I had a pre-purchase survey haulout scheduled at Broward Marine for next Tuesday. Arrangements were made on Friday afternoon with all paperwork signed and sent. Client called in his credit card to finalize confirmation. Email came from the yard late Friday afternoon changing the date for launch. Client agreed by email to their change. I went to Broward this morning and was told they gave away our launch date. They said we weren't confirmed because we didn't send in the payment. I told them the client gave credit card info over the phone, I was in on the conference call, and he wrote the numbers down. He said it wasn't in the computer. He took the credit card information but didn't put it in the computer so it wasn't confirmed. This morning, the paper with the credit card information was still on his desk. They would call me with a new launch date. By the time he called back, he said they gave away the haul date too. Meanwhile, buyer had plane tickets, surveyors scheduled for 2 days, and our dates at this point weren't flexible for haulout. I don't think I've ever posted a slam against anyone in the marine industry on a forum. But, not only did they totally screw up, they never apologized or admitted fault. The line stayed "the credit card information wasn't in the computer so you weren't confirmed." They didn't put it in but had all the paperwork emailed including the credit card sheet that said the credit card information was in their file. We didn't want to go upriver, but Lauderdale Marine Center always takes nice care of me and my clients, even helping me out on short notice. I suspect Broward had bigger fish to fry, or if they were that rude and incompetent, glad they're not hauling my boat. Judy
Not surprising based on their website. Links don't work and when they do you don't learn much more than that they want to launch a timeshare yacht business and build superyachts.
Brutal honesty with regards to business practices and ethics can be difficult to discuss but in the long run it saves headaches and BS. Thanks for the heads up.
My intention really is to provide "helpful information." With nearly 1,000 YF posts and 20 years in the business, I have had opportunity to "vent," but this was such a black and white mistake on their part with no mea culpa, I decided to do my first negative report. It was a total disregard for my Buyer, Seller, and the 2 surveyors all who had their schedules dependent upon the Broward Shipyard haulout and Broward's commitment both verbal and in writing. An apology or effort to try to come up with a solution (like talking to the yachts that at the last minute replaced our designated times to check their flexibility?) would have gone far and perhaps prevented my distrust of what might have really happened, which I suspect was a bigger fish than my 63 footer. Thanks for the support! Judy
I'm the sales director at Broward Shipyard. As with all incidents, there are 2 sides to every story. Ms.Waldman is correct in stating that we had the owner's credit card information on hand, but what she leaves out of the story is that not only do we need this information, we need the owner's confirmation as to time and date before we secure them a position on our schedule. Our yard was extremely busy during that time, and we were filling up quickly every day. By the time the owner confirmed, the time slot was filled. Ms. Waldman became upset when informed, and unleashed a profanity laced response to us. At no time were we rude in any way. Saying that we were more interested in "bigger fish to fry" is erroneous; she has brought us other boats of the same size before and we have accommodated her, as evidenced by the fact that she returned to us for another survey. We service all sizes of vessels if we have room to accommodate them as evidenced by how busy we are and how many repeat customers we have. We treat all customers with honesty and respect. We apologize for any cross communication, as we always try to accommodate all of our customers in the best way possible.
Well, he certainly skirted around the issue and made it lean towards the clients fault, he failed to actually address the specific issues in JW's. post.
C'mon, Pete, you should have let sleeping dogs lie. I didn't respond to Olderboater's post at the time because I didn't want to name names or keep the thread active. Do I need to post the emails confirming what I originally posted? Do I need to send a note to the client and ask him to substantiate my original post? Ok, one email copy and paste: "Hi Lenora & Pete —The attached papers should take care of what we need to confirm our haulout for Dec 13 at 10:00, overnight stay on the hard, and launch on Dec. 14th at 12:30.If there are any other papers that can’t be signed at haulout on the 13th, please let me know which ones. Thanks so much!!" And of course the papers were attached. For anyone that knows me, if I unleashed profanities, it is really making a statement of how unjustly I must have felt my client was being treated. Pete, my suggestion would be to bow out of this gracefully. Maybe I'll even give Broward another shot and then I can post how cooperative you were on rebound. Maybe... Judy
I've known Judy for close to 10 years and I have never heard her use profanity! I'm having a hard time believing you Pete. I'm in receipt of several emails from you today that were beyond terse. They were downright rude!
Well, I suspect from Judy's last post she might have used a profanity, but, if she did, then I'm sure most would have used more and worse. I might have even been pushed to one and I know my wife would have unleashed many. As a businessman, here's what I read in Pete's post. Still, no apology, no acknowledgement that they might have erred or statement that he's really sorry about the communications issue. The "apologize" in the last sentence comes across as rather empty. I see someone pissed that his business was called out publicly, rightfully or wrongfully. However, I'd suggest he go to YELP and Google reviews and see how some handle such. If he worked for me, he'd be reprimanded for his response, regardless of how Judy did or didn't behave and regardless of who was right or wrong. My guess is his emails to you, Carl, were in anger about the post. I will say this also. I don't like blasting companies online and generally don't like posts like Judy's. However, I feel certain that had Broward made a sincere apology for the entire situation prior to heer post, it would have never been made. I would hope someone above the sales director in Broward, with perhaps better judgement on handling customer disagreements, becomes aware of this incident. We all screw up. We all get accused of screwing up when we honestly feel we did nothing wrong. Ultimately we're not judged on how we handle things when they all go right but how we handle things when they go wrong. I've had marinas that lost our long made reservations. Most have responded appropriately and we wouldn't hesitate to return. Some even made us like them better in the process. Your response should be composed in a way we feel better toward you, not worse, although I know many prefer to just attack harder. The first sentence told me trouble was ahead in the "two sides to every incident." It should have instead read, "I'm very sorry for the problems you had. It's definitely not the way we do business. Now that we've all calmed down I would like you to call me and we can discuss how to repair the damage done and how to avoid such problems in the future. This is the first time I've had to respond to a problem like this and I want to insure I don't have to again." Right or wrong, I wouldn't have gone any further discussing the details online.
Having the pleasure of knowing Judy both professionally and personally, I submit that any profanity was delivered in a “lady-like” fashion, was succinct, and was well deserved! Kinda like when someone you know, who would never, ever use the F-bomb, and does - and then the room goes very, very silent. . . Yeah. THAT’s the Judy I know!! Bravo Zulu Judy!
For the record there are three sides to every story, and for the life of me I can't believe someone would join this forum and use their very first post to stick a foot in their mouth and resurrect a negative thread in which they were the subject, and that by all rights was otherwise on it's way to fading off into the sunset.
So right. To come in to do anything other than apologize (even if he didn't feel he was wrong) could only go bad.
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