I think a better question might be: why do many people stop diving a few dives after the OW class? What can be improved in that transition?
- Bill
For others, I think the primary reason can be tracked to instruction. A lot of people are trained to dive overweighted and on their knees. When they go to their vacation dive and struggle to swim comfortably while neutrally buoyant, something they never had to do before, they don't have a lot of fun. If they have fun, they will continue.
Though I do believe that
new diver acquisition is the bigger issue for the industry, I’ll take a stab at addressing the diver retention question first. In particular I find the group that stops diving shortly after OW certification to be the most interesting.
“Success is most often not rooted in diligently pursuing the right answer, but rather in diligently pursuing the right question.”
Before we can determine how to answer the question “how can we improve new diver retention” we have to determine why people drop out of scuba diving shortly after their initial forray into the sport. As with any consumer behavior, there will be no single reason for everyone. And for some people it might be multiple reasons. However, in any consumer behavior, each individual will have their own “main reason” for what they do. And, in most cases, humans tend to cluster into a handful of distinct groups that can be delved into further. In marketing we call this “segmentation analysis” because… well, because we divide people into segments and then analyze them. (I never said marketers were brilliant.)
The key here is NOT to determine the segments based on a common BEHAVIOR but rather to divide them based on their common ATTITUDE. If we segmented on behavior we’d have only one segment “People who stopped diving shortly after OW certification.” With that segment, there’s nothing we can suggest other than “convince them not to stop diving.” However, if we break people into attitudinal/motivational segments – what beliefs or motivations caused them to perform the behavior of “stopping diving shortly after OW certification” – we can then determine two things
- Where can we actually intervene? Not all segments are fixable. (People who died, as an extreme example.) And not all fixable ones warrant even trying.
- What is the appropriate intervention? Given that two segments can take the same behavior (stop diving) for two very different reasons (I think it’s too expensive, you’re deathly afraid of the water) it’s easy to imagine that the appropriate intervention could be very different for different segments.
The market research necessary to provide true segmentation is often pretty sophisticated, especially if you want to ensure that you have discrete segments and/or quantify their size, value, and propensity to change behaviors. Plus, in many categories you need to be kind of tricky about what you’re asking, because people often won’t – or sometimes can’t – really tell you why they do what they do. (In a research study about charitable donations, we found few people would come out and tell us “I’ve got plenty of money, I’m just too cheap to donate any” even though we intuitively knew that segment existed.)
In other categories, that research can be pretty straightforward. In some cases, especially where budget and time are limited… we take our best guess and see if it passes the “sounds about right” test. Would love to do even down-and-dirty research, but absent time and money, here’s my best guess at the attitudinal segments of divers who stop diving shortly after OW certification. The “Scuba Industry” can consider this a freebie; even if not 100% accurate/complete, I think it’s a pretty good discussion starter.
I’ll be interested to hear if anyone has a significant segment (of divers who stop shortly after OW certification) that I’ve missed. My experience is that there’s always one “holy cow, how could we forget THOSE people” segment surfaced. To play the game, try to keep any possible additional segment based on attitude/motivator rather than behavior. Also try to keep them to a reasonably representative segment, meaning “a know a guy who was bitten by a tiger…” is not representative of an actual segment of the population.
1.) The "Once-and-Done" diver: this comprises "cross it off the list" folks as well as people who just like to "try" anything and everything. They come to the sport with no intention of continuing, so them not doing so is no one's "problem." But they might be an opportunity. (And not the way you think.)
2.) The "It Ain't Me, Babe" diver: diving's not for everyone, and even with the best training, finest gear, unlimited budget, and ready access to the world's premier dive sites... some people who try it are just not going to be into it enough to warrant continuing. It's hard for us to fathom that this is possible, but that's OUR problem (self-reference criteria) not theirs. They might also be an opportunity. (And also not the way you think.)
3.) The "Time & Money" diver: diving doesn't need to be crazy expensive... but even at the lowest end of the spectrum it is not cheap. Diving does not need to consume every waking moment of your life... but even being a casual diver requires a significant amount of time for training, gear maintenance, travel, etc. Some people who get trained just don't have the time or money to "adopt" diving and continue to do it for a lifetime. I knew a guy that did zero-hero cave... and then his wife got pregnant with twins. He's never been seen since. These folks might also be an opportunity. (And probably not the way you think.)
4.) The "Bad Experience" diver: this is the person who's post-training dive experience was bad enough - to them - that they decide to reject diving. There are multiple sub-groups here; not comfortable in/under water, afraid of marine life, environmental issues (cold, etc); physical issues (poor fitness, just not strong enough, etc) medical issues (genuine ear issues, etc); organic panic/anxiety issues not secondary to deficient training or addressable by further training. These folks are probably not a significant opportunity, as they are probably a case of folks who never should have started. (Though understanding this group, and effectively screening them, can significantly aid in new diver acquisition.)
5.) The “Train(ing) Wreck” diver: In actuality, this could be a subset of group 4, but think it’s worth listing separately as they are distinctly different causes. This group is also more likely to be “fixable” than group 4. This group includes two types of divers: A.) those who’s training/skills were deficient to the point of actually causing, or not allowing recognition and prevention of something BAD happening, (a runaway descent/ascent, OOA due to gas management, etc) that causes them to reject scuba diving, and B.) those who’s training/skills were not sufficient to allow the diver to have a really GOOD time, such that they don’t specifically “reject” diving… they simply don’t pursue it because it wasn’t fun or wasn’t worth it. (poor buoyancy skills, poor trim, poor propulsion techniques, etc – anything that reduces the enjoyment of diving that could have been obviated by better, yet still rudimentary training.) This group is possibly an opportunity, but obviously that requires intervention at the point of acquisition, more so than ex post facto remediation for optimal impact. Of course, improving training levels is a “win” in and of itself, so worth pursuing.
I’m particularly intrigued by the second group in Segment 5, those who’s training/skills didn’t cause a specifically BAD experience, but simply limited their enjoyment of diving to the point they stopped diving. The reason I’m intrigued, and the reason I say that these people are POSSIBLY an opportunity, is that there are a great many divers out there – we’ve all seen them – who are such obvious, terribly trained, abysmally skilled divers that they can’t possibly be enjoying themselves. Yet they clearly are! Lots of these folks do 100 dives a year, many of them have all the best gear, go to all the best dive locations, etc. As Bill points out, they are crashing into things, standing on the reef, bouncing off the bottom with tons of lead. They are bicycle kicking, flailing their arms, and sucking down an AL80 like it's a shot of vodka... but they are having a ball! So, there’s something else going on with the poorly trained/skilled diver who quits that makes them different than the poorly trained/skilled diver that sticks with it. This difference needs to be understood before we jump to “better training” as the complete solution.
