Do you really want a Groupon Training Experience?

[sphyrnidus]

What's with the yellow hoses they are dragging through the sand? Hopefully not there octopusses


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[Goodtime Adventures]

Exactly this. My old LDS occasionally uses Groupon, but just for DSD’s. The people who buy them have a great time and sign up for the full Open Water course.

Agreed. As a dive op this is the only way Groupon deals would be feasible - as an upsell to OW. It just wouldn't be sustainable (for us anyway, not suggesting its the case for everyone) to offer group deals on courses. As a centre with a strict 4 student per instructor ration, it just wouldn't be financially viable. And we'd be completely unprepared to up group sizes just to get people through the door. There's better ways to do marketing than that....

 

[PhilaDallas]

I did a Groupon Class. Not sure how it normally is, but I felt like about a third of the people in the class had no business being there. My wife and I had a good experience (except for the 12 people in the pool part), but there were people with very poor swimming skills, people that could not pass the tests and so on. We ended up doing our check out dives while on vacation, so I am not sure what the group looked like, skills wise, at graduation time.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Let's pause for a minute and determine the actual cost of certification. It is not the advertised price in most cases. Course fee: $400.00. Materials x dollars; pool fees ( in some cases) y dollars; additional fees for open water dives: x dollars. Gear rental z dollars. Purchase of at lease mask snorkel and fins, about 200 dollars. park fees for open water dives, 20 dollars. What you really are spending is likely between $650 and $800 depending upon what is and is not included in the package. I know there are some places where $450.00 covers everything including gear rental, but that is a rare thing. Read your groupons and ads carefully. There is likely small print that says something like
" course materials, rental equipment, pool fees and park fees extra."
DivemasterDennis

 

[tomfcrist]

Let's pause for a minute and determine the actual cost of certification. It is not the advertised price in most cases. Course fee: $400.00. Materials x dollars; pool fees ( in some cases) y dollars; additional fees for open water dives: x dollars. Gear rental z dollars. Purchase of at lease mask snorkel and fins, about 200 dollars. park fees for open water dives, 20 dollars. What you really are spending is likely between $650 and $800 depending upon what is and is not included in the package. I know there are some places where $450.00 covers everything including gear rental, but that is a rare thing. Read your groupons and ads carefully. There is likely small print that says something like
" course materials, rental equipment, pool fees and park fees extra."
DivemasterDennis

Yup. And that does not only apply to groupon deals. In my neck of the woods the shops are all baiting customers with $250 course fees and then sodomizing them with additional fees as the course wears on. I dont understand the buisiness logic behind that, but they are all still in buisiness. Shame really.

 

[redacted]

All I really wanted was the $15 C-card.

 

[danvolker]

One of the more ridiculous aspects of the "Groupon" business model for some shops....is that they are MARKETING TO a TARGET AUDIENCE that is extremely "cheap" to the point of "not caring about quality".....This is essentially the population of people that steal Splenda or Equal at restaurants.....So the real question is: "Do you really want your customer base to have buying and behavioral defects like this? I would expect that a shop with lots of customer base raised like this, will have terrible long term problems with no customer loyalty and with poorly skilled divers that are constantly dropping out of diving.

 

[Lead_carrier]

We see Groupon in action with Dive Instruction at the Blue Heron Bridge Marine Park every weekend....often a dozen big classes, typically with bumbling unskilled divers dragging consoles and guages along the bottom, and kicking and stomping on the benthic marine life as quite normal...for instructor and student alike....it seems to me that the more a shop is likely to go with groupon, the less concerned they are with buoyancy and the marine life they will kill....
Case in point...this groupon class:

The instructor--the old guy with his back to you in the beginning...is walking on top of the area the best Macro photographers have shot some of their best Nudibranch and Frog fish shots..in the Hydroids that you can see all over the bottom there. This is an environment, just like a coral reef is an environment.

Groupon is often an incentive to cut corners on skills like buoyancy and to ignore delicate marine life because the COST to worry about it is not compatible with any use of Groupon we see.

IMHO, if an instructor is going to cut corners because it is a Groupon class, they're gonna cut corners at other times also. Most people like to jump on bouyancy but I've seen a lot of classes that bouyancy wasn't taught because that could cut into the extra bouyancy classes, and that was before Groupon. I've never done Groupon but I have taught Christmas specials classes, birthday specials etc. Didn't cut corners with them then, won't cut corners with them now.

 

[HIGHwing]

If you don't value your product, don't expect me to value it either.

 

[scubamarketing]

One of the more ridiculous aspects of the "Groupon" business model for some shops....is that they are MARKETING TO a TARGET AUDIENCE that is extremely "cheap" to the point of "not caring about quality".....This is essentially the population of people that steal Splenda or Equal at restaurants.....So the real question is: "Do you really want your customer base to have buying and behavioral defects like this? I would expect that a shop with lots of customer base raised like this, will have terrible long term problems with no customer loyalty and with poorly skilled divers that are constantly dropping out of diving.

I buy Groupons all the time. I also regularly go out to nice restaurants, ring up $100+ tabs with my girl, and tip 20% (what we're guilt tripped into in Oregon). The vast majority of my friends can make the same claims and also buy Groupons. To say that Groupon customers are cheap is just ignorant, to say we're the people who steal Splenda/Equal is just rude. Regardless of Groupon, we have plenty of dive shops in my area with "terrible long term problems with no customer loyalty and with poorly skilled divers that are constantly dropping out of diving", so this is again, not a Groupon issue. This is the modern world. Younger people may want to try diving without dropping $400 on it. My person rule is if it's over $100 (anything), I think about it. I weigh the opportunity cost. If I can get the same $400 thing for $200, am I stupid to do it? Groupon is simply another way of marketing, just because you use it doesn't mean your service or customers are worthless crap.

If you don't value your product, don't expect me to value it either.

If you think a company discounting their product means they don't value it and therefore you shouldn't either, you may want to take a look through your local store coupons and realize with that mentality you shouldn't be buying anything.