Tipping DM in Coz?

[George Monnat Jr]

npole,
While I disagree with your perspective, I think I understand it. I have an easy solution for you. You should only dive with dive shops who do not allow tipping, and who pay their employees the way you think they should be paid. This will support your perspective and market position.

On the other hand, you should not support a dive shop which offers the lowest possible cost whose dive masters rely on tips. By supporting those shops with your money, you are taking advantage of their market strategy, which you clearly don’t believe is correct.

I do not care for cattle boats, therefore I do not give them my money. I prefer smaller, fast, valet service dive operations. I don’t mind paying a little more for more service. Likewise, if the divemaster and crew provide their services well, I’ll tip them well. Let the market and your money decide.

That's all very reasonable and valid (in my lowly opinion). There is the consideration that many potential customers compare prices online and make a decision based only on that. I support my local shops even though they are a lot more expensive than Amazon (including my LDS), because I believe they give me better service. The problem small businesses face is how to communicate that to first-time customers. Thank goodness for TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc. which help to get the word out that a business may be more expensive but you get better ROI and satisfaction from it.

 

[flyboy08]

Nothing in life is "free".

I offer free grub control when you buy a 5 application fertilizing program - it's a marketing ploy, just like the free nitrox is a ploy. Since I'm selling my business, I really should tell you what a scam the free grub control is.

You couldn't be any more wrong? If you offer me free Grub protection and I have no grubs, then your just burning me!

If I dive with Nitrox and save by not paying $10 more/dive for 10 dives, then I pocket $100.00! I can use this $100 to tip accordingly or buy more Tequila!

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

The big problem is that there are to many DM/guides that are willing to work for free and that some dive centers exploit that fact.

I know one big dive center that offers everyone that have gone through DM training with them to dive for free whenever they come back, but what they rely offer is for their DMs to work for free, the free part only apply when the DM take paying customers with them. They also have a "training period" for every instructor who did their instructor training with them, when the instructor work for free.

And with big enough turnaround of DMs and instructors, they can have very competitive prices on their courses and fun dives. And it make it hard for every dive center who like to pay their staff a decent wage to compete.

I would prefer that the price i pay for my diving is enough to cover a decent salary for the staff, and i can give a tip if i think the service is over what I expect, but i rely don't like to go to places where tipping is expected for normal service. It feels to me like stores in some part of the world, where the price on the price tag is not what i going to pay in the counter, rely sick. Put the price on the tag, don't expect me to pay more than the price that is advertised.

 

[Magnus Lundstedt]

I have been discussing real prices and market forces. What are the 'real' prices in your opinion? Do you have any evidence that anyone is inflating prices and underpaying employees? If you say yes, then 100% of the dive shops in Cozumel are in on it. Because if only one shop uses 'real' prices and pays their employees correctly, then the customers and DMs will all flock to that shop causing the others to go out of business.

I think its the other way around. If one shop start to advertise the "real" price, they loose all customers and go out of business. There are to many shops that advertise a price that demand you to pay their staff sepparatly, and most customers chose the lower advertised price.

For me the real price is somewhere in between what you need to cover your cost, and what the customer i willing to pay.
provided that the later is higher than the former. If the difference are big and you get up there on the high end, others probably are going to compete with you with a price that i more attractive to the customer, and slightly less profit than you.

When the price get so low that you cannot cover your cost, you can either close shop, or get your staff to work for free, tipping make that possible.


But if all of us stopped tipping, the staff need to demand to get a decent salary from their employer, the shop need to adjust their prices accordingly. I think that we have started to walk this way already, I think when the customers get more and more mixed nationalities, Europeans and Asians do not have the tipping culture of Americans, The young ones do not tip as much, we are going to reach a balance where tipping go down to what it once was, and prices go up where needed.

 

[ChuckP]

You couldn't be any more wrong? If you offer me free Grub protection and I have no grubs, then your just burning me!

If I dive with Nitrox and save by not paying $10 more/dive for 10 dives, then I pocket $100.00! I can use this $100 to tip accordingly or buy more Tequila!

Oh I'm 100% correct - and you referencing them "giving" nitrox away proves it.

Buy one get one free doesn't exist

One laser pointer for 100 bucks, two for 150? How'd the second one cost less to make?

Free grub prevention PREVENTS grubs, once you get them, you pay me double an application fee to get RID of them or you live with your dead grass.

And yes, you are right, Free grub PREVENTION verses paying 25% more for a grub PREVENTION application is burning you - why? The fertilizer we buy with the grub prevention chemical in it costs about $1.25 per bag more than regular fertilizer that is applied that time of year, BUT if I give everyone the same fertilizer, I only stock one material, I buy truckload quantities and I don't have to clean or change the spreader between applications - that $1.25 is factored into your seasonal cost - it ain't free. I do and charge what everyone else does - I just explain the business practice to new customers.

Pro Dive is a cattle boat operation with a captive audience. They have their own compressors. They could probably offer air only diving for 3-5 bucks cheaper per dive but that'd put them below market price and why be below market price? They also have the angle of selling new divers Nitrox certs to take advantage of that FREE nitrox. Pro Dive's low overhead cost per diver allows them to utilize lower pricing and marketing ploys.

A hammer from Wal Mart costs less than a hammer from Billy Bobs hardware. To each their own - I'm not knocking Pro Dives operation by any means, they obviously have a market just as the higher cost shops have their market.

 

[flyboy08]

Oh I'm 100% correct - and you referencing them "giving" nitrox away proves it.

Buy one get one free doesn't exist

One laser pointer for 100 bucks, two for 150? How'd the second one cost less to make?

Free grub prevention PREVENTS grubs, once you get them, you pay me double an application fee to get RID of them or you live with your dead grass.

And yes, you are right, Free grub PREVENTION verses paying 25% more for a grub PREVENTION application is burning you - why? The fertilizer we buy with the grub prevention chemical in it costs about $1.25 per bag more than regular fertilizer that is applied that time of year, BUT if I give everyone the same fertilizer, I only stock one material, I buy truckload quantities and I don't have to clean or change the spreader between applications - that $1.25 is factored into your seasonal cost - it ain't free. I do and charge what everyone else does - I just explain the business practice to new customers.

Pro Dive is a cattle boat operation with a captive audience. They have their own compressors. They could probably offer air only diving for 3-5 bucks cheaper per dive but that'd put them below market price and why be below market price? They also have the angle of selling new divers Nitrox certs to take advantage of that FREE nitrox. Pro Dive's low overhead cost per diver allows them to utilize lower pricing and marketing ploys.

A hammer from Wal Mart costs less than a hammer from Billy Bobs hardware. To each their own - I'm not knocking Pro Dives operation by any means, they obviously have a market just as the higher cost shops have their market.

We'll agree to disagree and I'll have $100 extra bucks in my pocket and I wont be buying 5 fertilizer applications ( I use Scott's 4 step BTW) in order to get Grub service that I dont need. When a company offers $32/dive and Nitrox at no extra, that's a deal most would enjoy from whomever their preferred DS is.

 

[npole]

You may not have seen my edit with the example. Please provide your own example to bolster your case.

Tips are not 'hidden' costs, because you don't have to pay them, the shops mention tipping all the time, and DMs treat you better trying to earn better tips.

They are hidden cost if my tip is used to pay the workers salary: If I do not tip (because I'm not receiving anything special in addition of what I've already paid for) the worker will not receive an adeguate salary for his/her work! The tipping must be (again) not linked to the salary: first the salary must be adeguate, then the tipping will come at the top of it. It's not that hard to understand.

 

[DandyDon]

Do you know that per my outdated (2009) federal labor law poster, minimum wage was $7.25 BUT minimum wage for tipped positions was $2.13 - so is the whole restaurant industry wrong?

I suppose that's why restaurants starting the policy of having servers share the tips with other employees so that they could pay those others less.

I offer free grub control when you buy a 5 application fertilizing program - it's a marketing ploy, just like the free nitrox is a ploy. Since I'm selling my business, I really should tell you what a scam the free grub control is.

I'm glad you did. I was curious. I can't imagine fertilizing a lawn 5 times in a year, but I guess it's different up in the tundra climes. Bermuda grows well enough here if it gets enough water, but that's always the challenge. I've heard that fertilizing it a couple of times a year will help it with less water, but find that claim questionable. I've also read of a product that will reduce water needs, but doubt it too.

 

[horn34]

I suppose that's why restaurants starting the policy of having servers share the tips with other employees so that they could pay those others less.

Starting? Tip sharing has been a standard restaurant industry practice since before most of us were born.

 

[DandyDon]

Starting? Tip sharing has been a standard restaurant industry practice since before most of us were born.

Oh, I'm an old coot, and never worked in an industry where tipping happened, so I wouldn't know. I'm just thinking that's how it started. Employer realizes he can pay workers less by making servers share tips, sells the idea to everyone as teamwork, and it becomes common.