Bloody dive shops...

[yle]

My local places are pretty good. My biggest beef with most LDS and charters is the fact that they rely on Facebook for everything. Whats your class schedule? "Check facebook". Trips? "check facebook"....Many people, including me, do not use facebook. .

But you don't have to actively use Facebook to see the shop's schedule on Facebook. It's not different than just looking at a website. It's perfectly reasonable for the shop to post its schedule on their Facebook page and then tell you, when you ask where their schedule is, that it's on Facebook. The nice thing about this is once they tell you where they post it, you know where it is... forever. And you can look at it whenever you want.

If you want someone to sit down with you and personally read you the class schedule, as if it's a bedtime story, you might want to consider that your definition of "customer service" might be a little different than that of the average person.

It gets harder and harder every day to book classes or trips the normal way. Have they all just gotten too lazy to actually interact with humans? Do people really book classes on Facebook without talking to potential instructors first? No thanks.

Booking things via the internet has been the "normal way" for just about everything for a long time now. There's nothing stopping you from looking at the schedule (on Facebook), talking to your potential instructor, and then booking the class online.

If you would complain about something so simple as this, as an instructor I would have to consider what else you would complain about during the class.

 

[84CJ7]

I stopped being sympathetic to dive shops a long time ago, many of them truly deserve to fail for many reasons mentioned above that I agree with. I have seen a number of them do so in the last 20 years (I can think of four at least in the last 10 or so)
That has forced me to be better myself and I now own and service all my own gear and am finally looking into a small compressor out of necessity rather than fill cost due to how infrequently I dive right now. The hydrotester is an hour or two away from here so I have no need for dive shops anymore to be honest.

What they should have done when there were still many of them was consolidated efforts and money into just a few joined locations at ideal spots, put in a back end warehouse with the brick and mortar front and then used buying power and a large internet presence to make themselves available.
Somewhere like scubatoys is basically the modern model for a dive shop. You can walk in the door and its a scuba shop with air fills, gear service and people to talk to, or you can order online and its like a low cost internet vendor and they have a strong presence in both areas. You can always get someone on the phone or in an email.

Around here I would have one location in the twin cities mn somewhere easy access on the outer freeway belt but where there is money like woodbury which is also right on I94 into WI, one location in duluth or superior wi for the superior divers and one in either eau claire or black river falls (toss up on being closer to the people or the dive site) for the college crowd and lake wazee and all joined as one company with a single website and main warehouse that handles internet orders in the twin cities with smaller amounts of product stored at the other two and supplied as necessary from the warehouse.
Facebook by itself just isn't good enough (yes I have a facebook account just for access to those), you need a webpage that is complete and working and easy to order from for the large percentage of people that are too far away to drive to you very often if at all.

Which Black river falls shop is closing?
I can only think of marineland which is a more mainstream shop but who has a deal top dead center on their sales webpage that expired august 31 2013, and wazee sports which was a really cool tech oriented shop but never quite got the hang of keeping a working webpage up despite at least attempting to put products online and at one point forgot to renew their domain name license or something for a few months or so and didn't have a page at all.
Both are right down the street from each other as I recall in an area with only enough business for one.

Seems I will need to get that compressor sooner than I thought if the last few lights are winking out.
I think the only other shops I know of are in Hudson which is too far out of my way and Inland divers supply in Chippewa though I keep expecting to hear that Russ fell over dead while I wasn't looking and the place closed. But its closed sat and sun and only 8-5:30 weekdays. Sometimes he is there for air fills and such outside of hours since its out of his garage. If it weren't out of his garage he wouldn't be in business, its sorta retirement work for him at this point I think and I don't think there have ever been any other employees. He only seems to have a facebook page with no website and you have to be pretty specific in a web search for even that to come up.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Back before the internet, the local dive shop was the go to place for everything. They pretty much had control over every facet of the sport as it related to the customer/end user. It was a lot easier for them to protect the identity of the behind the scenes pricing structure, business model, service, etc.
Now with the internet their whole existence has undermined by direct pricing, grey market pricing, world wide availability of gear and diving locations/trips that never would have been available to the average person. People are able to find much better deals on everything except air fills on the internet.
Dive shops got really angry and developed attitudes towards this new phenomenon. A lot of them (that are still around) still have an attitude, and some have figured out ways to integrate into a new dive world which includes figuring out ways of dealing with less divers proportionate to the increase in population, competitive pricing, and the latest in gear technology.

In my opinion diving is a dying sport, and the shops that cling to the old ideals of the past are sitting ducks.

 

[Kimela]

Love my LDS! I don't have any of the problems you mentioned. In fact, I just got new prescription lenses in my mask and the LDS owner contacted me afterward to see if she should toss the old lenses or hang onto them for me. I kept forgetting to call her to tell her to toss them, so I messaged her on Facebook today and got a response almost immediately - and that's the norm.

I raised my kids telling them 'if you're willing to work hard, deliver on your promises, offer excellent customer service and show up on time you'll be poised to take over the world!'. Somehow we got away from the basics of good business dealings. When I get good customer service I am thrilled!!

 

[Divectionist]

In my opinion diving is a dying sport.

This entirely depends on where you are in the world. Since you are in the US, it's a fair statement, but not so much in Asia.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Interesting. I always thought it would be a great idea to have a little coffee area in a shop. People could wait their turn with the staff or chat with staff and other divers. Talk about diving, get hooked on a new piece of gear or a trip or a course. But that would be expensive real estate just in the hopes that it would pay off in other ways.

Maybe a cash bar, lol. Always money in booze.

That's one of my plans for my dive op. I want to have it on a high foot traffic area, where people stop in and we talk about diving and who knows what else. A place that people enjoy being and that along with the decor (I want to have dive films playing on all, and no, I'm not talking about films like this: )

 

[Marie13]

That's one of my plans for my dive op. I want to have it on a high foot traffic area, where people stop in and we talk about diving and who knows what else. A place that people enjoy being and that along with the decor (I want to have dive films playing on all, and no, I'm not talking about films like this: )

I call DRIS my corner bar. Literally every time I’m in there, I run into someone and we yak. Sometimes we end up going out to the local sports bar for something to eat.

 

[Manatee Diver]

I call DRIS my corner bar. Literally every time I’m in there, I run into someone and we yak. Sometimes we end up going out to the local sports bar for something to eat.

Similar things happen at various dive shops in cave country. You hop into Dive Outpost or CCDS for a fill or some last minute supplies and there is a good chance you will bump into someone you know and spend an hour chatting.

 

[MiloR]

The LDS that I use is ridiculously friendly and responsive in my opinion. As someone mentioned above I choose to buy things from them even though I know I can/could get them cheaper elsewhere. I make this choice because I want to support a Local Business as I also own a Local Business. Once I started going to the LDS, and it was discussed what I did and where I was located, the Owner of the LDS has come to me for my services. The whole place makes me feel very welcome and appreciated when I walk in the door and I feel that my supporting them the way I do is a big part of that.

As to emails....7 days ago I emailed a Dive Shop in a place I plan to Vacation in late January. The email asked a few basic questions BUT I also stated I was interested in booking their Services while I was there. I stated that after looking at their offerings I was interested in doing a morning 2 tank dive and an Night 2 tank dive every day for 5 days. This is no small amount of money, imo. To date I have received NO response......frustrating to say the least. Maybe next week I will call....maybe not.

 

[Esprise Me]

Interesting. I always thought it would be a great idea to have a little coffee area in a shop. People could wait their turn with the staff or chat with staff and other divers. Talk about diving, get hooked on a new piece of gear or a trip or a course. But that would be expensive real estate just in the hopes that it would pay off in other ways.

Maybe a cash bar, lol. Always money in booze.

You mean...a dive bar?



... I'll show myself out.