Becoming Customer Centric
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

How many times have you heard the phrase; The Customer is King?  Well, it’s true.  At least in the business world.  There is also another phrase that you may have heard often, even though some people have debated it from time to time.  The phrase is, The customer is always right.  Whether or not you agree with these two phrases is up to you, but as Dive Industry Professionals it behooves us to understand the dynamics between buyers and sellers in the economic environment of the recreational diving industry.  Who is the focal point in your business?  Is it you or the customer?

As recreational divers we are all consumers of diving programs, products, and services.  They are produced and distributed by over 8,000 businesses worldwide that specialize mainly in diving equipment, services, training, travel, and lifestyle products.  For a small industry (or niche market), that makes it a very competitive market for the producers and sellers.  As buyers, divers have the option to choose the best suppliers for their diving needs, wants, and desires.  They have the choice to choose the diving equipment companies that are best for them.  The same goes for choosing one of the 35 training agencies that meet our training needs.  And when it comes to travel, we have an almost unlimited number of choices of how we spend our recreational dollars.  That’s the power of independence in the marketplace.  Of course, this type of independence and power comes to us as a result of a capitalistic, free market economy, where people work for a living, receive a paycheck for their labor, and are free to spend their discretionary dollars on whatever they need, want, and desire.    So much for Economics 101.

As a Dive Industry Professional, you are on the front lines of all the economic development activity between producers and consumers and between buyers and sellers.  If you are in the business of selling your diving programs, products and services, then you may think of yourself as one of the Global Diving Business Warriors of our Industry.   But let’s put that into a 21^st century perspective.  Global commerce is not a war between producers and consumers.  It is a partnership between buyers and sellers.  In the global diving community, divers need, want, and desire diving equipment programs, products, and services.  The producers of these products have built their businesses around fulfilling the needs of their customers.  They are in the business of satisfying their customers’ needs.  That is what being customer centric is all about.  The customer is King, even if they are right or not.

One of the best marketing programs I have ever taught deals with consumer behavior and the psychographics of why people buy what they buy.  Customer Base Management has always been one of the three most important parts of running a successful business.  The other two deal with products and marketing.  Let’s look at them first.

Product management is all about creating the right product at the right price for a customer who has the need, want, desire, and ability to acquire it.  Modern day marketing was developed to ensure that producers were designing and creating products that were more likely to be purchased by consumers.  Producers that are customer-centric have a higher propensity to create the right products for the right customers.  Producers that are self-centered and only produce to their core competency usually end up with a warehouse full of unsellable products.   That is why you will see marketing professionals working in product development with the designers and engineers at some of the more successful diving equipment companies.

The creation and use of marketing vehicles in the sales process would be tremendously ineffective and wasteful if a customer-centric strategy were not implemented.  Your marketing message needs to be designed for the eyes and ears of the prospective end users that the products were developed for.  Once your target-specific message has been created, your marketing vehicle needs to be chosen according to your targeted audiences’ media preferences.  With the proper message and the selection of the correct marketing vehicle, your marketing efforts will have a higher chance of success if your message reaches their target, where they are, and when they are ready to make a purchasing decision.  Your professionally persuasive “call to action” will hopefully help them make the correct purchasing decision which is buy from us and buy now.  Customer-centric marketing professionals understand the power and effectiveness of target marketing, target-specific messaging, and target-rich destinations.

As a degreed Marketing Professional, I am a firm believer in target marketing.  Primarily because marketing and advertising is so consuming in time, money, and manpower.  Yes, marketing is expensive, and no one can afford to market to everyone.  Well, maybe Microsoft and Facebook can.  But in the diving industry, we have to create a marketing strategy that brings in the most results with the least expense.  The biggest bang for the buck, so to speak.  Our marketing campaigns have to be professionally conducted yet financially cost-effective.  Target marketing is the only way to go and the key to effective target marketing is to be customer-centric in our approach.

The advantage of adopting a customer-center strategy in your diving business is that you will position yourself as a legitimate professionally run operation.  An operation that is not desperate for sales and customers.  We all see too many diving companies bombarding us with way too many emails with the same message, over and over again.  They use email exclusively because email is cheap.  Is that how you want your customers to think of you?  If I subscribe to your magazine, that means I want to hear from you once a month, not receive three emails from you every week.  If I became an instructor with you in 1975, there probably is no reason to send me three emails a week, asking me to take your advance course, now is there?  By using what I call shotgun, mass mailings, you are wasting value company resources in time, money, and manpower and you are running the risk of losing customers forever.  Your company needs to adopt a customer-centric marketing approach and learn about target marketing strategies.  Our Association can help you with that.  Just send me an email – once!

I will summarize this article and end with a final reason to adopt a customer-centric strategy.  A business becomes successful and survives because it meets the needs of its customers.  Any business is only as good as its last interaction with a customer of theirs.  In business, we have three types of customers.  Current, Former, and Future.  Our most important is our current customers.  Our business should always keep in touch with them and survey them from time to time to check to see if we are currently meeting their needs.  Spend the time to learn about your current customers and keep asking them if there are any other products or services they would like you to offer.  Your former customers are the ones that have not done business with you in the last 12 months.  Contact them every 6 months or so and find out what they have been up to and if there is any way to regain their patronage?  Future customers, or what we call prospects, are expensive and time consuming to reach.  Our suggestion is to do your research about their demographics and try your best to target their specific needs.  Then reach out to them.

If a consumer-centric strategy is not currently on your plate, it may be soon.  There is a trend beginning in the travel and hospitality industries, concerning over-tourism and restrictive tourism.  That may or may not be a problem for the airline industry or the cruise industry, because they are dealing with their passenger capacity and the economic impact they have on their destinations.  The scuba diving industry is already feeling the pressure of over tourism in spotted locations.  I have heard negative reports about dive operators who take out 60-100 divers or more every morning, and they all go to the same reef at the same time.  That’s not good for the environment and that’s not good for the long-term success of the industry.  Maybe that is why the Mexican government recently closed five Cozumel reefs to help them recover from a daily load of divers (Riviera Maya News).  More of this is bound to occur in the future unless the industry can come up with solutions that are acceptable to the consumer, the dive operator, and the environment.  We need to do what is best for our customers.

This is an exciting time to become part of the Global Diving Business Network.  For more information about customer-centric marketing strategies, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director of the Dive Industry Association, 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL 32904.  Phone: 321-914-3778.  Email: gene@diveindustry.net  Web: www.diveindustry.net

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