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Customer Service 101
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Help Your Dive Center Staff Improve Customer Service!
Do you have a new employee who is learning the ropes of dive retailing, or even a long-time staffer who needs to improve his or her customer service skills? Here is a selection of articles aimed at turning your good employees into more effective and productive representatives of your dive retail operation.
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Revolving Door...
How to Get Your Customers to Come Back,
Again and Again and Again
By Greg Laslo
I worked for a successful dive retailer my last year of college. The manager, Dave, was a friend of mine, and he offered me a job more as an act of sympathy than anything else. Still, it was a fun shop. We had good people, great customers and we pulled in money hand over fist for the owner, who knew enough to get out of the way and stay in his office. He knew who buttered his bread, and he knew who made the move to his monstrous new shop possible. The thing I most remember about Dave was that he knew everyone who walked through the door. He'd watch them coming across the parking lot, meet them halfway to the door, and greet them by name. He was glad to see everybody, regardless of who they were. He was even happier to sell them something. Even at that age it didn't take me long to put two and two together. Treat the customer right, and he'll come back. When he comes back, I can sell him more stuff. Sell him more stuff, and I make more money. I'm no math whiz, but even I can figure this one out. That math works for you, too. No doubt, getting your old customers back can be a boon for your business, but it takes more than wishful thinking and fancy calculating. It takes an active intent to create a service environment where your customers absolutely have to come back. It also takes effort to communicate with them so that you invite them to buy from you again. And while it may not happen overnight, getting each customer to become a return customer pays dividends long past tomorrow. . . . keep reading
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Service: The Real Product of Your Business
By Edward Reidel
One particular retailer who always does pretty well, and attributes the store's success directly to the service his customers receive, explains how they've achieved the proper attitude that creates a good service business. He says that he and his staff are conditioned to assume that each of their customers expects absolutely nothing, or worse, in the way of service. His simple solution is to do the exact opposite of what they assume people expect. . . . keep reading
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The Power of Passion
By Mark Young
You don't have to look hard to see the business lesson here. This is a story about the power of passion. The restaurant was average. The food was good, but partly because he convinced us that it was. The extraordinary aspect of the experience was being in the presence of a business owner, who had been working there tirelessly for three decades, with the enthusiasm of his first day of operation. He believed utterly and completely in his business and he wanted us to believe, too. It was evident in the way he handled his customers on the telephone and in person - with genuine respect, enthusiasm, and appreciation. And in doing so, he made us believe, and we did not want to be anywhere else. . . . keep reading
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It's Nothing Personal...
Solving Customer Problems (and When and How to Get Rid of Problem Customers)
By Greg Laslo
This would be a pretty good business if it weren't for the customers. You know the ones. You can't make them happy, no matter what you do, and they suck all the excitement out of going to work -- even for dealing with your good customers. No doubt that you've wondered, at least once, what it would be like to give them the boot. Indeed, complaining, disagreeable and difficult customers are hard on your business. But before you go off and firing everybody -- that's going to make for a really "slow" year -- consider that taking such a drastic measure is usually unnecessary. When the majority of customers have a problem, and they're helped by someone with a calm, empathetic service mentality who understands the steps to diffuse a contentious situation, they go away satisfied, and you've made a friend for life. It's only with these "exceptions" that more strategic steps need to be taken. And, well, how you deal with them just may surprise you. . . . keep reading
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Infectious Enthusiasm Reaps Rewards
Carole Bloomquist
Carole Bloomquist, manager of Point Breeze Dive Shop, talks about the attitudes she brings to her work that continue to attract new people (and new customers) to the activity she loves. . . . keep reading
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Filling Your Spots:
Travel Sales and Merchandising Tips from Retailers
By Patricia Luebke
Let's say you have a typical dive store with six trips planned during the course of the year with an average of 15 people needed to make each trip profitable. These trips are spread out between now and the end of the year. Filling those seats sounds possible, but is it? With a trip agenda like this one, you'll have to commit 90 people to your trip. Ninety people have to be sold. Ninety people have to say yes. Ninety people have to write a deposit check, and those same 90 people have to come up with the rest of the trip's price. That's a lot of selling, and many dive stores have even more ambitious dive travel agendas with trips planned monthly -- and even more frequently. How are you going to do it? How are you going to make sure all spots are sold out? Having a waiting list of customers for a particular trip may be a difficult problem to manage when you're frantically trying to secure three more spots, but it surely is a great problem to have. . . . keep reading
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What Makes a Good Instructor?
A Retailer's Perspective
By Alex Brylske
To me, what's essential in overcoming the "oily salesman" cliché (which, like all stereotypes is often an unfair and exaggerated generalization) is first understanding and communicating to your instructional staff what sales is really all about, particularly in our business. First and foremost, we as managers need to communicate that what we sell in diving is diving. Said another way, we aren't in the business of selling hardware but experience. Equipment is merely an essential component to participation, and sales of hardware shouldn't be considered an end in and of itself. The equipment of diving is merely the technology that enables the experience of diving. So, if you can sell the experience effectively, the gear should sell itself. Well, almost, but here's where attitude rears it's head one more time. The gear sells itself only if the instructor has accomplished two goals. The first is that he or she has truly done a good job of selling the experience of diving. And while that's necessary, this alone isn't enough. Goal number two is that the instructor has also formed a strong personal bond with the student (potential buyer). . . . keep reading
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Managing Your Dive Students' Expectations: If You Don't Ask, You Can't Tell
By Barry K. Shuster
Relaxing on the beach, two scuba students, from different dive classes, discuss their certification dives that afternoon. One budding diver gushes about the water clarity, the marine life, and the water temperature. "The visibility was nearly 50 feet! I saw two harbor seals and a school of anchovies surrounded us. And the water temperature was 60 degrees. It was like a bath." The other diver can only gripe about -- you guessed it -- the water clarity, the marine life, and the water temperature. How can two dive students return from the same dive with two different levels of satisfaction? If you take personality quirks out of the equation (some folks are just never satisfied, and some folks find the positive in everything), the difference between the way they perceived their experiences lies in their expectations. . . . keep reading
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A Deeper Appreciation:
How to Sell Technical Travel
By Melanie Paul
Before you start booking bungalows in Bikini Atoll, first you need to figure out if technical travel is something that your shop needs. If you sell technical training and equipment, then you should absolutely sell technical travel opportunities. Ann Y. Keibler, a self-proclaimed "purveyor of socially acceptable stress relief," co-owns and operates Oceanic Ventures/OVI Technical Training in Houston. Keibler has a very successful tech travel program and believes that technical travel is vital because, "It makes the experience real for your customers." Offering these types of travel opportunities to your technical divers will increase your revenue from travel, training and equipment sales. It can also prevent some diver driftoff and dropouts. . . . keep reading
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Our Special Cases:
Dealing With Whiny, Mean, Wacky, and Dangerous Dive Travel Clients
By Donna Askew
He may be the chronic complainer, the snob for whom nothing is quite good enough or a diver who seems to be out to kill himself by ignoring all the safety rules. We interviewed experienced dive travel leaders around the country about problem clients, and, typically, the conversation began with laughter, prompted by the memory of a particularly funny or obnoxious individual. This article will give you tips on how to keep not-so-pleasant clients from affecting your entire group's vacation, hopefully in ways that avoid conflict. . . . keep reading
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Welcome to Dive Center Business Online, a web-based educational resource created by the publishers of Dive Training and Dive Center Business magazines expressly for dive center owners and managers.
WE ARE bullish on the dive industry, and believe that the DIVE CENTER IS VITAL TO CREATING ENTHUSIASTIC, LOYAL, AND SAFE SCUBA CUSTOMERS.
OUR GOAL is to provide useful, how-to educational content to help dive retailers in the business of training, equipping, and leading divers to gain a WINNING EDGE in this challenging and rewarding enterprise.
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