Boatyard

Boatyard User Tip of the Day 💡 While we offer over 18 different ways to sort and filter your work orders, the real game-changer is to sort them by the "Last Contacted" field. This helps you:

✔️ Prevent customers from slipping through the cracks
✔️ Catch important internal updates, like missed parts arrivals
✔️ Follow up on unanswered estimates to keep orders flowing in
✔️ Send proactive status updates to stay ahead of customer inquiries

To get started, simply navigate to your Orders module and click the "Last Contacted" column header. It’s a simple yet effective way to drive efficiency in your order management.

What's the one rule of professional courtesy that should always be respected between two service companies ?

"Every customer is a VIP customer." We hear that a lot. The truth is that every customer deserves excellent customer service, but they aren't all VIPs. So what makes a customer a VIP?

✅ High "lifetime value". VIPs will bring you repeated business over the course of their boat's lifetime. That does NOT necessarily mean that they are the ones that place the most expensive orders.

✅ Higher share of wallet. That means that they purchase more than just one service from you.

✅ Referrers. The customers who speak highly of your business and refer friends your way are solid gold.

The VIP Customer feature in Boatyard lets you set spending thresholds or manually designate customers as VIPS, so your team knows when to roll out the red carpet even when you can't be there.

What is the #1 piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting out in this industry?

Uber has now entered the "boat sharing" world with the launch of Uber Yacht services in 8 European countries. While the first iterations are limited to high-class experiences, this opens the doorway to a world where you can snag a ride from your dock to a restaurant within minutes. What positive or negative implications do you think that business model will have on our increasing on-water safety issues?

Attention Boatyard Customers! 🫡

Join us tomorrow at 4:00 PM EST for an exclusive webinar covering the newest tools in your Boatyard dashboard, including Digital Inspection Reports, AI Assist, Job Activity Feeds, and more.

This is your chance to get the inside scoop on how to maximize the features and functionality of Boatyard, plus an open Q&A session where you can ask us anything.

Head to Live Support at the bottom of your Boatyard dashboard to register now. See you there!

Here are 4 zero-investment ways to start improving your customer experience.

1. Start communicating proactively. Send an update when you start the job, not just when you finish.

2. Perform a full inspection on the boat's health every time you perform a service, and send them the completed checklist.

3. Start getting more personal. Tailor services based on their preferences and boat types. Use their name in all of your marketing outreach. Leave dollar-store bubbles on the dash when they have kids.

4. Send photos and videos of every service job, always before you send the bill.

Boosting team efficiency is a way to make more money without increasing revenue. Here are 4 steps to tackling efficiency as your key growth strategy this year.

1. Audit your workflows for bottlenecks or common points of error. Ask your team for their opinions and finalize a list.

2. Address each item on your list with either better communication, better technology, or both. Where can you eliminate duplicate data entry? What can you automate rather than do manually?

3. Next, focus on scheduling. Get your technician to track hours with detailed notes for every job. What is taking longer than you expect? What's the fix? (PS. If you haven't switched to a mobile-friendly software, it's time.)

4. Talk about it. Make sure your efficiency objective is shared with your team, and clearly and visibly measured for the rest of the season. Meet about it monthly.

Memorial Day weekend is in your rear view mirror, so now it's time to sharpen your focus on where you will drive growth this year.

There are four main growth paths for marine service teams:

1️⃣ Boosting internal efficiency
2️⃣ Fine-tuning your customer experience
3️⃣ Driving more revenue
4️⃣ Broadening your service offering.

If you spent the rest of 2024 focused on one, which would it be?

Follow along with us this week as we take a deeper dive into each one!

3 ways to use to survive the industry's busiest week:

1. Buy yourself time to respond to customers by sending one-click status updates via SMS and email.

2. Display our high-res Scheduler in your work area to keep the entire team aware of all moving parts, with color-coded jobs and push-notifications for important status updates.

3. Instantly alert and engage your teammates to important information by tagging them in the job activity feed.

Communication is key!

Happy from the crew at (who unfortunately are not crewing this beauty from today, but its namesake is not out of the question).

From our very first meeting, it was clear that the Essential Shipyard Industries team is made with the right stuff.

They are incredibly organized, for starters. More importantly, every single member of their staff is driven to achieve the same goal: providing a trustworthy, seamless, one-stop-shop service experience for their clients.

And who would not love working with a crew that uses loyalty shot glasses to get $100 off a bottom cleaning??

Our only regret is that we are a cloud-based platform, so we don't have a good excuse to regularly visit their gorgeous location on the . Keep your eye on this brand in the marine service industry. They are doing big things! 🙌 Give them a follow at Essential Shipyard Industries.

The wait is over. With precise inventory control, reservation handling, approval processes, and PO management, you can now seamlessly run your parts department alongside all your favorite tools in .