POOL BY DESIGN

I originally approached this company to get a quote on a custom built pool. After submitting my idea the response was basically "I can't build this pool" with no explanation as to why. I then asked for further information and feedback. Simon seemed personally offended that I had my own idea as to what I wanted my pool to be like, or that I somehow wanted to cut out his "designer" from the process. I passed on an on-site visit and paying his designer. He went out of his way to make me feel like a peasant/beggar who could not afford his services. After that I left a review on google of my experience. He changed his tune after reading my review and somehow amazingly continuted to belittle me while asking me to remove the review... his response: "You are written off because we do not need you. We refuse more work than we take on. We decided a long time ago we would cherry pick our customers. We do not take on people we don’t think we can make happy & you obviously are a very “entitled “ person. I have responded to your review & I have put you on the map with some of my own reviews. I was, as you were, truthful & opinionative. Now if you decide to remove your head from your ******* I will remove my reviews if you do in kind. Your call but whatever, I am very glad not to do business with you. If you would like I live near your business. I would be happy to spend 10 minutes with you and offer you my advice. I have been in this pool business over 40 years. I can see serious flaws in your design. I very much doubt that if you put that in your back yard you will ever reclaim the cost on resale in fact, it will detract from the salability. I offer my assistance & experience for free, as a courtesy for offending you." Between the self-justification, asking me to remove my review, and FINALLY giving me some reason as to why my idea would not work you'll notice the fact that he set in motion a smear campaign on my own company. He went so far as to create profiles for my company on various sites (yelp, yellowpages, etc.) just to give me bad reviews. Now take note here, he has never done business with my company, so he has no grounds to give me any sort of review. It is truly interesting that someone so busy that he has to "cherry pick" customers and "turn away more business than he takes on" has the time to run around the internet and create profiles and leave bad reviews. I'll leave off with this. After the above happened I stopped responding to him. His last email to me was "That worked out well. Keep poor people like you from bothering us …"

It went very good. They did very excellent work.

Pool By Design can design and build a beautiful pool. If you are thinking about a pool and expect no bumps along the way, they may be an option for you. If you anticipate having any issue, we would highly recommend you consider alternatives. Our pool is beautiful. But as we started asking for updates and having some questions, the owner was so rude and unprofessional to my wife and I. We have been in Charlotte for almost 20 years, done all types of remodeling projects and have never encountered a service professional as rude as the owner. He was beyond unprofessional. The owner never responded when we asked to talk about our back yard being flooded because they told us to fill the pool but didn't connect all the plumbing. But, when we asked for updates on timing or to check if our punch list matched theirs, the emails we received from the owner were appalling. We love our pool, but would not recommend them based on how the owner chooses to engage with his clients. Unfortunately, it really ruined our experience with them and when you're investing as much as you do for a pool, basic, professional treatment isn't asking for too much.

Called for a quote and scheduled someone to come out. He was late then decided not to come as scheduled. I took the day off from work to be available so I called to let the office know their sales person didn't come to the appointment. The person that called me back was the owner. He is the person that was coming out and said he decided not to come to do the quote but never called to cancel. He left me an extremely rude phone message. Part of which said "you couldn't afford me anyway!" This company was the single WORST customer service experience I've had in my whole life. And if the owner disagrees I have his recorded phone message to prove how incredibly unprofessional and rude he is. NEVER USE THESE GUYS! EVER!

Our yard turned out to be a challenge! The guys at Pool by Design handles it like true professionals. We have a sloped backyard, but apparently one side of the yard has a steeper slope than the other. The pool was dug and after looking over the site it was determined that it was not the way it was intended to be. They came back to our site and redug the entire pool and redrew the plans to make our pool a multi-level decked pool to compensate for the change in the slope. They added more stone in the extra wall in the upper pool wall and split the overall cost with us. Toward the end of the job, they also pushed to get the job finished as we were deep into the drought and we were trying to find a water company to fill the pool. They worked with us every step of the way and we were able to finish the pool and find a water company to fill it so that the plaster could be done. Outside of the slope issue, we had only minor issues that came up, including some cracked concrete decking and some drainage issues, both of which were dealt with, and some minor stone coping repair work that still needs to be done. The project manager, Jeff, has been absolutely great to work with. He would do pretty much anything we asked him to do. The pool was laid out in our backyard to make it look as if it had always been there (not just a recent add-on). The pool and surrounding areas, with the landscaping turned out absolutely gorgeous. I'm absolutely glad we did this and would recommend them to anyone that would be interested in putting a pool in.

I must say that I was very disappointed by PBD. There was over $13,000 in budget over runs.