You know what premium service takes. But do you know why you still don’t have it?

• 26.05.2026.
• Technology, Management, Education

In this column, Andreja Fazlić explains why premium service in the yacht charter industry is not created simply through better yachts, smoother communication, or a new CRM. It requires changes in the way teams operate, make decisions, and think about service itself. The article explores why business transformation often breaks down precisely where technology ends and human habits begin.

A lot has already been said about what needs to change in the yacht charter industry. Recently, Selma Ćubara put it very clearly: the customer has changed, inertia no longer works, and digitalisation is no longer cosmetic, but an operational requirement. The same topics were discussed at the ANBF as well: dependency on intermediaries, lack of digital processes, short-term thinking, focusing only on “your part of the job”, lack of industry standards, while everyone keeps talking about “premium service” and “excellent customer experience”.

Her message was clear: you no longer have the luxury of doing things the old way.

And you really don’t. I completely agree with her. And if you’ve read my articles or followed my work, you already know this diagnosis is not limited to the charter industry alone.

What we still don’t talk about enough, and what I believe deserves far more attention, is why change still doesn’t happen even when everyone knows it’s necessary. And long overdue.

A premium guest is not buying a week at sea 

When someone books a premium sailing yacht or motor yacht, they are not simply making a financial decision. They are making a decision about who they are.

They are buying a story about themselves. A story they will later tell their partner, friends, business associates. A story confirmed by photos from the deck long after the trip is over.

Clayton Christensen, Harvard professor and author, argued that people don’t simply buy products or services. They “hire” them to do a certain job in their lives. He breaks this down into three levels:

• Functional job: A yacht that works properly, a smooth check-in, a crew that knows what it’s doing.
• Emotional job: The feeling of being someone who can afford and enjoy this kind of experience.
• Social job: What that photo from the deck says about them to others.

The functional job is simply the minimum requirement to enter the market. The emotional and social jobs are where premium service is actually created.

Unfortunately, this is also where many leaders and teams struggle. If you don’t truly understand who your guest is and what brought them to you, you can execute the functional part perfectly and still deliver an experience that feels empty. Because the emotional layer was missing.

In other words, the guest received what they ordered, but not what they paid for.

Everyone knows what needs to be done, yet it still doesn’t happen 

Most leaders I work with understand this intuitively. They know the experience they provide often doesn’t fully match the price they charge. They see every compromise happening behind the scenes just to get through the season. They know the team operates on habit instead of standards. They know the business cannot function without them standing in the middle of everything, controlling every detail. They know they themselves have become the bottleneck.

For a while, they live with that knowledge. They postpone decisions because it’s peak season, because there’s no time, because things will somehow sort themselves out later. Then a bad review happens. Or a key employee leaves. Or the season falls short of expectations. And when the discomfort becomes too hard to ignore, they finally decide to make changes. Usually at the end of the season.

They start a business transformation project. They implement a CRM and other digital systems, introduce procedures, organise onboarding, even hire consultants. The enthusiasm is real. The intention is genuine. And everything works. At least until the next season begins. That’s when the first real test arrives. The first inquiries inside the new system. New manual and automated processes. The first check-ins. The first moment when the team needs to make decisions without the owner standing next to them. That is the exact moment when new processes collide with old habits.

The CRM is technically there, but nobody noticed the website form integration stopped working. Procedures exist, but only part of the team follows them, while others continue working the old way because it feels easier and faster. The owner attends fewer weekly meetings. The consultant is no longer treated like someone with all the answers. Recommendations are acknowledged politely with “we’ll do it”, only for everything to quietly return to old patterns. Because the old way feels safer.

Behaviour is the system, and the system reflects identity 

This scenario is almost a recurring theme in business transformation projects. And it usually tells a story about the founder.

At its core, business transformation is about changing behaviour and mindset. How the team communicates with guests. How information is recorded. Who makes decisions and when. How problems are handled when things go wrong on the one day everything is supposed to run perfectly. How the team sees itself.

Behaviour is rarely a knowledge problem. Most of the time, people already know what should be done. The real issue is that under pressure, people return to what feels familiar. And that is identity: what we do when pressure is highest or when nobody is watching.

Every system inside a small owner-led business reflects the identity of the person who built it. An owner who spent years being the centre of every operation naturally built a business where everything goes through them. At one stage, that was probably the only way to maintain quality. And for a long time, it worked.

But once friction starts appearing in the business, fewer inquiries, weaker bookings, employee turnover, it becomes a sign that the system that once carried the business no longer works. Yet it is almost always interpreted as an external problem rather than an internal one.

William Bridges, an American author and change consultant, makes an important distinction that many companies confuse during transformation projects: change and transition.

Change is external. A new system. A new process. A new automation. Something with a deadline. Transition is internal. A human and psychological process where people let go of an old identity and slowly build a new one. And transition follows its own timeline.

In practice, what usually happens is this: the change has already been implemented, while the transition hasn’t even started.

The topic nobody talks ab out openly 

The identity of an owner who built a business with their own hands is often rooted in a few deeply held beliefs: I know where everything is.
I know how things should be done. My standards are the standards that work.

And those beliefs are often exactly why the business exists in the first place. But the moment you try to build a company capable of delivering excellent service without the owner standing at the centre of every decision, those same beliefs can become the wall holding the business back.

Premium service cannot depend on one person alone. It has to be delivered by a team through a system that functions consistently whether the owner is available that day or not. Whether they are in a good mood or not. Building that kind of system requires trust. It requires delegation. It requires accepting that things will not always unfold exactly the way you imagined them.

And this leads to a question owners rarely ask themselves out loud:

Am I, as the same person who built this business, capable of leading its transformation as well?

Selma keeps asking whether the industry is finally ready to accept that the market has permanently changed. Judging by the latest reactions to her post, I’d say not entirely. Responsibility is still being shifted around the ecosystem, between skippers, owners, agents and everyone else.

The people who are more aware of what’s happening understand why change matters and why it is unavoidable. Some of them even begin the process, but eventually get stuck. Because every serious business transformation becomes personal at some point. And that is usually the exact moment people choose to skip.

The owners who successfully go through transformation tend to share one thing in common: they started with themselves. And as much as this may sound psychological, because it is, it is still deeply connected to business strategy.

Because the guest booking a premium experience is paying for a feeling. And that feeling, from the first inquiry to check-out, can only be delivered by an organisation whose behaviour is consistent, predictable and independent of whether the owner or leader happens to be available that day.

If you recognised yourself somewhere in this text, whether in the description of the organisation, in the question nobody asks out loud, or in the moment where things usually get stuck, let’s talk. Not about tools. About where to begin.

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