Dive professionals often promote their chosen dive training agency alongside their own brand, but this can obscure their view of a deeper issue: channel conflict. Channel conflict occurs when a company competes with its own partners, such as retailers, distributors, or dive professionals, by selling directly to customers. Initially, dive training companies rely on their partners to grow their customer base, but once the brand is established, they bypass these intermediaries, dealing directly with customers and cutting out those who helped build their success.
In the dive industry, this might look like a training agency allowing instructors to promote and sell certification courses, only to later sell those same courses directly to students through online platforms. This shift can significantly impact dive instructors, who not only lose control over their student base but also find that any compensation from the agency rarely covers the cost of acquiring and serving these customers, both in the short term and long term.
Reduced Autonomy for Instructors
Currently, dive instructors and dive centers operate independently, marketing their own services to attract students. However, if agencies centralize student inquiries and appoint instructors, the autonomy of dive professionals would be greatly diminished. Instructors would become dependent on the agency for student referrals, limiting their ability to grow their business and shape their customer relationships.
Increased Power for Agencies
When agencies take control of student inquiries, they gain significant market power, allowing them to dictate terms and conditions for instructors. By controlling the flow of students, agencies could easily shift the economic balance in their favor, leaving instructors with less leverage to negotiate fair terms for their services.
A Gig Economy for Dive Instructors
This model could transform the role of instructors into something akin to a “gig economy,” like Uber or Airbnb platforms. Instructors would become more like freelancers, dependent on the agency for job assignments rather than running independent businesses. The agency, like the platform in a gig economy, would control customer acquisition, while instructors would simply deliver the service.
Loss of Personal Branding
Dive professionals currently build their own reputations and personal brands through direct relationships with students. If agencies take over assigning students, instructors would lose the ability to market themselves directly. This would undermine their personal brand, making it difficult for them to stand out based on reputation, teaching style, or unique offerings.
Standardized Pricing and Training Models
Agencies might also introduce standardized pricing and training models, offering more predictable costs and experiences for students. However, this would reduce instructors’ flexibility to differentiate themselves through pricing or offer unique training experiences. Agencies could dictate pricing, potentially squeezing instructors’ profit margins and limiting their ability to tailor services.
Shift in Customer Loyalty
Currently, student loyalty is often directed toward individual instructors or dive centers because of personal relationships. If the agency takes over assigning instructors, this loyalty could shift toward the agency, making it harder for instructors to build long-term relationships with students who might seek further training, diving trips, or equipment purchases.
Instructors as Service Providers
In such a system, instructors would move from being independent business owners to service providers on behalf of the agency. This shift could lead to diminished decision-making power, lower earnings, and a reduction in job satisfaction for professionals who value the entrepreneurial aspect of their role. The “Scuba Uber” model would effectively transform them into gig workers.
Quality Control and Consistency
On the positive side, centralized control might lead to better quality and consistency in dive training. Agencies would have more oversight on who teaches courses, ensuring instructors meet certain performance and safety standards. However, this could stifle diversity in teaching approaches, leading to a more standardized and less personalized student experience.
Increased Competition Among Instructors
With agencies controlling student assignments, competition among instructors could intensify. Agencies might favor those with higher certification levels, better feedback, or those willing to work for lower rates. This could create a highly competitive and less stable work environment, especially in regions with many instructors vying for the same students.
Greater Responsibility for Agencies
Agencies would bear greater responsibility for customer satisfaction and managing instructor performance. They would likely enforce stricter oversight, ensuring that instructors adhere to agency policies to continue receiving student assignments. However, this pressure could lead instructors to prioritize positive feedback over quality training, compromising the overall experience.
Conclusion: A Shift in Power
If dive agencies become the primary point of contact for students and begin assigning instructors, the power dynamic in the industry would shift heavily in favor of the agencies. Dive professionals would lose much of their independence, becoming more dependent on agencies for work, and their ability to control pricing, customer relationships, and business growth would diminish.
To avoid this, dive professionals must rethink their approach to marketing. By promoting the agency’s brand in their advertising, they further entrench this dynamic.
To regain control over their businesses, instructors may need to remove agency branding from their promotions and focus on marketing their own services and reputation.
This would allow them to maintain autonomy and protect their role as independent professionals in the dive industry.
