Harleyford Estate is home to a top-rated, 300 berth marina together with a development of luxury timber holiday lodges and a private golf course. The marina has recently enhanced its operations with the installation of a ClearWaterMMS Marina Management software system. This brings the total number of marinas on this part of the Thames using ClearWaterMMS to 5, in addition to many on the south coast and throughout the rest of Europe.
Mike Myers, Marina Manager at Harleyford, says they had been using a system which had been developed in-house but the time had come to replace it with something more sophisticated. He sought advice from other marina operators such as MDL, Premier, Tingdene and Harleyford’s sister marina, Shepperton, which has been using ClearWaterMMS for nearly 10 years.
Mike looked at several systems on the market and ClearWaterMMS came out as good as, if not better, than the rest. “I asked competitors to wow me and they couldn’t.” The consultants at George James Software, who develop ClearWaterMMS, were extremely knowledgeable and helpful and were very interested in our operation and how the system could be tailored to exactly fulfill our needs. They have experience of dealing with large operations such as MDL and smaller individual sites such as ours.
The whole process was extremely smooth. From the initial visit in July 2007 to going live in September the system was completely configured and adapted to fit Harleyford’s operation. Harleyford had already collected data going back 10 years, a valuable resource which they didn’t want to lose. All this data was checked for integrity and tidied up for consistency, then migrated to ClearWaterMMS where it can still be used. The system was linked with Sage Line 200 via a browser based interface so that all transactions are exported from ClearwaterMMS into their accounts package.
Mike already had document templates he was happy with and didn’t want to change so the templates within ClearWaterMMS were configured to be exactly the same as he and his customers were used to. Harleyford had their own unique phased payment process which was able to be replicated within the system. It was also configured to deal with electricity payments from the holiday homes site separately from the marina.
At Harleyford, berths are reconfigured from season to season and with ClearWaterMMS’ flexible marina map this is a straightforward process. The system retains the history of how it looked each year and can show what it’ll look like in the future. It shows clearly which berths are occupied at any given time. Once the system was ready, it took just half a day to install and half a day to train the users.
Staff at Harleyford find the software easy to use. Mike, a self-confessed technophobe, describes it as ‘idiot-proof’. All the basic information relating to a customer is displayed on the main screen with space for extra information within clearly defined tabs. This enables the marina operator to quickly and easily deal with customer queries and provide a very efficient service, keeping everyone happy.
Harleyford makes good use of ClearWaterMMS’ mail merge capabilities to effectively keep in touch with their customers. Not only is this simple to use facility used in the generation of contracts and issuing of invoices, but it enables them to quickly and easily contact selected people on the database when necessary. In the recent floods it was a simple procedure to send a quick letter to each of their moorers, updating them on the status of the river and encouraging them to come along to check on their vessel. This demonstrates Harleyford Marina’s commitment to providing quality and service, which has been recognized by the Yacht Harbour Association awarding them the prestigious Five Gold Anchor Award. They expect the same quality and service from their suppliers, which they have received from George James Software. As Mike has found, ClearWaterMMS has an excellent team supporting it. “The staff at George James Software are very helpful. Whenever I need something done I ring up and they help me. If I have a problem I always know there’s someone on the end of the phone and I know it’s going to be dealt with.” They are experts in their field and in implementing the software they get to know each individual marina’s setup which enables them to provide a quick and efficient support service.
If you would like more information about ClearWaterMMS phone Tim Huggins on 01932 252568 or visit www.clearwatermms.com. For information about Harleyford Marina go to www.harleyford.co.uk.
Euromarina Issue 2 - 2003 (647 KB)
Marina World May /June 2003 (971 KB)
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