Steelfish
New Member
That's it? Your lengthy tenure on YBW forums might warrant some additional feedback or alternatives for charter sailors to avoid disappointment. Humble apologies for not meeting your standard.
Charterers beware
- Thread starter Giles Bointon
- Start date
That's it? Your lengthy tenure on YBW forums might warrant some additional feedback or alternatives for charter sailors to avoid disappointment. Humble apologies for not meeting your standard.
xyachtdave
Well-Known Member
Have you tried posting an add for your site on Sailing Anarchy?
Steelfish
New Member
Thanks for the awesome feedback!! Very helpful for all yacht charter to understand. We're saying exactly the same thing and you make some excellent points. (reminder: the service is free)
<Tranona> "I do hope that you are not trying to claim that the contents of your site are representative of the charter business."
<Steelfish> I'm not. From above "...it's [YCA] not enough data to make broad claims in an annual report but does give an idea of the general service quality and boat conditions found in the industry." The fact that 80% of YCA reviews are positive track closely with any holiday service industry.
<Tranona> "I am sure they are "authentic" in the sense that the authors of the reports had the experience they claimed..."
<Steelfish> Thanks. It takes about an hour to research and verify a basic review. I've put more than 20 hours into a disputed review working with charter company and charter sailor. If I can't figure it out I don't publish it (see redaction on March 18, 2012).
<Tranona> "...but they are not "independent", but one sided, self selected pieces of data."
<Steelfish> Tricky statement. The reviews are "unbiased" (independent of molestation from charter professionals). They're only one-sided when the charter pro declines an opinion (charter sailors can always ask about the review (reputation) during the booking process). I reach out to ALL reviewed charter professionals for an opinion whether negative or positive and offer to write an opinion article in my blog to both parties. Yes, the reviews are self-selected by the reviewer, I don't think any reviewer besides myself has reviewed each charter experience.
<Tranona> "There are literally 10's of thousands of charter contracts each year, so it would not be surprising that a few do not work as expected."
<Steelfish> Absolutely correct, here's the latest charter marketing data from CW/SW. Check out slide 7, charter industry bookings are down 43% since 2007. However, the downward trend is slowing and next year everyone is hopeful to find bottom and begin the bounce back. A "few" can be characterized as 3,573 bookings per year.
Your selection of the term (...a few do not work as...) EXPECTED is spot on. What's important about it is that missed expectations are the simplest and least costly problems to resolve. Nothing has to be fixed, no one has to be hired, simply tell the potential client 'what to expect'. The problem is (not unique to charter) charter professionals fear they won't get a full price booking on a substandard boat and/or service by setting an accurate expectation. It's these charter professionals that need to be exposed for bad behavior. Today, their online reputation is at stake as charter sailors have a stronger voice. I understand and highly respect the influence of that stronger voice and work to help charter pros 'protect' their online reputation by influencing them to set proper expectations - it's good and safe practice for all involved.
<Tranona> "The ones reported on your site are not representative in any statistical way and other than showing the sort of things that can go wrong, are not a basis for any rational choice of operator."
<Steelfish> Agreed. YCA has an 'Assurance Index' that requires 7+ reviews of the same charter pro within 1 year before the data reaches statistical maturity. Before that we suggest seeking additional assurances of value - it's a start. We currently do not have 1 charter pro with 7+ reviews in 1 year (caveat emptor!).
<Tranona> "Based on your data of 20% negative there have been less than 50 negative experiences in 5 years, or 10 a year, or if the 20% also applies to individuals, 6 a year. Not really anything to get excited (or worried) about!"
<Steelfish> Agreed, if you use YCA participation (168 members) as the basis. Let's agree the YCA data is insufficient to represent the industry but general service industry service quality data rides comfortably along at 20% customer satisfaction. Let's use the data from The Sailing Company (CW/SW, 17,869 bookings in 2011), 20% dissatisfaction in 2011 means 3,573 charter boats will leave the doc only to return with unhappy sailors. All we're trying to do at YCA is help charter sailors steer clear of 'those' bookings; there are 14,295 good ones out there to enjoy. Life's too short for bad charter.
Cheers!
Tranona
Well-Known Member
Think you missed the point. The chances of having a bad experience is both random and extremely small. Knowledge of others' negative experience is of little help in avoiding one in the future. Reviews like this are unable to identify systemic failure - that is failures that are predictable and possibly avoidable by selecting one operator rather than another.
All they do is expose the sorts of things that can go wrong and result in a negative experience - and most of those are obvious anyway. Because there is no firm evidence that any one operator/location/boat systematically provides a negative experience, there is no rational reason to avoid one that has had a negative report.
The recent decline in activity is not the result of failures within the industry, simply a consequence of the economic climate which has hit all forms of leisure boating.
All they do is expose the sorts of things that can go wrong and result in a negative experience - and most of those are obvious anyway. Because there is no firm evidence that any one operator/location/boat systematically provides a negative experience, there is no rational reason to avoid one that has had a negative report.
The recent decline in activity is not the result of failures within the industry, simply a consequence of the economic climate which has hit all forms of leisure boating.
Steelfish
New Member
Good thought , but I can't afford advertising. Also, the folks over on SA are well outside the charter market.
Steelfish
New Member
Thanks again Tranona. Agreed, the recent downturn in world wide charter bookings is related to economic climate, not service quality or boat conditions.
For better or worse, current online market analysis shows consumer reviews influence online professional reputations and online consumers, like charter sailors, use professional reputation to make booking decisions. Not having an easily accessible and believable reputation (see #2) is as bad as having a questionable one. Going forward, charter professionals will have difficulty competing if they fail to actively manage their online reputation.
While imperfect, I have a solution deployed to collect information which can reveal if a charter professional consistently provides a good or poor service. Rational or not, if a charter client actively researching online for a booking were to find 2 charter companies within a half mile of each other and one had a rating of fair and the other exceptional that charter booking will be influenced. I've chartered with both companies in the linked example, I assure you that the highly rated company is a *much* better value.
I agree that typical online reviews (I call them "5 stars and a rant") have almost no benefit for professionals to make actionable decisions. As you have not completed a YCA review, you wouldn't know that we break the charter review into it's basic delivery components (boat, marina, broker, company/school, captain, instructor, chef) then ask the reviewer to assess the condition of the boat (cleanliness, condition, operation) separately from the service quality of the staff (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy) on a scale of 1-5 (poor-exceptional). You caught me, it's not a review at all, it's a survey.
Let me know if you'd like a demo login to further evaluate the site.One of the most common opinions I hear is that yacht charter is not ready for online reviews. I couldn't agree more. The charter industry as a whole is technically unprepared to manage their online reputations and typically don't have the sales/margins to hire staff/consultants to focus on nextGen marketing. Here's a recent study on "Customer Engagement Transition" by the highly respected Razorfish. Have a look at pages 15 & 16. Review sites are highly influential among the 25-44 crowd and gaining ground on the 45+ crowd. They are 'only just' secondary to face-to-face interactions and word-of-mouth. Review sites get their highest marks in the 'trust' category. Who knew?
All I ask of charter sailors is to write a review of their charter experiences on YCA, if not online, give me a call or email and I'll make sure it gets recorded, after verification of course.
Statistics are no substitute for judgment - Henry Clay.
RupertW
Well-Known Member
What? I have only chartered about half a dozen times but had two bad experiences - different companies, types of boat and country. I also spend a fair bit of time socially with Sunsail people and bad experiences are not uncommon, especially as charters break bits that would normally last years, and may try to keep the breakages hidden.
Ok, most bad experiences are due to unrealistic expectations or relying far too heavily on charter bases to sort them out when they run out if fuel or can't book a restaurant, but even so every bit of feedback is useful when choosing a charterer, especially when critical mass is reached, e.g. TripAdvisor.
yesod
Well-Known Member
so we have to put up with you resurrecting old threads just to promote your business, huh?
Tranona
Well-Known Member
That is the point. Not denying bad experiences - just Steelfish claiming that his site which has had 168 contributors worldwide over 5 years is reflective of the industry as a whole. He is now saying that the "reviews" are based on completion of a survey type instrument, which is one step better than just reporting individual experiences, but still relies on self selection.
Of course information about other peoples' experiences is useful, but not sure a website created by one person is the way to go.
[70521]
Well-Known Member
Indeed that is it. As a website, I am not impressed. If I was looking for feedback or alternatives having landed on your site I would have moved on in about 35.7 seconds (on a slow day) there is nothing that draws me in and is a long way off the "critial mass" of information that builds a knowlage base.
