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WHITE PAPER:
FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND THE EFFICACY OF
VESSELVANGUARD TO SIMPLIFY THE SALES PROCESS AND CUSTOMER
RELATIONS FOR BOAT MANUFACTURERS, DEALERS, MARINAS & SUPPLIERS
Prepared by Donald V. Hyde, Managing Director, VesselVanguard.com
Salient Points:
 Customer satisfaction is a “good”, vulnerable to the unfulfilled intentions of the Boat Owner.
 Dealers and Manufacturers loose their grip on customer satisfaction by traditional reliance on
Owners to self-perform or delegate strategic and ordinary maintenance functions.
 Today information in valued at the point of need. People are now accustomed to a “Search
Engine” ethic to retrieve answers as need arises.
 The Search Engine Ethic renders obsolete the paper-based information medium of Operating
Manuals and PM Schedules which historically required boat owners to be disciplined and
vigilant in learning and acting upon this information in advance of need.
 This paradox forces unintended costs onto Dealers and Manufacturers and promotes supply
chain inefficiencies.
 A pre-emptive maintenance alert system that conforms with the reality of boater behavior must
replace the status quo in order for the boating industry to achieve promised levels of customer
satisfaction.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
VesselVanguard provides a range of benefits to the boat owner with the high order goals of
improving the owner’s knowledge of and response to the maintenance needs of the boat, and
preservation of asset value. Additionally, VesselVanguard simplifies the sales and customer
relation’s process by providing current and ongoing benefits to the boat manufacturer and
marina service organization - at no cost or investment by them. The observations and
conclusions stated are based on personal experience augmented by multiple interviews with boat
owners, dealers, marina managers, and other industry participants.
PRIMARY PREMISE
A modern vessel regardless of its cost or quality materials does not exist in a frozen state of perfection
as on the day of delivery. If left alone the nature of the boat and its operation will change all by itself.
It only exists as a formation of design, experienced workmanship, equipment that produces a promised
function, understandable instructions, and the willingness of the owner to properly use and maintain it.
Information shares one property with tangible goods; it is not indestructible. Value can be destroyed
as surely as function because at a critical moment information was ignored or misunderstood. Post-
Sale, functionality, value and customer satisfaction are fully co-dependent forces.
The modern recreational boat is a marvel of design and materials. The boat around which these
challenges exist is an aggregation of form and equipment that can locate itself on the globe within a
two foot tolerance, provide world-wide personal and emergency communications, can be programmed
to chart a course and steer itself to a destination, process water, make electricity, provide lighting, heat
and air-conditioning, purge itself of waste, provide personal comfort and entertainment to many
people, and yet, at the point of delivery the operating manuals and maintenance schedules for this city

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on the water are delivered in a thirty pound box of books with almost total reliance upon the
motivation of the owner-operator to read, comprehend, and act upon that information.
The delivery process culminating in the transfer of those many pounds of manuals may never be
altered for practical reasons, but the presumption that the owner will read this mountain of material is
nonetheless inconsistent with the way in which the boat owner seeks and uses information in all other
aspects of his life. Clearly this is a conflict that has costs to all parties.
The resale value of the boat that is properly maintained with accompanying documentation is 10%-
15% higher than its identical twin without documentation.
OVERVIEW OF THE INFORMATION SOLUTION TO BOAT MAINTENANCE
VesselVanguard is an innovation with significant implications to improve the customer sales and
service model benefiting both boat owners and industry participants. The solution is a web-based
information rich environment specific to the Owner’s vessel and its full complement of equipment and
owner defined tasks with “search engine” navigation that is focused on the boat. By converting all
operating manuals and preventive maintenance schedules into a dynamic data environment with auto-
generated alerts, follow-ups and customized functionality, VesselVanguard inalterably replaces the
status quo of the paper based model augmented by owner memory, with one that reflects how the boat
owner actually interacts with information in all other aspects of their lives. Furthermore, this data
specific environment removes uncertainty and guess-work often employed by the boat owner to
purchase replacements parts, fluids, and other called for products.
How does the VesselVanguard benefit the Manufacturer and Dealer and advance the supply chain
needs of the owner? How does it simplify the customer relationship while saving time and money for
all concerned?
When introduced to the Customer at the moment of sale VesselVanguard.com eliminates concern
about maintenance coordination as well as the customer knowledge gap pertaining to all equipment
and systems.
VesselVanguard.com enhances the relationship between owner, dealer and manufacturer by
eliminating the friction and transaction costs inherent in the status quo model.
VesselVanguard assumes the responsibility to incorporate manufacturer updates into the ships log
and to efficiently inform the customer and marina management of upcoming maintenance tasks.
Maintenance Task details are augmented with lists of replacement part numbers, fluid types and
other specifications eliminating supply chain mistakes.
ON HOW BOAT MANUFACTURERS (BM) AND EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS
(EM) LOOSE CONTROL OVER CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
All dealers maintain contact with their Customers after the sale for good reasons including their natural
affinity and care for the customer or for resolution of specific obligations. However, the quest by all
dealers and manufacturers to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction and earn customer
loyalty is vulnerable to certain realities beyond their control which dictate the ultimate outcome.
Those realities include:

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 BM & EM provide the Customer with necessary information at the point of sale after which the
information and what happens next is controlled by the Customer.
 The quality of the Customer’s on-the-water experience is dependent upon his willingness to
optimize it through use of this information.
 The Customer rarely or infrequently refers to this printed information after it is delivered to him –
yet his entire satisfaction with the product is dependent upon his use of the information and
adherence to its maintenance schedules.
 In the digital age people seek information on an as-needed basis, expecting gratification from
digital libraries accessed through key word search-engines which deliver immediate results. Any
divergence from this model appears archaic by comparison and fosters dissatisfaction.
ON THE PARADOX BETWEEN 21ST CENTURY MARINE TECHNOLOGY AND THE
INFORMATION MODEL USED TO TRANSFER IT TO USERS
 The Boat Manufacturer and Dealer is caught in a paradox: The Manufacturer produces a highly
sophisticated 21st century product with advanced materials and systems, and then relies upon a
paper based resource to deliver the information needed to operate and maintain those systems.
 As much as the Customer should read and understand all of this data, as it stands today, this task
exists as a “permanent intention”.
 The reason: The printed word of the Operating Manual and its Maintenance Schedules is data
confined to the printed page and out-of-synch with the methods used by the Customer to attain
knowledge in all other aspects of his life where Information is not valued until it is needed.
 Customers have become search engine reliant yet the information model employed by BM & EM
is “anti-search engine”, relying upon the presumption of a proactive Customer.
 Customer dissatisfactions begin when answers must be developed through his own multiple
efforts.
 To achieve all levels of satisfaction first envisioned by the owner, (their expectation), they need a
“My Boat” specific search engine that mimics those information channels to which they are now
accustomed and preemptively informs the owner of its upcoming obligations.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS A VULNERABLE GOOD
 Fact: In addition to making a sizable financial investment, the Buyer makes a powerful emotional
investment in a lifestyle represented by the boat ownership. Those emotions cannot be quantified
financially but once breached are difficult to reinstate.
 Fact: Most boat purchasers are unprepared for the routine maintenance obligations necessary to
satisfy their varied expectations. The Boat Dealer believes that they have made these obligations
clear to the Buyer but the Buyer is not listening to messages that interfere with those emotional
lifestyle images.
 Fact: At the moment of delivery the Dealer and Manufacturer transfer to the Buyer the primary
responsibility to achieve the satisfactions represented by the Boat. Any “hand-holding” by the
dealer ends at the dock yet it is at that point where the relationship become vulnerable to the
“surprises” of ownership experienced by the owner.
 Fact: Information delivered to the Owner in advance of need eliminates uncertainty and creates a
continuum of knowledge between all parties. Those responsibilities may be delayed but the
knowledge and responsibility cannot be avoided.

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 Fact: The Manufacturer seeks to deliver high levels of customer satisfaction to its entire fleet, but
despite the intrinsic qualities of the product this corporate goal is vulnerable to the willingness of
its fleet of owners to be informed and act on that information. This value measurement is almost
entirely outside the realm of the manufacturer to influence without the cooperation of the Buyer.
 Fact: All systems are important regardless of cost and never more so than when they fail. On a
boat, multiple independent systems must function as a whole, and if one system malfunctions its
impact is magnified throughout the entire environment in the form of dissatisfaction. These
systems are linear and co-dependent. The $25,000 navigation system can be working perfectly but
if the GPS wiring has faulted the system fails to function. If the $2,000 winch freezes up then the
$40,000 sail rig cannot function properly.
AN UNINFORMED OWNER CREATES REAL TRANSACTION COSTS FOR THE
DEALER AND MANUFACTURER
 Any time friction occurs in the customer relationship, there is both a financial and a psychic cost
regardless of where direct responsibility lies.
 What is the Value and Cost of customer dissatisfaction even when it is a customer omission? At
what point does it cease to matter where the fault lies?
 Reality: If you “torture” the relationship enough with shifted responsibilities the customer will
always confess - “You are at fault.”
 Before the sale all customer questions are valuable to a listening salesman as they lead to the
action steps necessary to make the sale. But, under the status quo what is the financial cost of an
unnecessary service call when those answers are otherwise available in books and manuals? Is it
$100 per occurrence? Is it $2,000 per boat per year? The aggregate cost of the status quo method
is significant and, yet can be dramatically reduced by the interposition of VesselVanguard.
THE VESSELVANGUARD.COM SOLUTION EXPANDED
 The “My VesselVanguard” maintenance calendar and data file (and other website features) is
presented to the customer intact without the need for individual initiative.
 Customer uncertainty is replaced with the constant vigilance of VesselVanguard.com.
 The customer pays for this system at no cost to the dealer and manufacturer yet the dealer and
manufacturer are co-beneficiaries for the life of their ownership.
 VesselVanguard is a “Boat Specific Search Engine” customized to the on-board equipment and
adaptable to owner preferences, with fidelity to the details specified by the manufacturers.
 Task alerts emailed in advance of their due dates to the owner and third parties provide answers
before they are asked thus avoiding costly and time-consuming communications with dealers and
manufacturers.
 Itemized parts and fluids lists are generated along-side Task Alerts and contain “One-Click”
order functionality set up with owner preferences for supplier and delivery instructions.

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 VesselVanguard replaces unnecessary service calls by giving the Customer an effortless
interface, a search engine, by which he can seek and find answers on an as-needed basis.
 The buyer-seller relationship is now focused on positive aspects of the functioning product and
other personal linkages emblematic of the boating lifestyle without effort or cost to the manufacturer.
 Recall Notices and Service Bulletins are directly routed into the “My VesselVanguard” calendar
and issued as immediate “Task Alerts” to all parties, thus satisfying the manufacturers notification
requirements and limiting liability.
 In a non-judgmental and non-confrontational manner the Owners’ responsibilities are routinely
communicated to them and all other interested parties by VesselVanguard without the unnecessary
involvement or oversight of the Dealer and Manufacturer.
 The Owner receives these and many on-going multiple benefits from their VesselVanguard.com
subscription for which the Dealer can take credit.
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Prepared by Donald V. Hyde, Founder, CEO, Memosyne Systems LLC, dba,
VesselVanguard.com