Pyxis Nautica runs a family-owned charter operation out of Marina Veruda in Pula, on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Petra Susak and her husband have spent years in nautical tourism and have been sailing since childhood. They successfully position the company as a boutique charter and use Floatist to create part of the charter guest experience.
The challenge: a small fleet can hardly compete on pricing
A boutique operator cannot win guests over with the cheapest price, nor should it. A boutique charter needs to differentiate on the guest experience, care, support and branding. For Petra it was very important to differentiate her company the moment after a guest books and arrives at their marina.
They recently renovated their office to carry their branding all over. From comfortable chairs and a waiting area, to high end sailing magazines and wooden flooring, the moment we stepped into their office immediately felt different from many other charter offices in Croatia. And this first differentiation matters as the first hour a guest spends with a charter company is the same hour almost everywhere: paperwork, a walkthrough, a signature.
This is why they wanted to tackle the same problem everyone has. Paperwork, a walkthrough and a signature.
What Pyxis Nautica was looking for
Pyxis came to Floatist when Petra went looking for something she could give her guests as added value, and she was initially not looking for yacht charter management software. She was looking for a way to give guests something the bases next door were not giving their guests and that can be felt when driving through the marina on a busy weekend.
She is open about not believing in the possibilities and added value a software tool can bring to any yacht charter company. But in the end, it was a decision they do not regret and are happy to have taken.
Starting with the software: fully set up by Floatist, on site
The hesitation Pyxis then encountered is similar across every operator. Not whether the product is good, but how software will be implemented if you are not used to it. Operators are afraid that you just buy charter management software and then you have to figure everything out alone as other solutions on the market do it. This leaves space for staff not to adapt to it, to revoke the change, and for decision makers to regret their decision.
However, this is something that is integral to how Floatist operates. The Floatist team handles any onboarding, training and sets up the software for the client so charter operators don’t get an empty system waiting to be filled in but instead get a fully adjusted and personalized approach.
As a result of this, the team came to Marina Veruda, photographed the boats, built the checklists and loaded the yacht documentation.
What guests see
The reaction Pyxis were after shows up at the moment the guest opens the app, and it shows up even with the guests least likely to care about software.
Solving the language barrier problem was one part Petra did not expect. Even though her team speaks several languages, they don’t speak every single one of the languages of their guests’ nationalities. Before Floatist, they had to rely on gestures, patience and hope that agents did their job properly beforehand and the guest arrived prepared.
That is why Floatist creates a personalized guest access so no matter the language, guests can check everything about their booking inside Floatist in their own language, check manuals, read the marina descriptions and arrival procedures and arrive prepared. This also creates a better environment for the base as the constant calls from guests come down to a minimum because they find everything in the app themselves.
Two years in, her verdict on the bet is short: “I see we did the right thing, because guests are genuinely happy with it.”
What the base gets
One useful change was that the checklist gives the team insights into the guest before their staff comes back to the boat. When a guest flags something during the digital check-in, Pyxis can see it while they are still walking down the pontoon.
That is the boutique promise stated as an operational fact rather than a slogan. The team arrives already knowing which part of this particular boat this particular guest is unsure about, and spends the handover there instead of reading out the same walkthrough they give everyone and everyone has heard many times before.
Support and requests towards their workflows
As every company runs a bit differently and different countries require different requirements to stay compliant, being able to submit small adjustments or ask for a quick fix is important. Without a reliable team behind the software you can be left stranded quite quickly. For the Pyxis team, choosing Floatist and their 24/7 support paid off quickly and they realized that things can always change and sometimes, if you forget something you need to be able to get help quickly. A situation like this occurs often in the first year and so it did with Pyxis but it took literally just a few seconds to solve again.
One case went further than support. Croatian tourist tax is handled a particular way for week-long charters, and Floatist had it configured for that. Then shorter bookings started arriving with Pyxis and the original setup no longer fitted but was resolved and adjusted by the Floatist team promptly.
