What prevails about choosing a diving center?

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CyprusDiving

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My husband and I run a diving centre in Cyprus.
Together we are seeking opinions on what questions we should be asking our potential customers in order to know what they are looking for, for example:

What do you look for when deciding on a Diving Centre? This question is generally about what really convinces you to make a choice? Is this an instructor experience or something else?

What do you think about the standard of diving centres in Cyprus How does Cyprus compare to other locations?

Dana Theakston
 
I will give you my personal one when we are going somewhere new. We have never been to Cypress.

First I look online for the diveshops in the area and their reviews. That includes on here especially. That gives me my initial list of dive shop potentials.

I then reach out to each one of the shops individually and tell them the when and what of my trip and ask if they can accommodate those plans. I have found that this usually whittles my list down by half or more simply by shops that do not respond.

I ask the usual questions regarding safety, service, and price. I find that very seldom does price ever make any difference in my decision. Most shops in a given area are pretty close in that regard and usually what wins out is the rapport that I have (or have not) built with them thorough the exchange of emails.

Mrs Flush and myself are heading to Roatan in a couple of weeks with some friends for a week of diving. We have some other things that we are doing there in addition to diving so we needed some flexibility with our dive schedule. I reached out to five different shops. Out of those, two didn't respond for unknown reasons. The other three that did were all similar in price. One of them that shall remain nameless was quite rude in their email exchanges with me so they got scratched off the list. This left me with the two. One was going to be a five minute walk from where we are staying and one is a 15 minute ride by car. When I first started talking to them I did not realize this one was that far away but because of the rapport I had developed with them we decided on diving with them.

Customer service wins the day with me and I try to be the customer that I would want to have.
 
First I look online for the diveshops in the area and their reviews. That includes on here especially. That gives me my initial list of dive shop potentials.
What websites do you read reviews on? What portals are authority for you?

I ask the usual questions regarding safety, service, and price. I find that very seldom does price ever make any difference in my decision. Most shops in a given area are pretty close in that regard and usually what wins out is the rapport that I have (or have not) built with them thorough the exchange of emails.
What is important to you when exchanging e-mails? What catches your attention in an e-mail ?
 
What websites do you read reviews on? What portals are authority for you?


What is important to you when exchanging e-mails? What catches your attention in an e-mail ?

For me, it's honestly just a response in 24-48 hours. If a shop gets back to me and answers my questions, it means they're monitoring potential customers and trying to answer their questions. I generally give that a point in the "customer service" category, especially in the dive industry where a response, unfortunately, isn't a given.
 
What websites do you read reviews on? What portals are authority for you?
All the regulars. Trip Advisor, Expedia, Yelp. I tend to put more trust in reviews of a particular business that has a lot of reviews (larger sampling size) This does not mean that I discount a business simply because it does not have many reviews, it only means that I do not put as much stock into the reviews.


What is important to you when exchanging e-mails? What catches your attention in an e-mail ?
That is the magic question isn't it? Seems hard to put my finger on it now that you have asked. Maybe a little more background on the Roatan decision.

So when I realized that one of the dive shops I was talking to was a car ride/ or water taxi away in lieu of walking distance, I sent them a very apologetic email explaining that it was my mistake for not realizing their location in relation to where we were staying and was sorry to have wasted their time. Because we had already been exchanging emails I also asked them who they would recommend who was close to us.

What I received back from then was not only an email that expressed their disappointment, but one that offered two solutions to our problem. The first being a shuttle in the mornings to get us to their dive shop and then we could water taxi back when we were done diving. The second was the name and contact information of one of their competitors that would be walking distance. To me, that speaks volumes! If you can't service the customer, offer a solution that gets them serviced even if it is by another shop. I believe most people will remember and respond to that. I know I certainly do and did!
 
This may sound odd, but one of the things I look at is how the owners respond to negative reviews on TripAdvisor and other sites.

Some negative reviews are bogus, some are legit. I like it when the owner owns up to mistakes and stands up to the whiners and scammers. It tells me a lot about how they deal with people.
 
I do much the same as Saniflush. Along with online reviews (TripAdvisor, here, social media etc) I will actually Google Street-view the operation. I look for the basics (clean & well kept-up facade) and some pride of ownership.

Email replies- I too dropped a rather well known centre in Tulum because of poor responses. Despite asking very direct, simple questions and stating very simple, direct dive objectives in my emails I received a form letter/price list response. I don't think they actually read my e-mail at all. Language differences aside even Google translator would have made my objectives clear. If you can't understand an e-mail don't just send the form response... state that you are having difficulty understanding the e-mail.
 
When I am searching for a dive operator in a new location i google that location and see the local web sites, then I click on the web site and hopefully I will see the following in a clear and concise manner without having to hunt for it:

1. Location of shop and phone number/email
2. Hours of operation
3. Services and costs (including types of dives/sites)
4. (if you have boats) Boat size and number of divers taken, with a clear picture of the boat
5. Then a nice simple click to see the curriculum vitae of the staff/capt/instructors

After that anything else is a bonus. But I cannot tell you how many times I have looked at diver shop/operator web sites and been dumbfounded on the what/where/how questions. I have not even called shops that may have been great only because I could not get any basic information off their beautifully ornate web page.
 
As of recently any operator that has AED’s on the boat or truck would also get my business. I think it should be as common as emergency O2.
 
A solid presence on ScubaBoard is a must for me. I like Dive Ops who care enough to engage us here, much as you are doing now. Get your customers talking about you here, post pics and simply having fun, gives us real insight into who you are and what you're about. That's not possible elsewhere, and your insights, might incite us to come and visit.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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