fbpx

Boating: reinvent user experience with Liberty Pass

Since May 2020, Nauticoncept has developed Liberty Pass, a tailor-made subscription system. This new form of “multiownership”, without any ownership-related inconvenience and cost, enables boaters and charters to optimize their fleets and generate new income.

Boaters are affected too by the shift from ownership to usership.

Today, every sector can observe a shift from ownership to usership. Modern customers want to pay only for using goods and to break free from ownership constraints. Boating is no exception, “boating will be all the more sensitive to this issue as we know that, on average, boat owners use their boat 7 days a year.” added Romuald Poirot, CEO of Nauticoncept.

But it’s no news that a boat is expensive. Additional costs related to boat ownership are very high (port tax, cleaning, maintenance…). And yet, the demand for boating experience is still there and has to remain profitable for professionals (boat charters and boaters). In the years to come, what’s at stake for them is selling boats on the one hand and offering new user experience associated with boating on the other.

Customers want to have their cake and eat it too? So be it…

“Use without ownership inconvenience”, explained Nicolas Wolff, president of Nauticoncept, “it’s a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it too”, but it is one of the shifts in our consumer society, and we have to adapt to it. New technologies enable us to do so. Thanks to these, we created Nauticoncept (and Liberty Pass) to offer new tools to boaters that can be adapted to their sector’s concerns. “But to be efficient, these solutions with high technological added value have to be designed for the boaters, to be adaptable to their model. Technology has to serve the users, not the other way around”, insisted Romuald Poirot. Nauticoncept’s solution is based on a network of 150 partners all over France and might be launched on the European market.

Creating a Boat Club without the Boat Club inconveniences

“We were trying to create a new solution which our customers could use, and with which they could not only adapt to a market, on which growth is uncertain and in the process of stabilizing, but also adapt to new consuming trends”. A solution that could seduce both boat charters and boaters.

Nauticoncept teams worked hard on the American style boat club model, but it happened to be too restrictive and not adaptable to the French market. “We then decided to create a boat club without the boat club constraints”, that is a fleet operation system creating additional and ongoing income for boaters (and owners), but without any inconveniences. This means no entry fees for the boater or for the subscriber, no purchase obligation, no fee-sharing. But this also means our solution might offer customers a chance to stand out from competition and to reach an audience looking for new user experience.

Liberty Pass: creating a unique user experience, generating recurring income and optimizing your fleet without constraints.

The startup’s mobile app was redesigned based on 4 easy principles:

  1. Boaters have to be able to freely fix their prices.
  2. The plan is designed to optimize a fleet, so it has to help limit human intervention as much as possible. For example, check-in/check-out processes are fully automated and online through the app.
  3. Boaters or charters have to be able to monitor the boat ; the app needs to let them control the use of the boat and send detailed sailing reports.
  4. Maximum freedom to members, who can use the boat almost as if it was their own without having to be the owner and enjoy a new customer experience.
To secure the use of their fleet, boaters can locate their boats at any time, and even monitor how they are used.

What kind of experience is it for customers ?

This solution is for every boater who owns and manages a fleet and wants to optimize it. But it also can be for boat charters who have regular trusting customers, who they want to prioritize, kind of like a VIP audience.

Members pay a monthly subscription, nothing more. They can use a boat whenever they want as long as they book it on the shared calendar. As check-in/check-out procedures are digitalized, no more check-out with staff intervention and no more daily contract management. Customers are free to take and bring back the boat whenever they want.

Liberty Pass turned my customers into “oil kings”

In Mandelieu, Christophe Rolles from Passion Boat has been using Liberty Pass for 30 days. “Today, my customers are delighted, they feel like they are oil kings. They can use a boat from my rental fleet with a subscription starting from 159 euros per month”.

Customers can, on the same week, either wakeboard or waterski, or bring 8 or 12 people on a cruise in the islands, without boat-related inconvenience, and that’s a huge advantage. They can pick a boat from the 5m50 – 6m50 range, or in the 8m+ range with the multiboat option, which can be (easily) included in the subscription. PassionBoat customers have only one constraint: bringing back the boat with a full tank.

“They take care of the boat and use it reasonably. They immediately understand that it’s kind of their boat too, and they use it as such.” explained Christophe Rolles. For their part, PassionBoat only pays for the fee to use their tailored version of the app, nothing more. “Prices for ”easy adopter” are still applicable today,” added Romuald Poirot.

Don’t hesitate to install Liberty Pass in July, it’s not too late and implementation only takes a week. Contact us for a demo.

Click on the picture to read more about Liberty Pass