Streamlining Waiver Management for a Multi-Channel Charter Company

A premium charter company operating multiple vessels was struggling with an increasingly complex waiver management process. The business accepted bookings both directly from clients and indirectly through agents and brokers, creating fragmented ownership of guest information and inconsistent data quality across charters.

Waivers were mandatory for every individual guest, with additional requirements for minors whose waivers needed to be signed by a parent or legal guardian prior to the sail date. Ensuring all waivers were completed on time had become a critical operational bottleneck.

The Challenge: Admin-Heavy Data Management

The company faced several compounding challenges:

• Incomplete contact data: When bookings came through brokers or travel agents, the charter company often did not receive full guest contact information. Brokers were also reluctant to proactively share charter guest data.
• Complex waiver requirements: Each individual guest needed to sign their own waiver, while minors required an adult to sign on their behalf.
• Vessel-specific waivers: Waivers varied by vessel, making it difficult to standardize the process.
• Manual, time-intensive workflows: Staff were manually emailing waivers, tracking responses, and following up repeatedly as sail dates approached.
• High administrative burden: Operations staff spent hundreds of hours chasing down missing waivers, increasing stress and the risk of last-minute compliance issues.

The existing process was error-prone, difficult to scale, and heavily dependent on manual oversight.

The Solution: A New UI & Waiver Automation

To modernize and automate the waiver process, we implemented a two-part solution centered on HubSpot, DocuSign, and custom integrations.

1. Broker Portal for Guest and Minor Management

To solve the challenge of incomplete guest data from brokers—without requiring brokers to become HubSpot users—we designed and built a custom broker portal using HubSpot CMS pages.

Through this portal, brokers can:

• View the charters (deals) they are associated with
• Add guest contact information directly to each charter
• Identify minors within a charter group
• Specify which adult contacts are signing waivers on behalf of minors

To power this experience, we built custom API workflows using Pipedream that:

• Pulled deal data associated with each broker into the portal interface
• Pushed newly created or updated contact records back into the correct HubSpot deals
• Preserved data integrity while maintaining strict access controls

2. Automated Waiver Delivery with DocuSign<>HubSpot Integration

We integrated DocuSign directly into HubSpot and built an automated workflow that triggers as a charter date approaches.

• Waivers are sent automatically to the appropriate contacts based on timing rules tied to the sail date.
• Because each vessel requires a unique waiver, the workflow branches by vessel type to ensure guests receive the correct document.
• Automated follow-ups are sent to guests who have not yet completed their waivers, eliminating manual chasing.

This ensured waivers were delivered consistently, on time, and with minimal staff involvement.

3. Waiver Dashboards

Creating a dashboard showing outstanding waivers for upcoming charters, charters that were in the queue to send waivers, and ones that were not, allowed our client to quickly isolate if any charters or contacts did not yet have their waivers completed ahead of their sail date.

The Results & Impact

With the new system in place, the charter company achieved immediate and measurable improvements:

• Brokers can now proactively enter guest contact information directly into the system, leading to more accurate and complete contact data while reducing manual entry for the charter company
• Waivers are automatically sent, tracked, and followed up on without manual intervention, leading to more completed waivers prior to the sail date
• Vessel-specific waiver requirements are handled seamlessly
• Compliance risk has been significantly reduced ahead of sail dates
• Operations staff have saved hundreds of hours of administrative time, allowing them to focus on higher-value work

Most importantly, the company now has a scalable, reliable waiver management process that supports both direct bookings and broker-led charters—without friction for guests, brokers, or internal teams.