Well, here we go again. Another waisted hour. Session booked for today, waited in vain for 15 minutes, student did not turn up. I say it again: we need to know at least 1/2 hour before class/session begins if the person/people registered have paid or not as not to waste our time in front of an empty screen. It is very unpolite from the students part not to turn up without prior notice. I understand people may have problems, but they must at least send a message.

My time is precious as anybody else’s. And I think this is a big flaw on Edufire’s part, teachers must know in advance who paid and who did not, so as to avoid situations like this.

I know Marco and Co. will say that using pre-payment is the best option and I agree, but this does not stop people registering or booking sessions and then changing their minds and not paying for it. All I ask is that we know in advance when this happens so we do not waste out time for nothing!!!!

Does anybody else agree?

Hi Monica I’m really sorry nobody turned up today. Using pre-payment or not doesn’t really affect attendance rates and there have been lots of discussions about what can help more students attend.

May I recommend Ron’s class is really going to be a class worth attending if you’re looking at making sure students that sign up also attend.

Marco, it was not a class but a session booked personally by a student!!! I know what can happen with classes, but this is different. I even contacted the person few days before reminding her of the session SHE BOOKED, not me!!!

I am not really worried about attendance , i know very well that students can be a bit….. forgetfull, my point is that you should know as teacher in advance (and 1/2 hour is not too much in advance) if your class or session will be empty or not!!! If this is a technical difficulty that the staff at the moment are not able to address I understand, but i still would like to know if anyone else believes it would help us. I think so, because that way I will not sit in front of a computer hoping people will turn up, because I will know who will and who won’t before hand.

Don’t you agree?

I do agree with you Monica…. If someone who booked a private session with a teacher won’t show up, I think it is only natural that the teacher has a way to find out (if this person isn’t courteous enough to send a message beforehand).

I’m always amazed to read about this here…. I spend most of my days (in my private practice) training people online in private sessions and I never met one who would just not let me know beforehand if there were a problem…. so that we can re-schedule…. they know my time is precious and they would never let me enter an empty classroom and wait for them!….

Didn’t I hear that we are switching over to pre-paid on 15th July? Does this mean people are going to pay when they book? It would be less painful to sit in front of an empty screen knowing that you have been paid ….. it would still be disappointing, but less so.

Mair…. even though people paid in advance, there is no way to see if they did or not (unless this person is a new student, then their icon will appear in the recent students’ list)…. it’s something you find out when you sit in an empty class or when you get the details along with your payment each Wednesday.

I appreciate that is true now, but is is all going to change on the 15th July? If people have to pay when they book then they have paid….. or are we just changing to everyone has to pay just before the lesson?

I’m afraid it will be that everyone has to pay just before the lesson. So, it will not change much. No shows and consequently no getting paid for them, will not change.

Ciao Monica,

I can understand you’re disappointed.

Anyway if you discussed with the student and she seemed genuinely interested in learning Italian with you, don’t hesitate to contact her/him and ask for explanations because a major problem may always occur to us tutors as well.

Also follow this topic where we’re proposing solutions for such a situation:

http://edufire.com/forums/2-tutor-talk/topics/1714-student-ratings?page=1#posts-44230

Katia

Solution:

Prepay at the time of booking.
Cancellation^ accepted a given period of time prior to class, example:12 hours before
If student does not show up or cancel, *teacher gets paid Same applies to SupePass students.

Unfortunately this will not be implemented, because it goes against edufire’s policy.

As well as Ron’s class I previously mentioned, Jon’s post here- is also useful.

When frustration and dissapointment run high, lets go Here for a moment.

- Hi Katja, the problem is I sent her 2 messages (I know she read them) but she never bothered to reply!!!!
- Enrique, you are right saying it is against Edufire policy, but I think that maybe if Edufire wants to keep their teachers happy as well as the students, they might want to look into those proposal of yours, otherwise if people start getting fed up for waiting in empty classes or session Edufire might end up full of students, but with no teachers!
- Marco, nobody has actually replied clearly and said if it is a technical reason why the we don’t know in advance if the students have paid or it is your policy. Any chance for a clear reply this time? Also my problem is not attendance as in people registering (always get a pretty full class) but when the actual class takes place. If people do not read their messages (i always send one before the class starts) how am I suppose to entice them to come to the class!!! I know for sure that i have sent messages over a month ago to some students and they have not read them! Any idea on this?

Hi Monica, I’m sorry I didn’t reply clearly, I thought I had, must have been another thread as we’ve discussed this a few times. The answer is that it isn’t ‘policy’, it’s more technical in that it is the way it has been set up right now. We have definitely discussed giving teachers a page where they can see all such information, like you can with SuperPass on your My eduFire page. So far it has been a matter of allocating resources and prioritizing things like the creation of SuperPass. But keep watching as things are happening all the time.

I understand the issue is of people not attending, rather than people not registering. ‘Enticing’ people is all part of marketing and many many variables. Hence I mentioned Ron’s class, that’s going to be great.

Think of it in terms of any business (which is what we’re talking about here). Let’s say we own a shop, you and me. :) People walk into a shop and they leave without buying anything. Do we as the shop keepers seek that the landlord that we rent the premises from pay for that lost revenue? If we did s/he’d hike our rent up pretty quickly if we did that! What we should do is find out from our customers why they aren’t buying from us but maybe going to the shop next door. We may think our products are fabulous! But it doesn’t really matter what we think, it is what the customers think that matter.

Survey them, find out what they do like. Find out what they don’t like. Focus on the regular customers and there you have your foundation to build upon.

We’re finding some teachers consistently get good attendance rates so it’s a case of replicating that success.

Let me know if I can help in any way.

Hi fellow Edututors,

Unfortunately I’m going through the same course of events as you Monica. It’s happened twice in the last week, with two different students. They book a tutoring session with me, I send them the initial email asking them questions to elicit a response so that I can gauge if they are really interested, they don’t reply, they don’t show up, they don’t answer the follow up email I send asking if they had any problems and why they didn’t turn up for a session they requested. I have my profile set to pre-pay, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. I don’t understand why students are able to book sessions that they have no intention of turning up to. It’s not really fair to expect tutors to be sitting by their computers waiting for students who are not serious.
I am very disappointed as well.

I am so happy you wrote and have the same problem (I mean not happy that you have the same problem, but that I am not the only one having it! – hope you understand what I mean!!)

I felt like it was happenin only to me!! I went through exactly the same as you (booked session, tried to contact no reply, no show etc.)

Hopefully this will be addressed by Edufire in the future.

thanks for your support, Holly!

This is disappointing absolutely and I don’t think any teaching “body” in the world has ever resolved. There will always be people that won’t come to class. “Real” world and online and nobody can force an individual to attend. It just shows that we should focus on those that do attend. And those that don’t, have you checked their profiles? Have they registered and attended other classes? What are those classes offering that you’re not?

As I said, if I can help you know where I am.

Myngle found a solution, and I don’t see why Edufire doesn’t embrace the concept as well….

1. Students are asked to pay immediately when booking

2. If they don’t, or use a payment method that can’t be automated, their session doesn’t appear as paid. “Not paid yet” is the default state of a session, until something in the system changes it upon receival of the payment. This way, teachers are fore-warned.

3a. If they didn’t pay, Myngle goes after them and may kick them out.
3b. If they paid and didn’t show (or cancelled too late), teachers do get the payment, students are not eligible for a refund, plus they get a follow-up e-mail from Myngle and may eventually still be kicked out if they do it too often.
3c. If they paid and showed up, perfect!
3d. If they paid and the teacher didn’t show, students get a free replacement session and Myngle cracks down on the teacher.

this is what edufire should start , and this is the exact solution of this type of never show up students.I faced that for 4-5 times in last 10 days.So Marco just take it and add, and Judith please place it as an idea and say in this thread, we are going to vote for you…..

idea 1
idea 2
pretty popular idea already …..

That is certainly a system that they use yes and I know of it. While we evaluate different methods there are lots you can do as individuals.

I don’t really agree with everything Myngle does in terms of handling payments whilst I like other aspects. I really can’t see how they are able to go after individuals unless they have agents located globally knocking on people’s doors. :-))

I’d like to bring focus back to what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about ‘student no shows’ across the board. We’re talking about about why some teachers do consistently get high attendance rates and some don’t.

Do the students that don’t come to your classes have low attendance rates anyway? If so then certainly that is something that may need attention. But are they going to somebody else’s class instead? I’m glad to see most of you here are coming to Ron’s class as that’ll be full of the exact information you need.

I am sorry Marco, but the problem is not high attendance as in a lot of people registering, but high attendance as people actually turning up once they have registered. This is the problem.

I don’t see how I can improve that, I mean, if a person has registered for my class or asked to book a session with me, it should mean he/she is already interested in what I teach and it should mean they want to take part in the class or session i give. this means they have already read the description of my class or my profile and have decided to follow my lessons. So how can I improve that? the problem is people register for various classes at the same time: the reason? I don’t know, do you?
Also why would someone book for a session for a specific time they chose (not me) and then not turn up? Would you do that if you had an hospital appointment? You don’t if you have paid in advance, you probably would if you didn’t pay for it. It is the mentality of free service.

I don’t think we can stop this happening, but at least if the teachers know in advance before entering a class or a session if any payment have been made by students, at least he knows if he is going to give a lesson or not!! THAT’S ALL.

and how do we know if the students that don’t turn up let any other teachers down in the same way?

I’ve seen students sign up to 2 -3 classes at the same time. Luckily, might show up at one.

I’ve seen students sign up to all of my classes…..show up at NONE.

I am fully aware of what you are saying Monica. People register and then do not attend. I totally agree with you that it is far from ideal and not acceptable.

My point is that some teachers consistently get high attendance rates. If it happened to everybody eduFire would not have been able to continue growing.

How you can improve the attendance rate is what this is all about. :) Have you registered for Ron’s class I mentioned? That’ll be a great start. Also ask other teachers what they do…. I know for example that top teachers do a little marketing but they do it consistently. They write documents, articles, have built teacher/student relationships so they ‘know’ who their students are.

Don’t get me wrong, your success is eduFire’s success so know that we’re trying to help. I’m not saying these things to say ‘no’ to your points, I’m saying because I’ve seen it work and want it to work for you too.

Wrong, the discussion started out about pre-payment and other measures that Edufire can do on THEIR side to prevent this being an issue in at least 95% of cases.

On Myngle, student no-shows are so low they are a non-issue, just look at the forums. If ever a student doesn’t show, the payment the teacher receives anyway keeps people from being too sad, and Myngle kicks out these students quite quickly if they don’t give a satisfactory answer to the follow-up e-mail. Whereas here, I know of at least one student who has been consistently signing up for and then missing my and others’ classes for 3 months, and she’s still around….

How come every time somebody starts to think about this issue, some Edufire staff person diverts the discussion to what tutors need to do? Of course we’re doing what we can to promote student attendance and we’ve read Koichi’s constant reminders about that, but Edufire is NOT doing their part. Any site has growing pains, we tutors can forgive them for inventing a system that is dead easy to abuse, but then not fixing it 3 months and more than 200 related forum posts later is unforgivable.