Dive OPs who enforce 24 hour cancelation policy but can cancel last minute??

[RhodeDiver]

It's a matter of customer service.

If you follow these threads long enough, you will find people make every excuse imaginable for bad customer service in the dive industry.

 

[kelemvor]

If you follow these threads long enough, you will find people make every excuse imaginable for bad customer service in the dive industry.

Those things have a tendency to work themselves out. Unfortunately, the end result is usually one less dive shop or charter boat.

 

[Wookie]

If you follow these threads long enough, you will find people make every excuse imaginable for bad customer service in the dive industry.

What bad customers don't get is that bad customer service usually stems from years of bad customers.

 

[Altamira]

What bad customers don't get is that bad customer service usually stems from years of bad customers.

However, good customers who get stuck with bad customer service reps soon become ex-customers. Life is too short to put up with ill suited people in customer service positions.

 

[boulderjohn]

What bad customers don't get is that bad customer service usually stems from years of bad customers.

However, good customers who get stuck with bad customer service reps soon become ex-customers. Life is too short to put up with ill suited people in customer service positions.

I believe I am a good customer in general. When I see bad customer service, I generally stop supporting that business. They will not see me again. I believe a lot of people are like that. Consequently, good customers flock to companies with good customer service and stay there.

Companies that feel they are plagued with bad customers might wonder what happened to the good ones.

 

[Steve_C]

Both of my sons worked in grocery stores for a few weeks while in High School. Both have very good people skills and have been successful in jobs that require contact with customers. They both quit after a few weeks. They did not mind the hours or the work. It was the customers. Not all or even most but they would have to deal with total jerks on a regular basis and smile while doing so. Like the woman who the cash register would not let her buy beer before the legal time so she threw the six pack at my son. Just one of many instances.

 

[markmud]

Hi Bladder,

Yeah, it has happened to me.

Another thing that bothers me is when a dive op advertises an "advanced recreational trip" and then we go to a beat-up shallow training site because the dive op booked new OW divers on their "advanced" trip. It sucks.

I have learned to dive with groups as much as possible as you have leverage over the dive op.

markm

 

[boulderjohn]

Losing a customer because of your service quality can be a subtle thing. Here is a true story.

A couple (boyfriend + girlfriend) walked into a dive shop. They explained they were new in town and were scoping things out. The conversation went on for quite a while, and I really don't know the details. A couple employees were in on the conversation. The couple left, and the shop never saw them again.

Here is how it was described to me. The female had started the conversation with the employee, but before she had finished her opening explanation, the employee started responding by talking the male. Eventually, it all became about him and his needs as a diver. He was a newly certified OW diver. Before long the female was completely ignored, with the shop employees evidently assuming her needs would be similar to his, and that he would be the decision maker. She began to seethe silently.

So when they left, the shop employees who had talked to them never learned that she was a certified cave diver who had just gotten him started in the world of diving, and she would be providing the primary guidance for their future diving plans. She herself was hoping to start a technical diving program eventually leading to trimix certification. She was also interested in DM certification. The shop never knew any of that, and probably never gave the fact that the couple never returned a second thought.

 

[Wookie]

Losing a customer because of your service quality can be a subtle thing. Here is a true story.

A couple (boyfriend + girlfriend) walked into a dive shop. They explained they were new in town and were scoping things out. The conversation went on for quite a while, and I really don't know the details. A couple employees were in on the conversation. The couple left, and the shop never saw them again.

Here is how it was described to me. The female had started the conversation with the employee, but before she had finished her opening explanation, the employee started responding by talking the male. Eventually, it all became about him and his needs as a diver. He was a newly certified OW diver. Before long the female was completely ignored, with the shop employees evidently assuming her needs would be similar to his, and that he would be the decision maker. She began to seethe silently.

So when they left, the shop employees who had talked to them never learned that she was a certified cave diver who had just gotten him started in the world of diving, and she would be providing the primary guidance for their future diving plans. She herself was hoping to start a technical diving program eventually leading to trimix certification. She was also interested in DM certification. The shop never knew any of that, and probably never gave the fact that the couple never returned a second thought.

This is neither subtle nor rare. How many couples go into a car dealership and the sale is lost because the salesman automatically sells to the man? As a man with a strong willed wife (who is also the cave diver, not me), I can tell you it happens more than rarely. We just move along....

 

[Altamira]

The sad thing about overt, and possibly subconscious, sexist behavior in a vendor/client situation is that the offender rarely knows or understands why the sale was lost or the client decided to go elsewhere. I took my wife to a doctor not long ago, and after the examination, the physician (a woman by the way) started to focus her remarks on me about the medical options. Finally, I interrupted her and pointed to my wife with the comment "Your patient is sitting right over there, talk to her." So it is not just a man thing.