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Summer is an incredibly busy time for Wayden Dobier. His company, Dobier
Prop Works, offers propeller and fiberglass hull repair services to
recreational boaters. Dobier's business is nestled on the bank of a
major waterway and reservoir popular with fishermen, skiers, and
families.
To cope with the high seasonal demand for its services, Dobier Prop
Works relies on an answering service to help serve its customers. "Just
last week, I had a guy call us on a Sunday afternoon. The very
first time he took his new boat on the water, he hit a deadhead [a
submerged tree trunk] and put a hole in his hull. It was a $30,000 boat
and it had only been wet for about an hour," said Wayden.
"Since it was a
Sunday, we weren't open, but the answering service took good care of him. They took down all the details, told him where to
deliver the boat and even wrote up a work order. When the guys got to the
shop Monday morning, everything was ready for us to get to work on the
situation. We got his boat completely fixed in about two weeks, and he
had lots of summer left to play."
The waterway is also a nationally-known walleye fishery. "One of our
most-common repairs is a prop repair. Some of those fishermen are really
serious. We even have a few guys who are nationally sponsored
professionals. For them, service has to be available. They are great
ambassadors for us," said Wayden.
The professional and personal service that Dobier Prop Works offers has cultivated a national customer
base. "Mostly, our non-local customers are big-time fishermen. Word
spreads quickly regarding customer service. Since we do a good
job, offer 24-hour service, and turn our jobs around quickly, we've
attracted a lot of out-of-town customers," said Wayden.
Taking a business approach meant making some changes. For example,
Wayden added a toll-free number to encourage his nationwide customers.
Initially, he said, it didn't seem like an idea that was going to pay
off. In the summer, calls tend to cluster together at certain times of
the day, but the Prop Works' two phone lines weren't able to the volume. Then
in the fall, calls tended to come in just before or after
business hours, as customers in different time zones were attempting to
call for service.
To overcome these challenges, Wayden
had the overflow calls handled by his
telephone answering service. If a
customer attempts to contact his shop while both his lines are busy, the
call is automatically forwarded to the answering service. Their professional
staff handles routine matters, such as providing standard prices, business hours,
and directions. For more specialized questions, the messages are sent to
the Prop Works shop via fax.
Wayden also added after-hours answering service. When an out-of-state
customer's prop is damaged, they can be provided with repair tickets
directly through the answering service, which has remote access to Prop
Works' scheduling system. The customer can then ship their prop directly
to Prop Works quickly for repair.
"The telephone
answering service," says Wayden, "opened up a whole new realm of opportunity.
Our off-season work has really picked up. Word-of-mouth advertising has
been a big part of our success, as well as making ourselves available to
customers. There is no substitute for that kind of service."
Learn more about telephone
answering services and discover how they might be able to help you.
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