Online boater portal delivers convenience for all boaters
We go online for self-service every day – booking holidays, watching movies and TV, browsing new homes, managing our bank accounts. Pretty much everything we do is online.
Customers find it annoying to wait – we live in a 24-7 society, and we want everything instantly.
It might feel like good customer service to send a friendly email with a statement attached, but not if the customer had to ask for it.
So how can we combine convenience and customer service for boaters?
Boater Portal
Marina Assist’s online Portal is available to any customer on your database, slip holders, or transients.
It is a secure online space where boaters can check their account, pay bills, view order history, and more. Accessible from any device by clicking a link embedded on your website, by typing a URL, or by adding an icon to a computer, tablet, or phone home screen.
Using the Portal, boaters can:
- Check what contact and boat details you hold on them
- Amend their marketing and data privacy settings so you can’t ‘spam’ them
- Pay any invoices using secure online payment. Payments are automatically reconciled
- View, download, or email unpaid orders
- Browse their order history and download or email past invoices
- View their payment history (all payment types)
- Elect to store card details for future payments (CVC/CVV number will always be requested)
- Book any services you wish to offer
You select which customers have access to the Portal, so it could be a premium service for slip holders, or available to any marina user.
Here’s the Portal home page:
Self-service
The Booking Request feature enables customers to book or reserve any service you choose to offer. This could be winter haul out, engine service, boat detailing, transient slip, even pre-season sign-up.
You can allow customers to book via your website or via the Portal, and you can offer different services on each platform. You can also tailor the offer to customers by account type, so slip holders get a different selection to transients or storage customers.
Take a look at this video to see how the self-service feature works on your website and on the Portal:
Web app
Just like the Marina Assist software, the Portal is a web app. This means it is accessible from any device, on any operating system. No downloads and no data stored on your device.
It is seamlessly integrated with the database, so any invoices paid on the Portal will instantly appear as paid on the customer account in Marina Assist. And any new invoices will be instantly available for payment.
There’s lots of peer pressure on companies to produce their own apps, but if you use Marina Assist, you effectively get a customer app included.
Self-service or customer service?
It isn’t an either/or situation. By giving your customers the power to check out their accounts, pay bills, make reservations, and generally manage their own data, you’re setting your team free.
Team members who were previously spending time on admin can now be redeployed to more customer-facing roles. Instead of low-value interactions about statements or payments, your team can have high-value relationships with customers. The more value and quality you can add to your customer relationships, the more likely they are to last years. It’s much cheaper to retain a customer than recruit a new one!
If you’re looking to give your customers the power of self-service without junking your customer service, 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.
