Finding the cheapest certification???

[roxy271]

Originally posted by neil
Roxy,
Been there, done that.
As a dive shop employee you have to decide whether you want this customer or not. If not, tell them the cost and let them hang up. If you want their business, you have to turn on some salemanship. I'm no great saleman myself, but here's what you might consider. Consider that they don't know what they are asking about. Yet.
"Hello. How much is your scuba course?"
"Thanks for calling. Let me tell you what our course includes. Yadda yadda yadda. And all that for the all-inclusive price of $$$." If they say, "that's expensive", ask "compared to what?", and listen. Be prepared with a really good answer to the agency question without mud-slinging.
Hopefully you've done your homework and your course actually IS a better value than your competitor. Mention how much experience your people have. Invite them to look over the facility. Make an appointment and meet them yourself. In other words, put some effort into it.
Is it a pain? Yes, if you hate selling like I did, but it more often than not works. If you love selling, sell. We complain that potential students don't know what's up, so you have to tell them.
Good luck.
Neil

I am not as worried about making the sale as i am that in all the people i had call not one cared about anything else but the price.
No one asked the questions no one cared what would be thought i know that is where i come in.
But like when i took my test i wanted to know what i would learn and in what inviroment over what i had to pay.
I wanted to know that i am getting the training to save my live or the live of my buddy.
And not that maybe i could save a few dollars down the road.
I guess maybe that is just me.

 

[jbd]

perspective. I got to thinking about this more and more as I followed this thread. Once I have a general idea that I might want to do something the next thing I want to know is what will it cost. I recently signed up for a diving trip to Florida. First thing I wanted to know was what does it cost. Hopefully I'll be doing my instructor training soon. one of the first questions questions was.... (I think you know by now).

For me the main reason is budgeting for the cost of something. I pay cash for everything. No loans, no credit cards. Thats one reason I strongly dislike shops that don't give you total costs up front. I think most people need to know what something is going to cost before they commit to it. All things being equal, of course I'm going to take the least costly. Thae fact is not all things are equal. Knowing that I try compare the quality of what I'm getting.

If I'm going to pay more for something then I expect higher quality or more correctly better value.

I think price investigation is just the beginning point for most people. I think in the work you are doing you are being more exposed to that aspect of people investigating scuba diving.

Neil makes an excellent point and provides a great example on how to handle these inquiries. Well worth putting some effort into.

 

[The Chairman]

you can't sell quality over the phone... get them into the shop. Speak with them face to face, and you will do far better at selling them quality over price.

like... "How much does it cost to learn SCUBA?"

"Thats a great question, do you know what type of SCUBA diving you will be wanting to do?"

"Is there more than one way?"

"Sure, we have different classes and gear for everyone! Come on down and I will help you decide which is right for you! I will be here till 6:00, when should I expect you?"

I will try and think of a few more scenarios for y'all to cogitate on.

 

[Scuba]

I think that when you see advertisements proclaiming:

to be the worlds largest scuba diving certification organization

whose certification is recognized all over the world

with thousands of "professional" instructors all over the world

training people just like you how to dive safely in all types of environments

the newly aspiring diver can't help but be impressed leading him/her to make assumptions.

Unfortunately when shopping for scuba instruction people shop more like they're shopping for a car, a Ford a Ford and a Chevy a Chevy, where ever you buy one, only the price may vary; instead of shopping the way they shop for schools, where everyone tries to go to the best schools they qualify for and can afford, since it will pay off in the future.

I think there is this great disconnect when it comes to diving, where people shop for price and convinience as others have pointed out. This is due in part to being a sport. Somehow we are not used to taking our hobbies as seriously, even in this case where our life depends on the training we receive.

 

[devilfish]

Basically when people ask me about the cost of certification I tell them that the cost of certification is $12.00 and every agency charges the same give or take one $. As for the cost of training to learn to dive, the guy down the street might be giving it away for nothing, but you get what you pay for. You get slashed down training for slashed down prices. The cost of dive training is an investment into life long enjoyment and level of safety.
But if they choose to go down the street I give them an offer. Once they have the "C" card they can come back and learn to dive with me. Of course the cost of training stands.

 

[jbd]

an excellent point. Add that to neils suggestion and you have something to work with

 

[neil]

Originally posted by roxy271

I am not as worried about making the sale as i am that in all the people i had call not one cared about anything else but the price.

Roxy,
The point I was trying to make, was that you have to use the salesmanship to give the potential student the information they need to make an informed choice. As Pete said, get them off the phone and into the shop. Don't be put off by people just shopping price. They need to be educated and that's your job. And it CAN be fun if you let it. Ultimately, you need the customers, too.
Neil

 

[TCDiver1]

Originally posted by Scuba
I agree there will always be price conscious shoppers who for various reasons place most of the the emphasis on price neglecting to consider the overall long term cost.

But I think part of the blame has to be attributed to the most popular certification agencies who have failed to provide a consistent and quality product - the instructor. As someone metioned Goodyear will not sell blemished tires, unlike the certification agencies. All one has to do is read this board to hear the horror stories about blemished and worst product.

When one of these agencies decides to concentrate on quality and not quantity they will probably reap its rewards. It appears to me that in this "sport", which is dependant on life support equipment and skills, a track record of exceptional training would be a major selling point.

From what I read on this board DIR appears to be quite thorough in training, but in my opinion it is to restrictive to appeal to the casual rec. diver.

Peter

I've long thought more aggressive quality assurance measures should be taken with scuba instructors. We get our ticket and in general we can teach for life with very little REQUIRED continuing education or direct evaluation over time. Not EVERY instructor needs this kind of evaluation but it is obvious that some do & the only way to insure that all who need it, get it, would be to evaluate us all. What would it hurt?

As a part time instructor, it's the last thing i have time for but i think it could potentially remediate many of the problems that are out there. The hard part of any evaluation would be the variable of attitude. Anyone having a bad day, (the dog died, spouse left me, etc) could have a bad teaching day. We are all human after all!

Now lets consider how the LDS can affect this. Chances are the LDS has established the course cost, high or low. If they set it low it may cause them to push for larger, less managable classes to insure money is still made. That can be observed & quality of exposure to course material evaluated. Realistically the LDS should be evaluated also.

Where i don't agree with you Scuba is that poor quality instruction can be attributed to only the largest agency. IMO poor instruction is generally the fault of the individual instructor and/or LDS. Naui, Padi, SSI, YMCA etc, makes little or no difference. Correct me if i'm wrong but i'm not aware of any major agencies taking such a proactive Q&A stance. This falls under the 10% rule. Ten percent (+ or - a point or two) of any group of people will be less than desirable in what they do. Cops, doctors, politicos, etc, the bad come with the good.

 

[The Chairman]

IMO poor instruction is generally the fault of the individual instructor and/or LDS. Naui, Padi, SSI, YMCA etc, makes little or no difference.

Well said, very well said!

 

[jrtonkin]

Ok, I'm *not* trying to imply that you should be going with "Joe's half-price discount dive lessons", but to a certain degree, what's wrong with shopping by price?

It's been implied in many of the posts to this thread (at least to my reading, I may be completely off-base here) that quality of instruction is directly tied to cost of instruction.

Is that really an established fact?

On the gross scale, certainly I'd believe it. If the average cost of instruction (made up numbers for purposes of argument) is $300, and someone's offering it for $100, there's probably something odd going on.

But what about instructor-1 who charges $300, instructor-2 who charges $285, and instructor-3 who charges $310.

Maybe instructor-2 works with a large LDS, so they discount the price of instruction hoping you'll buy your gear from them. Maybe instructor-3 isin't associated with any LDS at all, and so has to rent the gear for the students, which drives his cost up.

In these sorts of cases, why shouldn't the student use price as an influencing factor in choosing who they get instruction from.

The point I'm getting at is that all other things being equal, there may be reasons besides quality of instruction for a price difference between two instructors.

Ok, flame away

Jamie