My-Villages integrates The Boat Village and DockMaster

My-Villages, a leading technology provider for consumers and service professionals, today announced that starting in January 2015, the company will be offering boat yards, dealers and other boat businesses a simpler, more automated way of serving their customers. My-Villages has integrated its two solutions – The Boat Village customer communications platform and the DockMaster back-office software suite – creating the marine industry’s first front-to-back tool for managing customer interactions, service coordination, task management, work orders, parts ordering, accounting and more.

The new integrated solution simplifies customer communication, eliminating the need for multiple phone calls, faxes, emails and texts. Customers enter task requests via The Boat Village, and those tasks are routed directly to the service manager. The tasks are then turned into a DockMaster estimate. The service manager can allocate man hours, order parts and finalize the estimate for the customer. Using the Boat Village, the customer can approve the tasks on the estimate, add photos or video, ask questions, provide further input and receive updates on work underway.

The integration of DockMaster and The Boat Village means that service organizations do not need to enter customer and boat information into both systems. Information can be accessed and updated in either one, and the systems automatically synchronize. Service pros and customers can store information about tasks performed, and easily track communications on a given task. Throughout the life cycle of the work order, all information – including accounting information – is streamlined in the integrated systems.

“This new, integrated front-to-back system allows service professionals to process customer-requested work tasks online, and then integrate those tasks into a traditional work order,” said Kevin Hutchinson, the founder and CEO of My-Villages. “Customers can upload photos and video as part of their service tasks, and receive system-generated emails to keep them informed and up to date on the progress of the work. Improved communication and task management enables service teams to deliver projects more efficiently, vastly boosting customer satisfaction.”

The first companies that will utilize the new integrated system include Whiticar Boat Works of Stuart, Fla.; FastBoats Marine Group in Pompano Beach, Fla.; Northshore Yachtworks of Vancouver, British Columbia; and Portland Yacht Services of Portland, Maine.

“We have been looking forward to this integration since My-Villages acquired DockMaster at the end of 2013,” said My-Villages customer Jason Curtis, vice president of operations at Portland Yacht Services. “Allowing customers to electronically agree to tasks on a work order, before the work begins, will dramatically improve the accuracy, quality, and efficiency of communications with our customers. It will bring us to a whole new level of customer care and service.”

John Nassichuk, general manager of Northshore Yachtworks, added: “Today’s boating customers are fully wired, and expect their service providers to be the same. This new, integrated system for service coordination and management will allow us to better manage customer interactions and our own workflow within the same IT solution. Together, The Boat Village and DockMaster will help to improve customers’ experiences to build loyalty, and should ultimately create new business opportunities for us.”