Editors’ Picks | Mike Davin: Bosun’s Marine
Bosun’s Marine
Mashpee, Mass.
Every employee at Bosun’s Marine on Cape Cod is trained and re-trained to adopt a particular attitude, called the “Bosun’s Way.”
The goal is to put customer service first, and company president Tim Leedham says it’s what really sets Bosun’s apart from a run-of-the-mill dealership.
“When service personnel take on a job, they don’t see a mass of fiberglass and metal — they see the face of a boat owner,” Leedham says. “And they strive to put a smile on that face.”
The phrase was coined by service foreman Mike Fulcher, who joined Bosun’s in 1992 as an 18-year-old who had been fired by another dealership for being “too cocky.” That cockiness might have been justified, however — Leedham says Fulcher’s arrival was a godsend for the dealership, and the term he invented has served as an important training tool and occasional reminder for staff over the years.
Leedham says the phrase has become synonymous with the company’s culture and attitudes as well as its written plans and procedures, and he credits it with many of the company’s recent successes.
For example, the business experienced market share growth in 2011 that Leedham attributes both to careful product selection for their customer demographics and a key tenet of the Bosun’s Way: listening to their customers. It seems easy, but Leedham says that simple act has helped them outsell major regional competitors and capture a larger share of the market.
It also helps in other areas. One of the main metrics Bosun’s uses to judge its success is customer satisfaction. By that measure the company did very well in 2011, achieving a 100-percent CSI score for the year.
Bosun’s takes a lot of pride in that number, but it also tries to think of customer satisfaction on a more personal level.
“The process begins with a simple, daily question as we review the in-process work orders for service and boat deliveries: ‘Is so-and-so happy?’” Leedham says.
As the company grows — it now has seven facilities located both on and off the Cape — it strives to maintain its values across all of its businesses, which became one of the company’s major challenges in 2012. On Dec. 29, 2011, Bosun’s closed on the purchase of a marina competitor located six miles from its main location. That meant the company had to completely integrate the facility and its systems into the “Bosun’s Way.”
The business and property, known as Edwards Boat Yard, had been in continuous operation by two families dating back to the late 1890s. It was operating as a Sea Swirl and Parker Boat dealer, a 48-slip deep water marina, a Town Chartered Mooring Servicing Center (handling 328 moorings), a sail and power boat refit and repower center, a ship’s store, and a hauling and storage facility handling more than 250 boats. The 2½-acre deep-waterfront facility contains 27,000 square feet of enclosed buildings and a secondary two-acre landlocked winter storage yard. The purchase more than doubled Bosun’s Cape Cod infrastructure and provided a deep water, yacht-class port to add to its existing Mashpee Neck Marina facility, and the company is well underway remaking the large facility into one that reflects Bosun’s approach to its customers.
“Loyalty, quality and reliability may seem like old-fashioned values, but when you combine them with the latest in marketing strategies and techniques, you end up with a dealership that’s primed for growth, even during tough economic times,” Leedham says.
There are many reasons Bosun’s attracted my attention this year. The company closed on new mortgages for all its properties, it introduced a more extensive menu of choices in its service packages, all P&A personnel received formal pre-season and in-season sales training, and a host of other impressive initiatives. However, its devotion to customer service and the Bosun’s Way are the reason it is my 2012 Editor’s Pick.
