As summer winds down and our busy fall season is on the horizon, we wanted to make you aware of some IMPORTANT CHANGES that we are making to improve your experience with us...
As you may know our company mission is “to remain a leader in the marine industry through a total commitment to value and extraordinary customer service.”
Over the past few years, many businesses in the area have started turning away customers and downsizing. Up to this point we had taken the stance that we wanted to do what we could to service our entire boating community, but have now come to recognize that as a result we have not been able to fulfill our mission to the level that we feel our customers deserve.
With staffing shortages, parts availability and changes in technology changing the face of businesses everywhere, we find ourselves faced with the fact that we have been over extending our means and need to make changes in order to provide the customer experience that we are striving for.
As such we have gathered our team and made some very difficult decisions– Outlined here below.
Servicing
For the past few years, we have housed and serviced over 550 storage boats, winterized an additional 500 plus another 120 in the field. We service more than 800 throughout the year and it has become increasingly difficult to do so effectively with parts, staffing and technology as it is today. Effective July 1st, we will only be servicing boats that fit the following parameters:
- Units aged 2004 and newer AND
- Mercury, Mercruiser, Volvo Penta, Yamaha, Indmar or Ilmor powered.
We are striving to work off of an appointment scheduling system vs. a drop in system. This allows clients a more accurate idea of when their boat will be worked on, shorter downtime and more timely communication. Coming soon, clients will have the ability to request their service appointment online through our website and social media platforms as well. This applies to all of our services, cosmetic and mechanical.
Storage
Moving forward we are reducing and capping the number of units that we will host on site. We want to ensure more responsiveness and a better ability to have timely delivery of well prepped units and as such we need our volume to be manageable. With this in mind we are offering our existing clients who have accounts in good standing first right of refusal.
We ask kindly that if you want to store with us again that you confirm with us prior to Aug 15th, at which point we will open any remaining spaces up to other clients. We continue to ask that you book a spring date at the time of booking.
Pick up & Delivery
This past spring we started booking our deliveries & pick ups in 5 hour windows (morning and afternoon) rather than at a specific time. If our driving staff is facilitating this move then they are contacting customers prior to their departure to solidify their arrival time leaving lots of time for clients to meet us at the launch. This has lead to less communication issues, less waiting at launch ramps (for drivers and customers) and a far better overall experience. We will continue this process moving forward. This time block scheduling also applies to units that are picked up and dropped off by clients.
Parts & Accessories
We are excited to have some new staff and new products in our parts department. Watch our website and social media channels to see our new arrivals…Or, come and take a look in our showroom. We will continue to be able to provide access to over-the-counter parts ordering (when available by the manufacturer,) as well as a wide array of boating lifestyle accessories.
Communication
We have recently changed our phone system. If you have experienced difficulty getting through, we apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this learning curve. Our new system is a VoIP system and will allow for greater access to us once the bugs are worked out. We do however have a regularly monitored texting platform that is available to customers by texting 705.738.5151. Additionally, this new texting system allows us to send secured links to pay your account on all major credit cards for your convenience.
Staffing
We have added some new friendly faces to our team as well as promoting some long time employees to leadership roles to better serve you.
If you have any questions about any of the changes that are outlined above please reach out to our team and we will be happy to assist you. Again, we thank you for your business and we wish you a wonderful boating season.
See you out on the water!
Sincerely,
Carly, Jeff and the Buckeye Marine Crew
