Carly, the owner of this shop, needs an ego adjustment. Carly is arrogant and she is extremely pushy about wanting all gear to be purchased from her shop whether that is in the best interest of the diver or not. Her pushiness to make a sale on its own could probably be overlooked or just ignored.
What cannot be overlooked is that Carly is unable to receive and resolve negative feedback that is brought to her attention directly. That might be why people end up posting their complaints online – something I did not originally intend to do with this small business.
When given direct feedback on the misconduct of one of Carly’s instructors – which did not affect my child but did ruin the experience as an observer to the class since another (minor child) student was in tears with her dad having to leave to sit in his car because he was understandably upset – Carly’s response was to express “anxiety” at having been alerted by me that there was a problem. Unprofessional.
Carly then proceded to fire my 11 year old son from his program, “not because my son is a problem but because I am a problem” for bringing an issue directly to her attention and giving her an opportunity to resolve it.
I will not tolerate bullying or humiliation or any other form of meanness from adults toward kids whether it is my kid or not.
Carly did not communicate properly with her instructor Dominick, to let him know the young diver who he publicly and very rudely excluded, would be joining the class. Had Carly done that or had Dominick taken a moment to set his own ego aside and contact Carly to request clarification, the class would have likely gone very smoothly for everyone.
A small dose of humility and a sincere apology when things don’t go as planned (Dominick, the instructor did apologize and own that he could have handled the situation better but Carly did not) goes a long way. More than anyone, small businesses, if they want to succeed, need to master this skill.
Two stars because upon irrationally firing my son Carly did initiate an offer to fully refund our money which we’ll be watching for. – via Google