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The interesting part of customer satisfaction is the advent of social media. We started the
marina in 1961 and word of mouth was the tool of choice from then until 2007. Using a
nautical phrase, it’s difficult to “turn the ship” after 46 years, but when technology changes
quickly, you either adapt or get out.

Let’s jump “feet first” and address negative reviews… every business has them! Here’s a great
piece of inside scoop, the company “Group On” has stated the number one and number two
most vocal complaints for negative customer reviews come from Car Washes and Boat Rentals.
YES! We agree with the boat rentals! We have many different profit centers, but boat rentals
sure do seem to be the “shout point” for negativity!

Here’s the bottom line. We have over 800 rentals a summer and if we max out with 10
passengers on a boat, that’s the potential of 8,000 visitors. As we are all aware, anyone can
leave a review, regardless of if they are the paying customer. As such, I think the fact we have
less than 10 negative reviews over the last 10 years to be tremendous testament to our customer
satisfaction.

Now let’s explore a little deeper… here’s the back story on four of the negative reviews… the
guy from Florida, well… he was so drunk after taking a pontoon boat, that when he drove away
in his car, I called the cops. I’m guessing that a DWI taints the review. The woman disgusted
with our gas pump price is the wife of the man who took the nozzle to eyelevel of our employee
and dropped it to his feet, which caused us to have the Sheriff visit his home for destruction of
property… we were extremely lucky that it didn’t create a spark and explode. The paranoid
party that thought we followed them around on the lake taking photos, was actually a local
resident that took the photo and emailed us… honestly, who has the time to leave a marina in
the peak of summer and follow a customer around! And finally, there is the woman who
insisted the photo I gave her from our surveillance camera was not her and was actually a
man… dang, even when shown a photo of herself looking at the propeller she still couldn’t
admit she actually saw the propeller.

So let’s address propellers.

Propeller damage has been the number one issue of complaint for
decades with our pontoon rental customers. Simply put, accidents
happen. Prior to this season, the common Boat Yard answer was, “the
prop left the dock in good condition, now it’s not, we don’t know what
happened in between because we were not on the boat.” And that’s a
fine answer, but the argument follows with the customer saying things
like “the guy never showed me the prop”, “what’s a prop”, “do you
have a photo of it before”, “How do you know I did it”, and my
favorite “it’s the water’s fault”

We have entered a society where nothing is anyone’s fault. Case in point, the woman who
could not even admit it was her on the surveillance film photo. But guess what… it doesn’t
matter. You have to find a way to operate the marina.

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