At the end of last year, I began to hear dealers, boatbuilders, component producers, engine manufacturers, association leaders and other industry leaders start to ask the same question: How do we keep the windfall of new boaters we gained during the Covid bubble?

I heard it on the docks at the Annapolis boat shows in Maryland, inside the tents at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in Florida, through our Metstrade reporting overseas in Amsterdam, and during the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas’ Dealer Week conference in Texas. People had accepted that sales were normalizing — in some cases declining — after the Covid gold rush. With the new-boat-buyer pipeline drying up, they all said, it’s time to pivot.

According to the MRAA, more than 310,000 new powerboats were sold in 2020. The organization says 124,000 boaters will walk away within the next two years at the typical new-boater attrition rate. Ouch.

Thankfully, we know why so many new boaters leave the sport after only a few years. The NMMA says that, among all others, shoddy customer service tops the list of ways to lose these customers. It doesn’t matter whether you run a marina, boat dealership, engine shop, electronics outfit or multibillion-dollar marine company: treat your customers poorly, and they surely will leave. The good news is there are easy and inexpensive ways to delight new and seasoned boaters alike, and most of it boils down to simple hospitality.

My first real job outside slinging ice cream and tending bar was working as a sales clerk at Fawcett Boat Supplies, a full-service chandlery in Annapolis. From day one of my training, the idea of wowing customers was pounded continuously into every employee’s skull. We weren’t expected to smother customers with fake, obsequious attention. Instead, we were encouraged to look for and do the little things — gestures that impressed customers and encouraged them to return.

For example, if someone asked where to find an item, we would personally walk them to the part instead of pointing across the sales floor and saying, “It’s over there next to the teak planking.” Better yet, management motivated us to approach customers and ask, “Can I help you with anything?” before they even had the chance to ask for assistance. Leaving customers to wander around your business looking for help is a tried-and-true way to lose them.

Other techniques we were taught included walking customers to the register and helping them through checkout by bagging their order; placing notes on orders so we could personally notify our customers when the order arrived; carrying large orders to customers’ vehicles; and even calling competitors to see if they had a part we didn’t carry because our customer had a weekend cruise planned. None of these gestures cost the company a dime, or a ton of effort, and we won countless return customers for our store.

The Apple Store, where I worked part time teaching people how to use the company’s tech and software, also encouraged going out of the way to win over customers. Perhaps the best lesson I learned there was how to deal with an angry customer, maybe the most unpleasant thing anyone dealing with people experiences.

Apple called the defusing strategy the “three As:” acknowledge, align and assure. The first step is easy: recognize that the customer is frustrated and that you’ve heard them. The alignment step, nine times out of 10, will ratchet down a customer’s aggravation almost immediately. We would say something like, “I don’t blame you. I know if I’d brought my phone in to have it repaired and it still didn’t work, I’d be miserable.” Assuring the customer only requires letting them know you are serious about addressing the issue, advising them about what to expect for the next steps, then under-promising and over-delivering the results. For example, if I knew a laptop repair typically took two days, I’d often tell the customer five days to a week. While they almost always were slightly disappointed with the initial prediction, they were dazzled when we delivered the repair early.

I point out these strategies not only because of what I’ve heard from the industry during the past six months, but also because I’ve been on both sides of the service desk, cash register and sales table, and upside-down in a bilge on the weekend fixing something that wasn’t done right the first time. Those experiences have shown me that going the extra mile often doesn’t cost a thing, but it easily creates return customers — and keeps the customers you’ve already worked so hard to bring into your business.

All you have to do is ask yourself, How can I make this better and easier for the customer? It can involve marking off a dedicated customer parking area close to the door of your business; positioning the service desk in an accessible, easy-to-find spot; walking a customer to their boat and explaining what was repaired; or spending time training existing employees in customer service. You’ll be astonished at how easy and inexpensive creating a great customer service experience can be.

We’re entering a year that economists suggest is likely to be challenging and costly. Easy, inexpensive tools that can help keep boaters in the sport are something the whole industry can embrace without much effort at all. 

This article was originally published in the February 2023 issue.