Everyone here brings of very valid points. From our shop perspective, We try to be a full service (Sales, Service, Training & Travel) Dive center. There is an old business saying, 100% customer service will put you out of business. Well I say that you should at least try for it! Here is a little insight to our shop. From the Sales side of it, educate staff (we know this is the tough one for majority of places), listen to customer, show all the choices, options/features, explain what you would go with and why, but in the end, choice is up to the customer (pretty simple). Oh, forgot, STOCK GEAR! Service, Full overhaul of regs, get things done in a timely fashion and no cutting corners and communication (findings, delays, etc..) with customer. Training, Give quality classes, but can't expect that if you haven't educated yourself as well and dive outside of teaching. Every couple of years I try to take another class (now the list is getting small but still have some insight) from a quality instructor in the industry and apply things I learned to my training and my staff. Travel, match if not beat anything online, but more importantly, if you don't travel yourself, then really can't pull from good experience to guide people in right direction. We have been all over the world so we really do have good recommendations on who and who not to use. With this approach besides our group travel we do 3 times that in individual travel. Now you have a little insight to a full service Dive center.
The long and short of it, treat others like you would like to be treated. Strange concept?????
In regards to the initial post (there are many posts on this subject), Most of our Manufacturers will indeed only sell parts to it's Dealers and the kits are not to be sold directly to the customer. Most manufacturers also offer repair seminars but you have to work at a shop to attend. There are only a handful of companies that DO allow this practice of selling parts to the customer and allow anyone to attend their repair seminars.
