How do we feel about instructors using fear and their position of authority as a professional to push equipment sales for which they make a commission on without declaring their financial interest behind their recommendations?
Unacceptable Instructor Behaviors...
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Wookie
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Yes, Angies List, Yelp, and etc. have been sued, but only for manipulating data. If a bad review is posted, it's usually the poster that gets sued.
Wookie
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When I owned Spree, the only place where we had independent ratings aside from here was on Facebook. On facebook, people will rate you poorly (I had a hundred 5 and 4 star, and 25 one star) and not remove the ratings unless you pay them. It's all set up as a scam, and the raters have never been out of their mom's basement in some Arabic speaking country. for 5 bucks, they remove the negative review. Thankfully, the page owner can choose not to accept reviews.
It is actually an agency recommendation to do so.
The shop I worked for had a week-long marketing seminar led by the owner of a major agency, and I attended it. He made it clear that the primary sales personnel for a dive shop are the instructors. That is why the agency required all instructors to work for a dive shop. He said all instructors should be required to wear a "scuba uniform," a specific set of gear from head to toe (excluding the mask) that the shop had identified as their target sales items because that would improve the profit margins on gear sales. The instructors were to tell the students that they had personally chosen the items they use because as instructors, they only wanted to wear the best of everything. The instructor's goal for each class should be to have every student purchase that specific package before the pool sessions are over.
The shop did cross over to that agency, and they did adopt that approach. If I had stayed with them, I would have had to purchase (at a good discount) my "scuba uniform," and I would have to tell students it is what I use in my personal diving. The only item I would actually use in my personal diving was the wetsuit. I would not use the fins, the computer, the BCD, the regulator set, the SS1 integrated octo--none of it--but I would have to look my students in the eye and tell them I did.
From my limited sphere of visibility, NASDS' founder John Gaffney pioneered the concept. I was a naive teenager helping Bob Hollis get the Anchor Shack ready to open and was able to listen-in on Gaffney's sales pitch. It was my first real insight into the fact that Scuba retailing is a business rather than a calling. I was probably about 14 years old because I had to ride my 10-speed to get the the shop. I still remember being appalled, but that is the real world.
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I think that was a factor that led me away from the recreational diving industry. Little did I know what a nasty business the international offshore oil industry is -- any large high-risk high-reward industry really. Altruism is the first casualty when your bookkeeper tells you that you can't make payroll, you owe 4x more than your life savings that went into starting the business, and the IRS (US tax authority) is calling.
The trick for customers and vendors is to find the right balance, which I think this thread is an attempt to find.
Interesting question, and a two-part issue, at least for me.
Personally, I really don't care for any instructor who uses fear as a teaching tactic, or a selling tactic. They are just bad instructors as far as I am concerned.
I do believe that instructors hold a perceived position of authority with students, and certified divers. And, that makes them a definite resource for, and influence on, students and divers, with regard to equipment sales. I am happy to tell / show students what gear I use, and why. Frankly, I love it when students elect to purchase gear from a shop with which I am affiliated. I want that shop to be financially successful - that is a reasonable part of employee loyalty as far I am concerned.
But, I also admit that I often bite / hold my tongue when retail issues come up. For better or worse, I am not usually perceived as part of the retail operation. Maybe, that is because I regularly say things like, 'I am not using this class to sell you gear, I am just suggesting some things that I think you should consider when you buy gear in the future.'
Where the tongue biting comes in - more than a few times, one of my students has gone to the shop, spent quite a bit of money on a set of gear, I was thanked by the shop because MY student came in and bought gear, and I found myself disagreeing with what the shop sold them.
The student then comes and ask me what I think of their shiny new gear (assuming that since the shop sold it to them I will be impressed) and I am left to say, 'I am glad you have your own gear. Use it as often as you can.' I want to support the shop, and I will not pressure students to buy gear, but I find that shop staff sometimes cannot resist the temptation to go for a high end sale.
Plus, I have a reasonably well-defined - and well-developed - view of what constitutes an optimal gear configuration - be it a BCD, a regulator, a cylinder, etc. - and most retail staff simply don't have the breadth of experience with diving and gear to match mine. I know, it sounds arrogant. But, it is nonetheless true. At the same time, I fully acknowledge that I don't own the shop, I don't get a commission on sales, and I can afford the luxury of holding the opinions that I hold. Out of respect for the shop that employs me, I will bite my tongue. What is often sold is not 'bad' gear by any means. It is fully functional, it is attractive, it will probably get divers in the water more often. It is just not, let's say, 'efficient' gear, and leave it at that.
As for the issue of instructors pushing gear sales on which they make a commission without declaring their financial interest behind their recommendations, I think it is unethical.
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You are absolutely correct. Originally NASDS meant National Association of Skin Diving Stores. It was a trade organization designed to promote the sale of scuba gear. When Gaffney realized that instruction is the best way to sell scuba gear, he changed the word "stores" to "schools." NASDS was later sold to one of its store owners, who then merged it with another agency and adopting the other agency's name. That store owner then bought out the other agency's leaders and recreated all the old NASDS policies. So although technically NASDS no longer exists, the agency I was talking about is NASDS with a different name.
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