We have what we call preferred customers at our shop. These are customers who make most of their purchases from us. They bring something in for service, they are first served. They want air up theiir tanks while they wait, not a problem. They want to use our pool, please, no charge, jump right in, would u like a tank of air?
Recently during the first night of an open water class a student started right off about how much better his prices were online that what we offered. I said we'd talk about equipment purchases later in the course and why don't we move forward. He kept it up and after a few minutes I stepped out of the classroom and called for the manager. We presented him with a full refund and even let him keep his books and dvd. We encouraged him to go to his online shop and get certifed there and have them fill his tanks.
There is another shop an hour away and they can have him. I instruct more for the love of it than for the money since we don't exactly make big bucks teaching scuba. When someone walks into our shop and poor mouths it I don't want them around screwing up my enjoyment.
Some of our customers purchase stuff from Lesiurepro. One came in and showed us his gear and of course asked us to assemble it for him. That wasn't going to be free. Then we mentioned what we would do for him service wise and how we'd throw in a master diver program if he had bought the same stuff from us. We mentioned the free parts for life, the half price service and all the other things. He asked if we had a way to package and return the Leisurepro system so he could purchase from us.
We smiled