Streamlining Tasks & Operations for Maritime Professionals
Project Management Best Practices to Help Dealers & Surveyors Deliver More Value
June 15, 2015
Most businesses understand the value of effective task and operations management. Executives rely on a variety of tools to manage their tasks, from basic apps for roles and operations management to complex enterprise software, depending on the type of work and the degree of organization required. Software not only helps businesses manage an array of tasks more effectively, it also adds tremendous value to their processes, which businesses can quantify in terms of return on investment and capitalize on strategically if they choose. Moreover, many tasks that modern businesses perform simply cannot be accomplished effectively without the use of appropriate software programs.
Client engagement and customer-centric service delivery is key for every service provider in today’s highly competitive business environment. So, businesses across industries—be it retail, eCommerce, hospitality, travel or recreation and leisure—are investing millions of dollars in creating tools for better client engagement and greater customer-centricity. And these investments are paying off in higher customer retention as well as winning new and repeat business.
Surprisingly enough, the maritime industry—a market segment where customer value is key—remains largely devoid of streamlined communications tools or task and operations management best practices.
What buyers spend and what they expect in return. A boat buyer spends thousands of dollars to purchase a boat. The prices of bigger boats, as we know, run into millions. On top of the boat’s purchase price, the average owner spends thousands of dollars every year on maintenance. In such a market, where spending is so high, customers naturally want maximum value for their money in terms of both the product they buy and the service associated with it.
Yet value isn’t always easy to establish. A lot of potential new buyers are reluctant to invest in a boat because they don’t know how much they will have to spend on its maintenance. For first-time buyers with no prior experience maintaining a boat, the maintenance process can be intimidating with no reliable tools available to assist their efforts. The financial uncertainty and fear of mismanagement this situation creates can often be very discouraging.
Dealers need to deliver more value. From the dealers’ perspective, the challenges that buyers face, as discussed above, put them under even more pressure to go the extra mile. To encourage prospective owners to buy in confidence, dealers need to deliver them the best possible value. That means providing boat buyers a dependable touchpoint that gives them complete peace of mind so they can truly enjoy the ownership of their boats.
Surveyors are key in delivering more value. The first point of contact for boat buyers—whether they are buying a new boat or a used one—is, often, a surveyor. After a buyer has purchased his precious new boat, he will continue to rely on the critical advice and recommendations of a surveyor throughout its lifetime. Thus, the surveyor plays a critical role in keeping owners happy with their boats. With such a high impact on owner satisfaction, surveyors need the tools and resources to perform their surveys in the most efficient and accurate manner possible.
Streamlining tasks and operations lets dealers and surveyors deliver more value. Coordination of tasks and operations across service providers enables maritime service professionals to take a collaborative approach to offering top notch service, leading to much greater efficiency. Clearly, the complexity of service that the yachting market demands requires a highly coordinated ecosystem. Software best addresses this need.
Software offers the right tools and resources, which the industry severely lacks, to make warranty and issues management more coordinated and streamlined. Not only does it create a pathway for better communication between dealers and buyers, it also provides a common space for owners, dealers, surveyors, warranty managers, captains and contractors to come together to make boat maintenance more efficient.
VesselWise is a software platform designed to address the unmet needs of maritime professionals for better collaboration, task management and customer service. Learn how VesselWise enables real-time collaboration between boat owners and service providers to identify, target and resolve every kind of vessel-related issue at www.vesselwise.com.
