Generate and convert slip inquiries
How do you create slip inquiries and then convert them to contracted customers?
The key to success is being systematic – by ensuring that new customers get to know about your marina and that all inquiries get a timely response and follow-up.
This sounds simple, but in a busy office it’s easy to lose an inquiry written on a sticky note or to forget to follow up an email.
Boaters expect you to be quick to respond – they want to be wanted. If you’re too slow or don’t give the info they need, then they’ll probably pick a marina that feels a bit more engaged.
What marinas need from a sales process:
- Increased number of slip inquiries
- Inquiry delivered directly to the right member of staff
- Automatic logging of the lead and communications
- Customizable templates for a speedy response
- Simple lead reporting by source, date, site, or status
- Seamless conversion into contracts
We’ll show you how to deliver these six steps using Marina Assist and good old-fashioned customer service.
Step 1: More slip inquiries
To get more slip inquiries to fill the sales funnel, you need to do two things:
- Tell potential customers about your offering
- Make it quick and easy for them to register their interest
The first part is all about marketing – how and where you promote your services is an art in itself, but a good place to start is with your website. You can drive traffic to your website with SEO (search engine optimization), from social media, online and print advertising or by adding content that keeps contacts coming back for more.
But if you don’t encourage your viewers to do something when they land on your site, you’re missing a big trick. Marina Assist customers can link and embed a variety of tools on any page of their website – just like the ‘Demo Marina’ example below:
On this website there are two clear calls to action on the header of every page:
- Book Now links to an embedded sales lead inquiry form or booking request
- My Account links to the customer Portal, where your customers can pay bills and view their account
Both of these embeds link direct to the marina’s database, so everything is captured automatically.
The 4-minute video below shows how links from your website can deliver data straight into Marina Assist, and help you provide seamless customer service.
Step 2: Easy slip inquiry handling
Someone loves your content and they’ve submitted an online form or sent an email. Now it’s a time game.
Boaters aren’t willing to wait a week or even a couple of days to get a reply. If you want to book a hotel room you’d expect an answer by return, and boaters are no different.
If your system relies on sticky notes, forwarded email chains, and voicemail, you will struggle to deliver the standard of service that customers expect. And if your sales team is working remotely there’s even more opportunity for the message to be mislaid.
Marina Assist removes the ambiguity and alerts the inquiry team every time a request is submitted online.
Leads are automatically created as Tasks, visible to the user and their manager in the Tasks menu. Email or text alerts can also be sent to the user – there are no excuses for a sluggish response!
Step 3: Keep it together
The key benefit of embedding the Marina Assist form in your website is the seamless transfer of data to your database and to the Tasks function.
Alongside the automatic logging of contact form submissions, inquiries via phone, email, and face-to-face can be entered as a lead. So when you open a customer account, all of their contact with the organization is available in one place. Emails in and out, letters, texts, colleague’s notes, payment history, boat details. The lot.
Step 4: Make it personal
Every inquirer is an individual and should receive a tailored reply – it shows you care and that you want them as a customer.
That doesn’t mean that every email has to be written from scratch. In fact, having a standard response that can be customized using free text and merge fields is more likely to be consistently successful.
Before sending any type of communication, it is best practice to check the customer database for the previous history. A regular guest will need a different response from someone who has just bought a boat or just moved to the area. Marina Assist means you’ve got access to the customer’s full history, and you can create unlimited templates to cover every scenario.
What you include in your response and the style of writing will be specific to your organization, but we recommend:
- Recognizing the customer’s specific questions or boat particulars
- Details about the marina facilities
- Background information on the local area
- Particulars of available slips
- Pricing and payment options
- Benefits or discounts for slip holders
- A call to action, such as a deadline or next steps
Step 5: Follow-up and recycle
Maybe you get lucky and the customer signs up after your first email. But it’s more likely that they’re not quite ready to commit – they’re researching.
This means you need to be proactive and follow up. Send a friendly email or pick up the phone and see if they’ve got any questions or they want a site visit. What’s their timetable for a decision?
Ask permission to add them to your newsletter list and update their marketing preferences in Marina Assist. Use Smart Lists to send newsletters and special offers that are relevant to their type of inquiry, boating, and timeframe.
Send personalized, informative communications to create a desire for your site and services – demonstrate that you’re the experts or the perfect destination. Make your comms an extension of your customer service and brand.
Don’t forget to make it easy to buy – add a call to action button or a click to email or call link in every newsletter you send.
Step 6: Lead reporting
Marina managers make better decisions when they have good data. They need to understand the source of inquiries, how the volume changes, the services of interest, and the conversion rate. This data will influence marketing spend and strategy, staffing levels, and resource allocation.
Multisite marinas can track the interest levels across their estate, shifting promotional spending and resources between sites to maximize occupancy.
Marina Assist has a standard suite of over 50 reports, including sales lead tracking, plus Smart Lists enable you to create bespoke database inquiries that auto-update.
Step 7: Convert the lead
Once you’ve got a boater on the hook, you want to be able to reel them in right away. In Marina Assist, you simply click the ‘Convert to Account’ button on the Account page, and you’re good to go. Invoices and contracts can be raised and sent in minutes.
We know that the sales process is a vital part of building and maintaining occupancy. It is easy to be seduced by stand-alone products, but our principle of a single database accessible to all will always deliver better customer service.
If you’re looking to maximize occupancy with better inquiry handling, Marina Assist can help.
Interested? Call us on (410) 834-0559 or email [email protected] and let’s talk about how we can help your marina team to work smarter and connect with customers.
