Allport Marina
Marina & marine service centre · Bracebridge, Central Ontario
180 dock slips and 8 winter storage buildings is a lot of finite inventory to manage over phone and fax — a slip and storage booking portal would let your boaters reserve real availability online instead of calling in.
Why they need it
Allport is a serious operation — 180+ dock slips, 8 enclosed winter storage buildings, a fuel dock, and full mechanical, detailing and fiberglass/gelcoat service — yet the only contact methods listed are phone, fax and email. Slip rentals and winter storage are exactly the kind of finite-inventory, date-driven bookings that are painful to manage by phone and fax and easy to double-book or under-utilize without a real system. A marina management portal covering slip reservations, storage building assignment, and service/detailing bookings would let boat owners self-serve against live availability, and would give Allport's team one dashboard instead of a phone-and-fax log to track 180-plus slips and eight buildings' worth of capacity across a full season.
Tech gaps
No online booking for service, storage or dock slips; no online payment; no customer portal; still lists a fax number as a primary contact method
Current tech
Basic informational website; contact methods listed are phone, fax, email and in-person only
Selling a customer portal
PlaybookA login for their customers to book, see status, and pay, so the phone stops ringing for updates.
- Ask how many 'where is my job at' calls the office takes a week.
- Portals pay back on admin hours saved, not on new sales. Frame it as staff time.
- Start with status and booking. Payments and documents are phase two.
Objections (3)
- “We already have a website.”
- A website tells people about you. A portal does the work for you. It sits behind a login on the site you already have.
- “Our customers won't log in.”
- They already do it for their bank and their dentist. We text them a link; no password on the first visit.
- “Too expensive.”
- What does one admin hour cost you? Most portals replace 10 to 15 hours a week of status calls.