Marina Dock Age, September/October 2005

Whether It’s The Customer’s Fault or the Marina’s,
It’s Important to Always Play Fair
by Dennis P. Kissman

The end of the summer season is an important time for a marina to reflect on how its customer service performed during the boating season.

How did you handle the problems throughout the season? Were you proactive enough to put out “fires” before they got out of control? Were you complacent about certain things that eventually got so bad you lost a customer?

This past season, Carole Dudley, director of operations at Crown Bay Marina in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, was able to maintain good customer relations despite situations that could have turned ugly had she, as a marina manager, not handled them correctly.

Crown Bay Marina serves a customer base with boats ranging from 20-ft. runabouts to 200-ft. mega-yachts. During the peak season, it’s not uncommon to turn over between 20 to 30 transit boats of all sizes on a daily basis. The marina works hard to avoid putting itself in a position where it must assume financial responsibility for mishaps. “It’s a good way to lose your shirt in a very short time, especially when you’re dealing with 150-ft. mega-yachts,” Dudley explains. The key is staff training, a daily dos and don’ts, and “having your mind in gear and anticipating things.”

However, from time to time, bad things happen at good marinas.

Resolving conflict

Dudley says the best way to address and defuse a bad situation is to first listen to the guests. “Let them vent for however long it takes. This takes the heat off the moment and after the guest has repeated the same thing 47 times, it eventually withers to a point where you can start getting reasonable.”

“Initially, try to be on their side in the understanding department — which isn’t difficult because you’re on a factfinding mission and the best way to obtain information is by appearing to be on their side. You can nod your head as if in agreement, but be careful not to verbalize anything that may come back to bite you,” she cautions.

“Understand that regardless of how ridiculous their beef may sound to you — as in, ‘ You know that you can resolve this in 60 seconds!’ — it’s obviously very important to them or they wouldn’t be ranting. Be genuinely interested in what they are saying, ask some key questions to demonstrate not only that you are tuned in but to gather information that may assist you later on, and do be sympathetic and understanding. In other words, ease into it.” Continue »