The Lack of a Reliable Brand in The Scuba Diving Industry

Is there a scuba diving brand you would trust, quality assurance-wise, no matter where you see the logo around the world? Me neither.

We are talking, here, about industry-wide brands.

We do not deny that “Joe’s Dive Shop” in town T may always be providing a high level of customer service and its clients trust Joe. But Joe’s Dive Shop is in only one town. What happens when Joe’s clients want to go diving in the Caribbean for the first time? Which brand can they trust? Can they rely on any of the dive industry brands to determine the best dive resort to pick?

We have survey results to demonstrate how serious of an issue it is.

This post is part of our Blueprints 4.0 for a Healthier Dive Industry Business Model series by the Business of Diving Institute and Darcy Kieran, author of:

Horrible Experiences with Scuba Diving Brands

Let’s look at two horror stories – one with a dive training brand and another one with a scuba equipment brand.

Dive Training Agency Horror Story

Fred selects a local dive center in his hometown to get his scuba diver certification card. The service is outstanding from the first time he called to the time he received his C-card. He’s impressed.

He’s looking to go diving in the Caribbean. Happy with the service he got at the local ‘Certification Agency X’ dive shop, he looks for a ‘Certification Agency X’ resort, using the training agency’s “Find a Dive Shop” locator on its website. He invests a fair amount of money on the whole trip, including airfare and lodging.

He’s at the resort for a week. The welcome at the dive center was lukewarm. Nobody seemed to have time for him. The first morning on the dive boat, the divemaster ignores him. This divemaster seemed only interested in the Brazilian in a tiny bikini. Fred ends up very low on air trying to keep up with the divemaster. He didn’t see anything underwater except the fins of the divemaster continually swimming away. He surfaces far from the boat and has to swim against the current, back to the dive boat. Because of the waves, Fred keeps on using his regulator until the cylinder is empty, then switches to the snorkel. He’s a new diver with no experience in the ocean. Once he gets to the ladder, the divemaster on the boat is giving him a piece of his mind because Fred came back with an empty scuba cylinder. This is a real-life story, by the way.

What happened here? And what is the consequence of it?

Clearly, there’s a severe lack of quality assurance. You cannot trust the ‘Certification Agency X’ logo to mean anything. Only god knows what experience you will get from one dive center to another one.

What happens next? Do you think this state of affairs has an impact on the significant drop-out rate in the dive industry? You bet it does. In fact, in this real-life story we just summarized, Fred went to the dive center the next morning to let them know that he would not be diving for the rest of the week. He didn’t even ask for a refund. He simply didn’t want to hear anything about scuba diving ever again. Certainly, there are other activities he can enjoy on this island for the rest of the week.

The fundamental problem, here, is a lack of consistency in the quality of the experience you get from one ‘Certification Agency X’ center to another one.

The same situation can happen under any acronym you pick as a training agency. And the same occurs with scuba diving equipment brands.

Dive Gear Brand Horror Story

Here’s another real-life story. John is an executive in a multinational company. He always buys the best in cars, appliances, vacations, and, of course, dive gear. He spends a bundle getting the most expensive ‘Brand W’ gear, from the dive shop where he completed his entry-level diver course.

After a year, he brought back his regulator for servicing at that same dive center. The so-called technician reassembled the regulator using a ‘Brand S’ filter that was too small for the hole and, therefore, filtering nothing.

Will John ever go back to this ‘Brand W’ dive shop? Certainly not. Will he keep on using and trusting the ‘Brand W’ brand? Maybe, maybe not

Survey Results: Can We Trust Scuba Diving Brands?

The Business of Diving Institute conducted a survey on the quality of the experience provided to scuba divers by dive centers and dive instructors. Here are some results.

83.7% of dive center owners, 84.8% of dive instructors, and 89.2% of scuba divers agreed that between two dive centers associated with the same training agency, the quality of the service provided is often significantly different.
58.3% of scuba divers say that when they book a vacation that includes scuba diving in a destination they have never been to, they have no reliable way of knowing the level of service they will receive at that location.

Scuba divers and dive professionals do not trust that they will get a reliable quality experience when switching dive centers. Read the full survey report here.

The Benefits of a Reliable Scuba Diving Brand

I had an awful experience with the service I received from a GM dealer when I was 24 years old. I swore I would never buy from GM ever again - and I followed through. All the trucks I bought for my various dive centers have always been from Ford.

One lousy experience under your brand name can cost your brand a lot of money, for years to come. So why are training agencies and dive gear manufacturers so indifferent to how battered their brand is out there? Too busy repeating the same things they’ve been doing for decades? Looking at the dive industry shrinking and doing nothing about it? Sleeping on the job? Either way, it’s mind-boggling.

For the industry as a whole, this lack of consistency in the quality of the experience under scuba diving brands is a factor fuelling the dive industry drop-out rate, and we need to fix it. Whoever steps up to the plate will reap the rewards of being the first reliable brand in scuba diving.

Using Reviews as a Work Around

One day, I was having a discussion about the issue of the unreliability of scuba diving brands on stickers on the front door of dive centers, with the CEO of one of the major dive gear brands in the industry. He admitted that there was a total lack of consistency in the quality of the service from one dive center selling his brand, to the next. Ok. So you would think he’ll work on it? No.

His answer was along these lines: “Divers can simply check the reviews on TripAdvisor and such.” I fell off my chair.

Imagine this. You want to stop at a McDonald’s restaurant to grab a quick cheeseburger. Before doing so, you have to open an app and find that specific McDonald’s restaurant to know if they are really selling hamburgers and how many cockroaches have been spotted in that restaurant lately. Do they even sell burgers? Nonsense.

What’s Next?

Currently, there are no reliable scuba diving brands.

It’s a problem for consumers who do not want to waste their money. It’s a problem for well-run local dive shops and resorts to manage their business correctly while having to deal with the bad reputation of the brands they carry. And it should be of the utmost concern to private equity firms investing in the dive industry.

Why would an investor “buy a brand” that has no brand value?

What can we do about it? The short answer is pretty simple. There is a lack of consistency in the quality of the experience. And a lack of reliability for any scuba diving brand. One could assume that all we need is better quality assurance. Maybe. But it’s such an important topic that we discuss it in an article on defining and using quality assurance and branding for customer retention and satisfaction in the dive industry.

Continue reading about Blueprints 4.0 for a Healthier Dive Industry Business Model.