Yesterday saw My-Villages, the marine industry’s online collaborative, announce that four premier service facilities in Florida as well as Massachusetts have joined the expanding list of Boat Village Innovation Partners.
Boat Village Innovation Partners are companies committed to leveraging technology to improve how they connect, communicate and collaborate with their customers.
The latest additions include Boat Yard Services, of West Palm Beach, Fla.; North Atlantic Marine Services, of Wareham, Mass.; Whiticar Boat Works Inc.; and Yacht Concierge USA, both of Stuart, Fla.
“Today’s customers are used to having instant access to information and seamless digital communication—and this technology provides exactly that,” said My-Villages founder and CEO Kevin Hutchinson. “It helps service yards streamline their workflow and provide boat owners exactly what they want.”
The four yards join a growing list of marine firms, including The Hinckley Company that have partnered with My-Villages and signed on as Boat Village Innovation Partners.
The Innovation Partner program draws together forward-looking marine businesses that want to use technology to streamline communications with customers and increase their business. To do so, partner companies agree to use The Boat Village, a Web and mobile application that allows marine professionals to radically change how they interact with customers.
The Professional version of The Boat Village allows service providers to play a proactive role, anticipating a boat owner’s needs to help drive revenues and enhances customer service. The application allows them to have an inventory of every major piece of equipment on the vessel and its maintenance schedule, so technicians can stay ahead of owners’ needs and take command of the process.
Service requests, with supporting photos and video are exchanged and documented electronically and technicians can provide updates on progress and completions, automatically updating the digital service history record for both them and their clients. It also contains manuals and parts lists to help save time. Perhaps most important, it provides a digital platform for closed-loop communications, reducing email strings and phone tag, simplifying service coordination, and reducing the chance for miscommunication or missed items.
“Today’s boats are complicated machines and today’s owners are educated and sophisticated customers,” Hutchinson said. “Modern yards need modern tools to provide these folks with top-shelf service. The Boat Village’s Professional service allows yards to better harness the expertise they already have and meet those needs head on.”
Yard owners say they are already seeing benefits. “My customers are always looking for better ways to handle service tasks and The Boat Village really makes it easy for us to coordinate and get work done,” said Jason Smith, president of Boatyard Services in West Palm Beach. “The Boat Village creates automatic reminders about what service items are due, so both our clients and we know when maintenance is needed—in effect, the boat tells us when work should be done. We can then use the system to coordinate jobs, updates and record keeping, which makes it incredibly simple for all of us.”
“The Boat Village is a marine industry tool whose time has come,” said Jim Dragseth, president of Whiticar Boat Works in Stuart. “People use mobile technology to deal with their bank, their favorite stores and to book restaurant reservations—all kinds of things. It only makes sense to use technology to manage their boat. The Boat Village is an all-in-one communication and collaboration tool that will help grow our marine business and make it more efficient. No more phone tag. No more full inboxes.”
Additional Innovation Partners will be signed and announced in coming weeks.
