I guess it depends on what side of the lake you’re standing on!

Recently my wife and I were invited for a nice Sunday of boating with my father and mother up near Greenwood Lake NY. That Sunday started out as a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky and it was expected to be exceptionally hot, everyone was really looking forward to a day of relaxation, good conversation, tranquil sights and some great deli picnic food.

We arrived at my father’s house early that morning to prepare food, pack, hook up the trailer, test the lights and get a nice start at the lake before it became overcrowded. When we arrived my dad explained to me that he had just had the boat serviced and the repair shop had given him two thumbs up on the condition of the boat.

What was interesting is that he said when they were done with the repairs they even water tested the boat by taking it for a test drive out on the lake. Normally my dad takes his boat to the boat shop located very close to his house which is nowhere near a lake. I was a little confused by his remark however I didn’t ask questions. I was anxious to get underway and have a fantastic day.

When we arrived at the boat launch we had to wait about thirty minutes to be able to get the boat into the water, it seemed a lot of other folks had the same idea as we had, “get up early and beat the traffic”.

While waiting in the lineup I started to remove the boat cover, what I found underneath wasn’t impressive! For just being serviced the boat was filthy, the servicing obviously didn’t include a complimentary cleaning or vacuuming, my mother complained at this point that she really didn’t want to go as the seats were left dirty and she would spoil her outfit.

Dad and I talked her into going and we all proceeded to get the coolers from the SUV’s and load them into the boat. Dad and I checked the bow rope and the mooring lines on the side of the boat, we undid the rear trailer tie down straps and proceeded down the ramp with the boat. I waded into the lake and undid the boat from the trailer.

I pushed the boat out and walked over to the dock while holding the bow rope. Once on the dock I pulled the boat over, turned it around by force and waited for the others to finish parking the truck and get into the boat. While I was waiting I noticed that several more trucks were now lining up to get boats into the lake and I knew we were holding everyone up, I could see the frustration in people’s faces. They wanted nothing more than to get their boats into the water.

Finally everyone was in the boat! Because so many people were waiting, I didn’t drop the engine into the water at this point. I walked the boat towards the end of the dock and gave it one good push off while clambering into the stern section of the boat. Once we were about fifty feet out into the lake I sat down and released the engine pivot on the transom and I lowered the prop into the water at the right angle. By now the natural current in the lake was taking us farther out away from the dock, (the lake is part of the NYC watershed and has an inlet and outlet).

My dad realizing we were ready to get underway put the key into the ignition and turned the key to the start position. Nothing happened! Dad turned to me and said is the engine all the way down. I checked and gave him the thumbs up sign. He tried the key again and nothing happened! My father started looking around the dash console, he tried turning on the stereo, nothing seemed to work. I immediately checked the battery connections and everything was hooked up. It was at this point my dad said, “They replaced the batteries, fuel tank and lines, they said they water tested the boat, what the hell is going on”. I tried to start the engine manually with the pull cord several times and the engine didn’t seem as if it was getting fuel or spark.

I pulled the rope a few more times when I heard my wife say, “We have a serious problem up here”. As usual my dad ignored a statement like that and said to me, “keep pulling”. I pulled a few more times on the rope and then I heard my mother say very frantically, “Uh boys, we are sinking”! Now my dad looks down at the floor and see’s about four inches of water in the entire front of the boat, he looks back at me and said again, “keep pulling”. At this point I decided to look into the front compartment, that’s when I saw the water was halfway between my wife’s ankles and her knees.

My mother cannot swim, she actually hates the water however my father talked her into going and knowing we were going to be there she decided to tag along and brave the day. My parent’s house has a beautiful in ground pool and my mother has never been in the pool through all the years since they had it installed, she hates the water that much. To get her to the lake and into the boat was a tremendous feat on my father’s part.

My wife asked which of us was diving in to swim the boat to shore and my father pointed at me and said nothing. Knowing I had to jump in and drag the boat back to shore I proceeded to empty my pockets remove my watch and shirt. At this point my wife is pleading with me to hurry up because she can see the look on moms face so I grabbed the rope and jumped overboard. I swam the entire length of the bow rope and was still quite a distance from shore, I would tread water and pull as hard as could to get the boat to come my way, with each pull the boat came two or three feet closer.

Finally I was about fifty feet from the dock and I heard a voice say, “You need help”. I said yes and the boat took off out into the lake, the people behind that boat were giving him crap because they wanted to get their boat into the water. After a few more tugs and a few more minutes I was able to stand up and touch bottom. I pulled, tugged, and finally had the boat coming into shore at a good rate of speed, however this still wasn’t fast enough for mom, she continued telling me to hurry up that the boat was really getting full of water and she didn’t want to drown!

When the front keel of the boat touched bottom at the boat launch I helped mom and then my wife out of the boat. As I helped the two of them up to the shore I heard my dad say, “Hey, the bilge pump works”. I turned around and observed the water shooting ten feet out of the side of the boat. Dad had apparently forgotten for a time that his boat came equipped with this option. Dad retrieved his truck and trailer and I winched the boat out of the water.

Once the boat was secured on the trailer my father tried to haul the water laden hulk from the water however the boat being full weighed too much, dad’s truck tires were spinning under the surface. We had to wait until the bilge had pumped a fair amount of water out before it was light enough for the truck to pull up the ramp. Once out of the water the jet stream of water from the pressure of the amount of water in the boat propelled the stream about fifteen feet behind the boat.

While waiting for the boat to empty my father was pacing around getting madder by the minute. He stated that he felt like he was lied to! He said I paid hundreds of dollars and this is what I get! “They told me they tried this on the water, that’s impossible”! When the water finally came to a trickle my dad told all of us, “Follow me, we are going to marina, someone’s getting an earful, I want this fixed today”!

We pulled up in front of the marina and dad made a quickstep beeline to the service office with me in hot pursuit. I know how he can get when he boils over and didn’t want him going in alone. The woman at the marina service department wasn’t exactly a gem to deal with, she was gruff and surly from the outset, and this just made things worse! She looked at my father after ignoring him for almost two minutes (we were the only people in the building) and said, “What’s up, you havin a bad day buddy”?

Dad looked over at her, removed his sunglasses and said “Not really a good day, I picked my boat up here a week ago, I spent a bundle. You guys wrote on my invoice you lake tested the boat. It doesn’t start and almost sank. My son had to swim and pull the boat back to shore about 200 yards or more. My wife doesn’t swim and I got yelled at because of this. What are you going to do to help me out today”?

The woman looked at my father and actually said, “Sir, our marina service department is closed, so nothing”. That comment didn’t help matters at all! Dad just became more irate, irritable and nasty… My father pulled out the invoice and started telling her all the repairs he was charged for and she snatched the invoice from his hand and said harshly, “Yeah – let me see what the computer says”.

After a few minutes of reading parts of sentences out loud and confusing dad more, she looked him in the eye and asked, “How’d you almost sink”? At that moment dad pulled the transom plug from his pocket and placed it on the counter and said, “It kind of helps to keep the boat afloat when you put it in the hole don’t you think”. Well that did it, the woman now proceeds to inform my dad who by the way has never serviced his boats here before, that at their marina they remove the plugs to keep water out of the boat while on dry land…

While they are arguing I walked over to the door to look at the lake, my thoughts were of how nice it would have been to out there on the water, not here listening to this crap. While I’m scanning over the sights I spy a used car lot and service center on the opposite shore that looks new, clean and bright and inviting, my mind starts wandering as I wonder if they do a good business up in cabin country. Then reality set back into my head as I heard the woman yell at my dad, “The reason the boat didn’t start is because we installed a battery kill switch in your boat, didn’t you read your invoice”.

Dad raised his voice and said, “I paid the invoice, I tried to ask questions but the person didn’t want to talk to me so I left, I only use the boat three or four weekends a year and only have had to turn the key, how would I know”. At that point I left and went back to the boat. I climbed up and found the battery kill switch located in a very remote place at the very back of the boat hidden behind the trim. Once the switch was turned on the engine roared to life after about two seconds. Even though the boat was now empty, the plug was put in and the engine ran my mother did not want to risk another mishap so we drove back to their house and there the boat still sits.

I realized during the ride back to their house that the automotive service industry is no different from the marine service industry. The only difference is one vehicle operates on land the other on water. I was comparing the two industries in my mind the entire drive trying to equate this incidence with our industry and I thought of several things.

1. All of this could have been avoided had the marina given my father a proper redelivery of his boat. It would have taken no more than five minutes to show him were the battery kill switch was located.

2. If indeed it really was the policy of this marina to remove the transom plug they needed to indicate that fact and tell my father were they put it.

3. Had the woman behind the counter had of been more empathetic to my father the conversation would not have been so explosive.

4. Instead of telling my father how he screwed up, she should have been apologizing for the business not spending the time to explain the work performed.

5. The woman at the marina do not offer to have the owner of the marina contact my father which still irritates him.

6. The only thing my father wanted when he went into the marina was a solution to the problem and solutions were not forthcoming.

7. The woman at the marina did not show my father the respect he deserved as a paying customer, it seemed as my father was being blamed and she took no responsibility for any part of this scenario, it seemed as though dad was an interruption to her day.

Therefore I can say that for customers of marine or automotive repair facilities the level of servicing of the customer is just as important as the repairs that were done mechanically. Always fix the customer first before engaging in the mechanical repairs. My father vows he will never go back to that marina repair center ever again however he was at the end pleased with the mechanical repairs overall. Yet dad did say to me, you would think that a thousand dollar repair would come with a complimentary vacuum.

Dad is not pleased with the level of individual service as a customer and in the end that makes all the difference in the world. Therefore the technician can do everything right and if there are missing links or gaps in the individual level of servicing you can still lose a customer for life.

When I think about that day I can only wonder if all customers are treated the same at that lake when it comes to the level of servicing. Then I remembered the used car facility and thought to myself, “I guess it depends on what side of the lake you’re standing on”.

David