adrian Phelan
12-08-2004, 15:45
As the owner of Diversdown I would like to comment on the discussion surrounding the events of last Saturday and Diversdown in general. Some of the things written on these subjects are based on fact, some are purely opinion, some are very ill informed opinions, some are offensive and some are frankly ridiculous.
There are 2 main threads to the discussion. The first is the quality of Service received by a party of Divers visiting Swanage last weekend and the second surrounds the quality of Air supplied by Diverdown.
1. The posting that the gentleman made about his party receiving bad service and being subject to foul language I would like to put a few things on record in reply.
First and foremost Diversdown do not condone foul language to any of our customers whatever the provocation. This is totally unacceptable. In this respect I would unreservedly apologise any party who was subjected to such language.
In terms of the events on the day when the customer reported the incident to me I said that I would deal with it. I offered to get his cylinders filled immediately and he declined the offer. I offered to refund his money immediately and he stated this had already happened. I offered to lend him prefilled cylinders to enable him to complete his Dive and he declined my offer. Another member of his party offered to lend him full cylinders and he also declined this offer stating that he did not want to because he was ?having a huff?. Before knowing the full events I personally apologised to the gentleman 3 times over the course of our 2 conversations. The accusation that I seemed uninterested is a very subjective and misleading statement. As stated I told the gentleman that I would deal with his complaint. I try not to have knee jerk reactions and because this was an already inflamed situation I decided to investigate it at the end of the day. I had already heard what the customer had to say and I wanted to interview the 3 people associated with Diversdown who where witness to the exchange separately to allow me to make an informed, educated and objective decision surrounding the events. This was carried out.
The comments surrounding the availability of fills need some clarification. Our core Business hours in the summer months are from 08:30hrs to 18:00hrs. We are extremely flexible about this and are happy to accommodate early of late customers when possible, our operator was filling to 20:30hrs on Friday evening with no prior arrangement. Most parties confirm out of hour?s availability for filling services and as stated we are happy to arrange this. We had indeed arranged to stay open for one party on Saturday night and were filling to 19:00hrs. The party in this case turned up on Saturday evening at 18:45hrs and the only member of staff remaining had family commitments and could not fill their cylinders. Like all these situations this could easily have been avoided by communication between the different parties.
Every week in the Dive season Divers have failures, breakages or forget various pieces of equipment.
We at Divers are always happy to help fix, adjust or lend when appropriate all manner of Diving related equipment to make sure that no one misses out on a Dive. We have even sent our RIB out to the Kyarra to lend a full cylinder to a Diver on a charter boat that had taken his empty cylinder by mistake. We are constantly posting pieces of kit that where forgotten on the Pier to Divers at their homes. We do all these things at no charge we only ask on occasion that the Diver make a small donation to the LifeBoats fund. I have numerous testimonials in the form of E-mails, post cards and even letters from customers thanking us for our services.
We have numerous customers who come back every week of the season and year after year to Dive with us.
To the person who posted the comments that inferred that we do not care about our customers and act as we please because we have a virtual monopoly in Swanage my reply to you is that your comment is just offensive! We are a small business on a peninsula that needs to do all it can to attract and keep customers. We make sure that our prices are some of the most competitive on the south coast.
I think that with anything like this some perspective needs to be applied. Thousands of Divers pass through Swanage Pier every year and by far the vast majority have had nothing but a pleasurable experience.
This by no means indicates that the incident last Saturday is in any way acceptable, it is clearly not!
2. Diversdown have a yearly inspection at my request from the HSE. We do this at the start of every Dive Season to ensure that we are conforming to all regulatory and legal requirements. This inspection was carried out again this year and looked at our whole operation including maintenance schedules and logs for our machinery, and again we had no issues raised from this inspection.
Diversdown is a voluntary member of the Dorset County Councils Trading and Standards Clean Air Scheme, which regularly checks our Air. On our request the Air was checked again this week and has passed all tests with no issues. The reference made in the discussion about bad air in July was in reference to a mechanical failure that we had on a Saturday afternoon in July that when recognised the system was shut down immediately and we worked all night to rectify for Sunday morning. For the cynical this was not purely because of potential loss of Revenue it was because we did not wish to disappoint the people who had made the trip.
Anybody who operates compressors is well aware that no matter how vigorously you maintain the machinery anything with moving parts is always open to failures.
To the persons that suggested we get inspected by the HSE or Trading and standards your comments are ill informed. As stated above we have been inspected by the HSE we do get regular checks by Trading and Standards and we have never had any problems with either. This industry is getting more and more regulated which is a good thing and for you to think that anybody can operate with impunity from these regulations is naive.
To the person who commented that Trading and Standards should look at our Try Dive offer for a 1 hour Dive under Swanage Pier because you doubt whether anyone stays down for 1 hour even in 3 meters this comment is quite ridiculous! Is your argument that a Dive starts when you submerge and ends on breaking the surface after ascending? If so we could argue all day about that. We have had nothing but positive feedback about our try dives, it is an inexpensive way for people to be introduced to our sport in a controlled and safe environment.
Summary
We conform to all Diving related standards.
We care about our customers.
This whole episode deeply upsets me for 3 main reasons in the following order.
1. Customers of Diversdown and fellow Divers felt they were treated so badly that they could not carry out their Dives and left being upset and disappointed.
2. One incident like this undermines all the positive things that we have worked so hard to build.
3. That some fellow Divers would post some really ill informed opinions to the point where this feels like a vindictive witch hunt, and the moderator of the site felt the need to remove some of the postings.
Adrian Phelan
Diversdown
There are 2 main threads to the discussion. The first is the quality of Service received by a party of Divers visiting Swanage last weekend and the second surrounds the quality of Air supplied by Diverdown.
1. The posting that the gentleman made about his party receiving bad service and being subject to foul language I would like to put a few things on record in reply.
First and foremost Diversdown do not condone foul language to any of our customers whatever the provocation. This is totally unacceptable. In this respect I would unreservedly apologise any party who was subjected to such language.
In terms of the events on the day when the customer reported the incident to me I said that I would deal with it. I offered to get his cylinders filled immediately and he declined the offer. I offered to refund his money immediately and he stated this had already happened. I offered to lend him prefilled cylinders to enable him to complete his Dive and he declined my offer. Another member of his party offered to lend him full cylinders and he also declined this offer stating that he did not want to because he was ?having a huff?. Before knowing the full events I personally apologised to the gentleman 3 times over the course of our 2 conversations. The accusation that I seemed uninterested is a very subjective and misleading statement. As stated I told the gentleman that I would deal with his complaint. I try not to have knee jerk reactions and because this was an already inflamed situation I decided to investigate it at the end of the day. I had already heard what the customer had to say and I wanted to interview the 3 people associated with Diversdown who where witness to the exchange separately to allow me to make an informed, educated and objective decision surrounding the events. This was carried out.
The comments surrounding the availability of fills need some clarification. Our core Business hours in the summer months are from 08:30hrs to 18:00hrs. We are extremely flexible about this and are happy to accommodate early of late customers when possible, our operator was filling to 20:30hrs on Friday evening with no prior arrangement. Most parties confirm out of hour?s availability for filling services and as stated we are happy to arrange this. We had indeed arranged to stay open for one party on Saturday night and were filling to 19:00hrs. The party in this case turned up on Saturday evening at 18:45hrs and the only member of staff remaining had family commitments and could not fill their cylinders. Like all these situations this could easily have been avoided by communication between the different parties.
Every week in the Dive season Divers have failures, breakages or forget various pieces of equipment.
We at Divers are always happy to help fix, adjust or lend when appropriate all manner of Diving related equipment to make sure that no one misses out on a Dive. We have even sent our RIB out to the Kyarra to lend a full cylinder to a Diver on a charter boat that had taken his empty cylinder by mistake. We are constantly posting pieces of kit that where forgotten on the Pier to Divers at their homes. We do all these things at no charge we only ask on occasion that the Diver make a small donation to the LifeBoats fund. I have numerous testimonials in the form of E-mails, post cards and even letters from customers thanking us for our services.
We have numerous customers who come back every week of the season and year after year to Dive with us.
To the person who posted the comments that inferred that we do not care about our customers and act as we please because we have a virtual monopoly in Swanage my reply to you is that your comment is just offensive! We are a small business on a peninsula that needs to do all it can to attract and keep customers. We make sure that our prices are some of the most competitive on the south coast.
I think that with anything like this some perspective needs to be applied. Thousands of Divers pass through Swanage Pier every year and by far the vast majority have had nothing but a pleasurable experience.
This by no means indicates that the incident last Saturday is in any way acceptable, it is clearly not!
2. Diversdown have a yearly inspection at my request from the HSE. We do this at the start of every Dive Season to ensure that we are conforming to all regulatory and legal requirements. This inspection was carried out again this year and looked at our whole operation including maintenance schedules and logs for our machinery, and again we had no issues raised from this inspection.
Diversdown is a voluntary member of the Dorset County Councils Trading and Standards Clean Air Scheme, which regularly checks our Air. On our request the Air was checked again this week and has passed all tests with no issues. The reference made in the discussion about bad air in July was in reference to a mechanical failure that we had on a Saturday afternoon in July that when recognised the system was shut down immediately and we worked all night to rectify for Sunday morning. For the cynical this was not purely because of potential loss of Revenue it was because we did not wish to disappoint the people who had made the trip.
Anybody who operates compressors is well aware that no matter how vigorously you maintain the machinery anything with moving parts is always open to failures.
To the persons that suggested we get inspected by the HSE or Trading and standards your comments are ill informed. As stated above we have been inspected by the HSE we do get regular checks by Trading and Standards and we have never had any problems with either. This industry is getting more and more regulated which is a good thing and for you to think that anybody can operate with impunity from these regulations is naive.
To the person who commented that Trading and Standards should look at our Try Dive offer for a 1 hour Dive under Swanage Pier because you doubt whether anyone stays down for 1 hour even in 3 meters this comment is quite ridiculous! Is your argument that a Dive starts when you submerge and ends on breaking the surface after ascending? If so we could argue all day about that. We have had nothing but positive feedback about our try dives, it is an inexpensive way for people to be introduced to our sport in a controlled and safe environment.
Summary
We conform to all Diving related standards.
We care about our customers.
This whole episode deeply upsets me for 3 main reasons in the following order.
1. Customers of Diversdown and fellow Divers felt they were treated so badly that they could not carry out their Dives and left being upset and disappointed.
2. One incident like this undermines all the positive things that we have worked so hard to build.
3. That some fellow Divers would post some really ill informed opinions to the point where this feels like a vindictive witch hunt, and the moderator of the site felt the need to remove some of the postings.
Adrian Phelan
Diversdown