2023 May June Marina World

OPERATOR TALK: SMART MOVES
Smarter management,
happier customers
Implementing smart technology is usually a gradual process that delivers
positives along the journey. Matt O’Hara, Kevin Lussier, Darrell Barnett and
Mark Jaraczewski give operator feedback for Molo, Marina Master and Stellar
software systems. Each was asked about how they implemented smart
technology; the benefits and problems; customer response; and plans for
future smart initiatives.
Matt O’Hara, owner,
Queen Boat Co –
Freedom Boat Club Lake
George, USA
We bought the marina in 2018 and
when we bought it, the former owner
did everything very old school: pen,
paper and file folders. We were lucky
to even have contact info for some
customers, let alone service records
and work orders. The first thing we
decided we needed to change when
we got here was that we needed a real
system of being able to keep track of
customers and of the work we’re doing
Matt O’Hara
The operations system at Queen Boat Co
has moved from pen and paper to singlesystem
management and communications.
on boats, while having it all in one
software system, including inventory
and all. We shopped around and found
Molo and were happy with what their
system was and how easy it was to use.
Then we implemented that to handle
all our service work orders, all our
parts and customer billing, customer
interactions, loading insurance and
customer vessels.
Benefits include all the
communication with members; sending
invoices and allowing them to pay
online. It’s really streamlining these
things that have been the benefit.
These things were happening before
but through multiple different software
systems and multiple people. With
Molo, we can do all these things
internally and customer-facing in one
spot.
It’s been a big improvement. Any
time customers call, we can pull up
the service history for their boat in two
seconds and let them know what we
did and when. It’s been a huge help
for our customers to offer them online
billings. Sending invoices to customers’
emails, which is what everyone wants
now, gives them the ability to pay
online versus calling to get credit card
numbers. It’s much more streamlined
for payments and it’s a much more
frictionless experience.
The customer interaction with us is
just easy and smooth and quick so it’s
just made their overall experience with
us great.
The next smart initiative we are
adding is putting in charging stations
at our dock to give electric boats the
ability to come and charge up at our
marina. The smart part of that is that
the company has an app, enabling
customers to find marinas that have
superpower chargers. They then find all
their information already loaded into the
app, and can make payment through it.
We are really excited about this as
we will be the first marina with this
charger in the northeast and I think the
third in the United States. I think in the
next few years we are going to see a lot
more of these superchargers, but we
are really happy to be piloting this in the
region.
Kevin Lussier CMM,
director of operations,
Ocean Havens LLC, USA
All of our marinas have implemented
Marina Master software to streamline
the reservation process, send
automated emails, build seasonal
dockage
contracts, and
more, with
ease. Marina
Master software
is integrated
into our website
to enhance
the user
experience.
We even
Kevin Lussier
developed a
loyalty programme to give back to
our customers with discounts on fuel,
dockage, and more.
We use other forms of smart
technology beyond our reservation
and communication system. To create
better security at our facility, we give
each customer a key fob that allows
them access onto their dock and keeps
unauthorised individuals from entering
the marina. Our parking lots also use
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