While the vast majority of Bénéteau dealers worldwide are closed and can no longer receive either customers or suppliers, the teams in the various countries are doing their best to prepare for the restart. To varying degrees, of course, as the restrictions are not the same from one country to another.
“In our region, we have been lucky to be able to continue to welcome customers, on condition that they live nearby and that they are not traveling to us from another region. We have been able to meet our customers and to reassure them that, when the time comes, the boats we will deliver will satisfy their expectations. Naturally, we are observing social distancing and hygiene guidelines to a T. We are still able to launch boats. We also sent a truck to Marseille this week for a load of Suzuki engines for our outboard powerboats,” says Thorsten Bergheim, a dealer based in Flensburg in Germany, on the Baltic Sea.
In San Diego, on the west coast of the United States, the situation is very different. “California is said to be a relaxed state, with a population of surfers! In reality, it’s not like that at all. The rules are very strict here and everything has come to a halt. The marinas are closed and the police are active. Naturally, we organized remote work from the outset. This has worked pretty well. Our sales teams are focussing entirely on support and advice, to stay in touch with our customers. We are available if anyone wishes to talk to us about their future projects. We continue to get the boats ready, making sure that there is only one person working on board at any time,” says Barrett Canfield, President of South Coast Yachts.
It is the same story in France, where the commercial operations of the Paimpol and Saint Quay Portrieux sites in Cras Nautique have been closed for 3 weeks, but where the teams continue to provide the service.
“We can still take boats out, take care of careening and launch them in St Quay, but not in Paimpol. We have many of our customers’ boats in storage. These are either new boats that need to be got ready or boats we service. We work on a voluntary basis with skeleton teams. We have adapted our work schedules. We keep going whenever we can! Naturally, we are observing social distancing and elementary safety rules: one person per boat, each person uses his own tools. The aim is to be ready, whenever the season gets underway again,” says Yann Plusquellec, in charge of the Paimpol site.
Rodolf Guasch, President of the Bénéteau Dealer Association in Spain. “Spain has been greatly affected. All the dealers are closed until further notice. During recent weeks, we have been focussing all our efforts on reassuring our staff and our customers about the financial health of our companies. Our partner SGB Finance has helped a lot with measures to postpone our monthly payments. In my dealership, we have been holding Zoom meetings twice a week, to
discuss things and review work in progress and to find out how everyone is faring.
This is important for morale. We enjoy joking and keeping things light enough to motivate everyone working from home. Between dealers, were are currently studying how to pool our stocks and to prepare to get back to business, with the goal of getting as many boats as possible into the water by early June. Bénéteau is also facilitating shared information on stocks, to be able to meet demands quickly and limit as much as possible the delays in delivery caused by the temporary halt in production.”
Oscar Bellandi, President of the Bénéteau Dealer Association in Spain. “All our dealers are also closed, even the workshops. A good deal of our customers run companies, so they are very understanding, since they too have had to reorganize or suspend business. We are all waiting to see what will happen. However, the Italian dealers are continuing to move forward and preparing for business to resume. In my dealership, we are taking advantage of the time to rethink our customer relationship and information tools.
This is important for the future. Behaviour and expectations will change in the future. Although the coronavirus has forced us to increase our social distance, it has also encouraged us to innovate and find new solutions to strengthen the relationships we have with our customers, to extend our availability and form closer ties with them.”
(Bénéteau, the dealers are preparing for recovery – Barchemagazine.com – April 2020)
