Will They Stay or Will They Go?

We had the good fortune to read a review of an upcoming biography of Albert O. Hirschman, an economist who had quite a life – some of it literally in the trenches – and a few observations that apply to situations we can find ourselves in every day. (Unfortunately, the article is behind the Wall Street Journal’s subscriber firewall, but if you can get Saturday (March 23)’s edition it’s on page C3.)

The observation that hit home with us was the concept of Exit, Voice and Loyalty, the title of the book he wrote in 1970 (he passed away last December at the age of 97).  It puts into context the choices members of any group have when confronted with the interactions they face on any given day.

Wikipedia summarizes the basic concept as that members of any organization, whether a business, a condo association, or any other grouping, have essentially two possible responses when they feel that an organization is falling down in quality or benefit to the individual: they can either exit (withdraw from the relationship); or, they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint, grievance or proposal for change).

In the real world, the choice between exit and voice occurs every day.  Do you just quit a crummy job, or do you offer solutions to the boss to what you see as problems? Is your local school so terrible that you send your kids to a private school, or do you go to school board meetings and participate? Loyalty affects decisions too, the boss (you?) will consider it when offered solutions to perceived issues.  The folks who thought up seniority systems (or airline frequent flyer programs, per the WSJ article) recognized Loyalty as a powerful force. Voice and Exit exist together in most effective organizations – the ability to exit gives credibility to the voice. There are many examples of the relationship between Exit, Voice and Loyalty, both in WSJ article or the book if you want to really sink your teeth into it!

What does this mean in our little corner of the world? Review sites such as BoaterRated.com exist to provide voice to customers of marine businesses. Disgruntled customers will either talk a situation up, or they will take their business elsewhere. Happy customers are a great source of referral business, which is the best new business one can obtain. In most boating markets, it’s easy enough to find somebody to work on your engine, detail the boat, etc. if the last guy didn’t perform up to snuff. That the customer didn’t have the opportunity to add voice to the issue is a loss to the entire community – the customer could have had the situation corrected for himself, the business could have been made aware of an issue that needed attention, and others in the community would have had a better idea of who to go to.

As small businesses generally, most marine providers don’t have many avenues for their customers to provide voice as an outlet. It’s too easy for customers to Exit these days. Make sure yours have a clear opportunity to choose Voice instead!

This entry will be cross-posted at Boating Industry’s Guest Blog section. Please have a look at the other interesting things they have there!

Catch the wave!

It’s chilly in most of the United States, and we have our spells of weather that’s not boating friendly too here in Florida. It’s boat show season around the country no matter what the weather, which keeps boating on our minds. One of the things that is a constant theme at the shows, in the magazines and newsletters we receive is the perennial question of growing the lifestyle. Marine businesses obviously want to see more boaters out there, and many existing boaters would like more of their friends to come play.

One of the things we like most about the boating lifestyle is the overall friendliness of those out on the water. Granted, there are exceptions (a Sunday afternoon at a crowded boat ramp springs to mind!), but it’s difficult to get too thirsty or hungry at the weekend gatherings at the local sandbar – people will always share, there are social events planned by local marinas or clubs darned near every weekend, and if nothing else, people wave like crazy when passing each other. The innate togetherness of the boating community is unique to the lifestyle, and one that I think all the expansionist articles and features don’t touch on enough.

As BoaterRated.com provides a platform for boaters to share information about their experiences with marine businesses via reviews we have an interest in seeing boating grow too. As boaters ourselves, we get a huge satisfaction of the simple act of sharing a cold beverage with the boat next door who forgot to put the ice in the cooler. And especially out of the even simpler act of sharing a wave with a fellow boater passing by. We hope to share one with you soon!

Our Boater Challenge for 2013

Now that you’ve had a chance to transition into the New Year, we’ve got a BoaterRated challenge for you. We’re even eating our own dog food, as the saying goes. We’re taking up the challenge ourselves!

So what’s the challenge? Is it something tough like perfecting every docking maneuver, committing to use your boat at least 3000 hours this year, or starting a solo circumnavigation? Naah. Our 2013 boater challenge is easier, but it’ll be at least as rewarding!

So here goes: We challenge you to pick one thing on your boat that’s not quite right and …. Get It FIXED!

The tabs on the wind indicator are now fixed!

Has water been seeping into the bilge and you’re not sure where it’s coming from? Been having trouble with that old VHF radio? Is it time to replace the worn out cushions, or finally get the bimini top the spouse and kids have been asking for?

You know what’s been bugging you. We know it’s a boat, so there’s ALWAYS something. We challenge you to pick one itch, and scratch it. If you can fix it yourself, great. If you need some help, we encourage you to turn to a local marine service provider for help.  The boating industry is an important part of your local economy. When you take your business to a marine service provider, it’s a win-win situation. You (hopefully!) get professional help to improve your boat and you help out a local business!

In 2013 we at sleepy BoaterRated Central have several small boat projects underway – the list above didn’t come out of thin air! – and we’re doing our part to keep our local marine guys going. And the best thing of all is that getting something fixed on your boat results in a huge sense of satisfaction. The bilge is dry. Yay! The radio works every time. Yippee! The kids are comfy on the new cushions and loving the shade under the beautiful bimini. Hurrah!

We hope you’ll continue to turn to BoaterRated.com as a source to find the best marine businesses in your area, based on the objective reviews of fellow boaters. And do your fellow boaters a favor and spend a few minutes on BoaterRated.com to rate and review the marine businesses that you use. Your experiences are an invaluable resource for others who are trying to get that one little thing fixed too!

M/Y Aphrodite

One of the advantages of the sleepy BoaterRated Central offices is the view. We overlook the Okeechobee Waterway (as do our friends at Ship Shape TV!), and sometimes the traffic on the waterway is most interesting indeed. Sometimes we just feel obligated to share it!

Today during a conference call, an old favorite passed by. We hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, and at that time we were on the road and enjoying the view from Manhasset Bay Yacht Club in Port Washington, NY. Her name is Aphrodite, she’s 74′ long, originally built in 1937 at the old Purdy yard in Port Washington (nearby Port Washington YC). She went through some tough times and has been lovingly restored and relaunched in 2005. Here’s a detailed post about her history and restoration from the Brooklin Boat Yard that did the work, and includes links to more pictures.

We had a chat with the captain over the radio while she passed, and we hope to visit her during her stay nearby. Just to have seen her pass, however, was a great pleasure, and causes us to reflect on why we appreciate the boating lifestyle – dreams do come true!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Too much fun!

Boy, do we have fun here at sleepy BoaterRated Central! In order to raise the awareness of what we’re doing with the BoaterRated.com site – i.e. providing a platform for boaters to share reviews of their favorite (and sometimes not-so-favorite) boating businesses, we produced and ran a couple of ads on one of our favorite TV shows – Ship Shape TV. We have noticed that more people are looking at the site, and we’d like to encourage marine businesses to implore their customers to tell their fellow boaters about the service they received by writing a review on BoaterRated.

Anyway, we had a great time making the spots, and we hope that if you didn’t see them, you’ll take a look and get a chuckle out of them.  This one is something of a tribute to the 70th anniversary of a famous movie, the other is a tribute to all those professionals out there trying to save us.  We hope you enjoy them!

MDCE – A review

The following post was published as a Guest Blog post at Boating Industry, one of the organizers for the recently completed MDCE. It makes sense to share it here, just in case you missed the post there! And a Very Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I just got back from the Marine Dealer’s Conference and Expo in Orlando and have had a day or three to catch up with stuff and gather some thoughts that I’d like to share.

First off, Boating Industry magazine and the MRAA did an outstanding job pulling together so many incredibly bright and accomplished people to speak for the benefit of their constituencies.  The exhibitors were enthusiastic and the attendees were purposeful in obtaining the latest and greatest news and techniques to further their customer service and, by extension, their profitability in this difficult environment.

A common thread that I heard mentioned over and over was the importance of Word of Mouth in obtaining new business. Everybody from the keynote speaker at the beginning (who was excellent, I thought) to the presenter of the Sell More Service panel at the end of the show implored their audiences to seek referrals from their existing customers.

Why all this mention? Even though we know the answer intuitively, it sometimes just needs to be drummed into our heads.  It’s the best new business you can get. It comes predisposed to spend more, spend more quickly, and costs less to generate. It comes predisposed to TRUST you.

I remember a sales manager I had in a former life that used to console those that found themselves in a dry spell by asking “Remember that technique that worked so well you stopped using it?” That happens with everybody, and the repetition of the referral theme at MDCE tells me that those who consistently and successfully seek referral business are doing well.

We know that a referral is simply a positive review of your performance in a recent interaction. We also know that people seek information about their future interactions in greater and greater numbers. These conversations are moving to the internet at an incredibly rapid pace – we handed out some statistics (available at the MDCE page on the BoatingIndustry.com website) that show the numbers and trends in this direction.

It used to be that most of this “reviewing” happened at the marina or boatyard – Hey Joe, where d’ja get that new widget?  With the growing impact of the internet in sharing information, people are talking about you on line whether you like it or not, just as they were on the docks. It’s easy to do, people can do it at any time of day, and often times it’s done anonymously.  It’s easier now and it helps you to be aware of as much of that conversation in any way possible. There are services out there, such as BoaterRated and/or Engaged!, that offer assistance in monitoring the internet for information about what’s being said on line. You’ve worked hard to establish a positive reputation, it is important that you monitor it and seek to influence the conversation positively.

How to get people to offer their experiences on your behalf is a very individual thing. There are as many ways to ask (or nudge, or suggest…) as there are conversations that happen in the course of any day. The fact is that a good number of your customers will refer you to others if they are only made aware of the opportunity. However subtle you feel you need to be, you should tap that resource. You worked hard for that customer. If they’re happy with the service you provided, they are more often than not willing to “bring in a buddy” next time they visit.

But there are times when something goes wrong, and word of the error will find its way into a conversation somewhere.  These are the ones you really need to be aware of.  How you respond is watched by the world, and a successful resolution of a problem is likely one of the best reviews/referrals you can get!

I was honored to have participated in a panel discussion at the MDCE of digital strategies exploring various ways of using the internet to reach your customers. At the end of the presentations some very good questions were asked by the substantial audience.  Questions regarding obtaining referrals and how to handle them were a good indication of the priority that the industry is beginning to put on this area. We will be following up with some ideas and tips in future posts, but in the meantime try to think how you will establish and maintain a referral network in the internet age.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

 

Oyster Bar, revisited

We’ve been having a spate of ridiculously low tides here at sleepy BoaterRated Central, and a couple of weeks ago I posted on our Facebook page a picture of the exposed local oyster bar with a crowd that would make the Grand Central Station version proud. Our guests, however, were birds at low tide. This post is not about eating.

We spend our time here at sleepy BoaterRated Central getting BoaterRated.com web site up and running. BoaterRated.com is dedicated to help boaters help fellow boaters find providers of marine services and goods thru the recommendations of others in the boating community (the Virtual Dockside™). If I may be permitted a shameless plug, it behooves marine providers to ask their customers to write reviews as a form of a referral network too, but that’s a deeper subject for another day. In any event, recommendations, referrals, reviews, whatever you want to call assisting one’s fellow boaters is only effective when advice is heeded.

Which brings us to our oyster bar.

How to get around our oyster bar. And how to find it! Note the boat heading south (left) at the top end of the green arrow, they are safely in the Waterway.

Last weekend, I was enjoying a fine dessert in the back yard and I noticed a couple in a 25-ish foot center console heading my way from the northerly entrance to our estuary. They seemed to be feeling their way in, quite slowly – which is to say lost – and eventually ventured outside the established channel.  Now, this was at night, with any moon at all hidden behind clouds (no Perseids for me!), so visibility was quite poor and the channel is marked with a few PVC sections that are hard to see in the best of conditions.  As the tide was about halfway thru its ebb, the oyster bar wasn’t quite exposed yet. SOOO much could go wrong.

Ahoy, I yell, you don’t want to go that way (straight toward the green blinker marking the Okeechobee Waterway)! If you have a radio I’ll help you navigate back to the Waterway channel (the green track in the photo).  No radio, came the reply, and the driver backed away from me with both engines full astern. Hmmmm. Back toward me he comes, perhaps for directions? I implore him to stay far enough away to avoid the silted in area north of my dock, but close enough that we can converse without scaring the entire neighborhood.

Full astern he goes again, throws her into forward, turns right and straight toward the green blinker he goes. He stopped quite near the red X in the picture.

They had cell phone, for shortly afterwards a group of friends in a flats boat appeared and approached on the green path. After about an hour of yelling, throwing lines back and forth, and much time spend racing the center console’s engines in both forward and reverse, the rescuers apparently had enough and left our stranded friends to their own devices.

Did I mention the tide was ebbing? Low tide was approximately 2am that morning. I had offered help twice directly and once to the flats boat crew, with no takers. I figured three strikes and I’m out. I finally peeked out back at about 7am and our friends were gone, so I suppose all’s well that ends well. I imagine they’ll be looking for some propeller repair however.

I know it’s sometimes difficult to seek or accept advice. We men especially have a reputation (ask for directions???) against it. But we have no problems accepting advice for a restaurant, a movie, a book, even a fantasy football pick. Offering advice is easy – and it’s even easier now that it’s so easy to offer it on line. Accepting the advice has a good chance of enhancing your experience, be it a slice of pizza or a good quarterback.  Or boating! Join us on the Virtual Dockside™ at BoaterRated.com, share your recommendations, and find good services!