Service Champions
Owner: Scott Prociv
Billings, MT
Scott Prociv says that if you don’t have a passion for the hot tub industry, it’s time to get out. And passion is certainly not lacking at his store, Montana HotSpring Spas in Billings, Mont., where they have assembled a team that is willing to take care of the smallest of customer needs.
Their service team faces some unique challenges, sometimes having to cover 300 to 400 miles in a day.
“The truth is, we’re always researching ways to make a profit in the service department, but it’s difficult to do because of the geographic region we serve,” Prociv says. So, like many retailers he looks at the intrinsic value of service rather than the monetary.
“We just use that edge of our sword to stay sharp with our commitment to back up our product,” Prociv says. “It’s like selling the invisible. Service is a word, it’s a cliché, until you need it and then when people have a problem it’s revealed in how fast we can ‘make it easy to take it easy.’”
Prociv got into the hot tub industry back in 1988 and he and his wife purchased a store in 1998. They recently finished a 2,000-foot expansion of their showroom, which is quite an accomplishment since their store burned to the ground about eight years ago. While many wouldn’t recover from a disaster like that, Prociv can’t see himself doing anything else.
“You [have to] love it to have [the] passion to stay in the business for that purpose or get out of it and find something else to do. If you got into it to make money and you’re not serving people truly with the passion of the business – the relaxation, the therapy, the wellness of the hot tub – then you probably don’t belong in it anymore.”