Aaron Fox is a business development manager at Aqualytix, who’s been with the company for just over two months – although he brings 13 years of water hygiene experience to the business. He lives in Nottinghamshire and has three children between the ages of five and 15. We spoke to him about his new role and his passion for solving customer problems.
1. Tell us about your job, Aaron
When someone outside of work asks me what I do, I tell them that I solve customer problems. Although the primary role of a business development manager is to increase sales, I can only do that by having a good grasp of the issues our customers face and doing everything I can to help solve them.
2. Can you describe those customer issues?
In my experience, most organisations are genuinely concerned about maintaining water hygiene compliance. They naturally don’t want their building users to fall ill due to a Legionella outbreak, and understandably don’t want to face the negative press associated with an outbreak.
They worry about keeping up with changes in regulation. For example, it’s now necessary to do a risk assessment each time a customer changes their water system. But many don’t have the time or expertise to keep on top of compliance, which keeps them awake at night.
On the other side of the spectrum, I’ve encountered organisations that only realise they have an issue when there’s been a compliance breach.
3. Can you tell us more about your industry experience?
I left school and became a water pipe fitter. I then moved into the world of air hygiene and even worked alongside the author of air hygiene regulations.
Around 13 years ago, I started in a water hygiene role and worked my way up from the bottom to the top, becoming an operational lead.
My operational experience serves me well as a business development manager because I have first-hand experience of the technical side of maintaining water hygiene compliance.
I’ve also been a facilities manager, which is massively beneficial as many of my customers today are in a similar role.
4. What should customers look for in a water hygiene company?
If organisations are looking for a water hygiene services provider, they must choose one that puts compliance above all else.
Water hygiene non-compliance is illegal and can lead to outbreaks of Legionella, which can spread quickly among communities, causing widespread illness and, in severe cases, fatalities.
Like in many industries, there are greedy salespeople out there. But compliance is the priority, and I personally never lose sight of that.
5. Based on your experience, what sets Aqualytix apart?
In my opinion, Aqualytix harnesses technology well to monitor compliance across all their customer’s water assets in real-time. This is an example of how they put compliance first.
It means that the Aqualytix team – and their customers – all share the same picture of the customers’ water assets, their compliance status, and what work has been delivered on each of the water assets by the Aqualytix engineers and when.
This enables us to prevent compliance breaches or take immediate remedial action if there’s ever a risk.
6. What's the worst example of water hygiene non-compliance you've ever seen?
A few years back, there was an organisation that had cooling towers, which are the most high-risk type of water assets. These towers were corroded and falling apart. If Legionella bacteria were ever present in the towers, the aerosolised water would spread the bacteria across several miles towards a densely populated city centre.
7. How are you feeling about your new role going into 2024?
Fantastic! I’ve had a great induction at the brand-new Severn Trent Academy, and I’ve just come out of a roadshow with CEO Liv Garfield. I feel ready to help contribute to the success of this fast-growing company.
I love the openness of the people who work here, and I’m looking forward to a compliant and prosperous new year.
Aqualytix is a specialist in water treatment and Legionella control and one of the UK’s leading Legionella training course providers. For more information, go to https://www.stservices.co.uk/water-hygiene/
