Sage Is Pillar Of Wisdom For Pool Cleaning

When he passed away in 2001, a 22-year-old Gemma Sage was left to run Servochem, the specialist cleaning chemical business her father had built before his untimely death. “He was leaving me as a very young managing director, but he had the confidence in me to run the company on a day-to-day basis” says Gemma. “I was determined to give it my best shot by maintaining the foundations of the company of providing good quality products and an excellent service with the support of our very loyal team,“ she adds. ServoChem was originally founded in 1972 and it was in 1978 that Gemma’s father, Brent Sage, joined the sales team, working his way up to become managing director, selling cleaning chemicals to all types of industry. Gemma joined the sales team in 1996 and became a director of the company two years later, 1998.

BIGGEST SELLERS

These days, Servochem’s two biggest sellers are Poolsafe Dual Action and Deep Clean, maintenance products that remove unhygienic limescale, body fat, rust, and calcium from all wet leisure areas. “As things began to get tough in other industries, we discovered Deep Clean that was a real hit in the hotel and leisure industry,” explains Gemma. “After a couple of years of trials, we decided to concentrate on this product and build a range around it, dealing with all the problems that standard cleaners couldn’t tackle,” she adds. Servochem’s target market is now focused on health and leisure clubs, holiday parks, swimming pool contractors and suppliers, flooring companies, renovation experts and anyone who has swimming pools, spas, shower areas and changing rooms. Gemma comments: “Quite often the people buying the cleaning products are not the people using them. “It is important to us, to not just provide the products but back it up with full product information and a training schedule as well as after sales support and on-going advice,” she says. “As well as having their usual daily cleaning routines, it is vital that pool operators have a maintenance programme in place,” explains Gemma. “They need to make sure they are using the right product for the right job, rather than using endless litres of the wrong product.” Servochem is looking to grow its coverage in the water leisure sector, both directly, but through specialist suppliers and has a series of demonstration videos available to view on its website. Says Gemma: “If you have a swimming pool in need of a new lease of life or you would like to become a distributor for our products, we would be delighted to hear from you.”