planet starts with “The Monday Morning Meeting”. This is a time during which the entire company will sit down together, review the upcoming work week, have a tech talk session which reviews the latest innovations in equipment, issues arising in the field, fish health and water chemistry. Most importantly, we always conduct a video review of the work completed the previous week.
Each tech is supplied with an HD video camera. Upon arriving at an account, they will shoot a preliminary video of what the tank initially looks like. After the service has been completed, they will shoot another video of the finalized work, which includes a synopsis of water chemistry test results. This allows everyone in the company to review each and every service and installation performed by the company the previous week. Constructive criticism by all is always encouraged on topics ranging from aquarium décor, to fish selection, even to how well the cabinet and supplies are kept.
The video process is a great opportunity to discover potential problems on the horizon and fix them before they begin. This quality control/video review meeting is something that is unique to Blue Planet and is what enables us to confidently say that we are the only company you should call for aquarium services.
