Quick Lift Wins Customer Service Ducky

BoatTEST.com’s 2nd “Ducky Award for Customer Service” goes to the Quick Lift davit company. This award is being made a bit late, but “better late than never,” someone once said. This coveted award is given only to companies which have shown a devotion to customer service above and beyond the levels that boaters have now come to expect from the marine companies.

A Quick Lift 800-lb. hydraulic davit on the bow of a 40’ sedan is a typical arrangement.

Some years ago an acquaintance of ours (let’s just call him Harry) bought a pre-owned 55’ convertible that had been used exclusively for sportfishing off of Palm Beach. The new owner wanted to use the 55 primarily for cruising so one of the first things he needed was a RIB tender with outboard motor. The only place to stow a 14,600-lb. tender was on the bow of his convertible, which was about 6’ off the water. Launching and retrieving would be impossible without a hydraulic davit.

It was mid May when the boat was purchased and when the boat’s owner called Quick Lift.

Harry Buys A Davit

A friend suggested that Harry call Quick Lift. He did, found out that they not only had just the right capacity unit in stock, but that their service people would be glad to install the hydraulic unit on the bow of his 55-footer three days hence. To Harry, this sounded a little too good to be true and so he wondered what was wrong.

A company that had a unit in stock and would install it with their own staff with only a couple of days notice didn’t sound like any company he’d ever dealt with in the marine business. Harry figured that because the well-known davit makers were sold out, and Quick Lift wasn’t, that there must be something wrong with Quick Lift’s products.

Some builders are hiding hydraulic davits in the transom storage compartments.

But it was the only game in town so harry bought the Quick Lift unit and hoped for the best. The unit was installed a couple of days later and Harry was on his way.

Trouble with the Davit

But a month and 1200 miles later, the wire cable at the mouth of the Quick Lift boom had frayed and was ready to break. Harry wondered what Quick Lift had done wrong? Was this a defect in manufacture?

He called Quick Lift, explained what had happened, and said that he wanted to go cruising again the following weekend and use his tender. Quick Lift’s tech said he would fly from Miami to New York in two days and fix the unit. And he did, no questions asked. None.

In fact, what had happened was that Harry didn’t snug down his cable properly and it had rubbed against the aluminum housing of the davit arm which sawed through the twisted cable wire. The fix took about three hours, Harry drove the tech to the airport, said thank you, and that was that. No bill. No charge. No request even for reimbursement for the plane ticket.

Note the bracing white tube immediately under the boat deck which transfers the weight being lifted by this Quick Lift unit to the supports in the bilge of this motoryacht.

And Harry went cruising that weekend as planned. Happily.

Lightning Strikes Harry Again

Would you believe that three months later the same thing happened again? (We suspect that Quick Lift couldn’t believe it.) Once again Harry had let his davit boom wiggle and it once again sawed through the cable. Once again Quick Lift’s tech got on a plane to New York and replaced the cable. This time he affixed a device that restrained the boom, making it virtually Harry-proof. Harry took the tech to the airport, said thank you. No charge. No invoice. Just a friendly smile.

And for the next 8 years Harry, his kids, his friends and wife all used the Quick Lift hydraulic davit and it preformed flawlessly.

For Spectacular Service in the Marine Industry, we hereby award Quick Lift the BoatTEST.com “Customer Service Award Coveted Ducky.” Good on ya, Quick Lift!

Quick Life makes hydraulic davits from 800-lb. to 4,000-lb., all with optional remote controls.

In the process of grabbing the pictures from Quick Lift’s website we were surprised that there were few words there, no dancing girls, just pictures of their products, specs, prices and contact information. Then at the bottom of the page we saw a single sentence --

"Quality and customer service are our main priority."

To visit the Quick Lift site and see for yourself...

Dear Readers...

The above story is a true one. This is only the second time in 10 years that BoatTEST.com has awarded a coveted Ducky Award for “Spectacular Customer Service in the Marine Industry.” But, certainly there must be more examples of it! If you have a deserving nominee, please drop us a line at [email protected]. We love hearing about companies which “Get It” and understand we live in a new era. We also enjoy explaining how to do it to the slow learners.