Is it good to offer an hour of free tutoring?

[Gihane Doeman]

I would like to know if offering a free hour of tutoring is effective in gaining new clients. I heard some people take the free tutoring and never use the service again. So I decided to offer an hour of tutoring but the client has to sign up for a month of service and at least get tutored twice a week. Im hoping clients go for this. But I would like imput from people that already have their business established. plus how much did you intially charge for service. I want my my prices to be competitive. I figure in the 30 dollar to 60 dollar range (60 range for SAT and ACT services). Please offer imput.

[Edna M]

As a face to face tutor I have never had to offer a free hour. Most of the time I offered a Free Consultation, where I met with the parents and the child to discuss what the needs of the child were. Most parent that want the help will pay for the help. If you read the free guide Online Tutoring Business you will see that Scott does not recommend a free hour.
Best wishes!

[Christian Stapfer]

Maybe, face to face, you were experienced as being a competent and trustworthy teacher, whereas the internet is rightly seen as a source of various scams.
Why should there not be "online tutoring" scams that require payment (maybe even payment in advance) but deliver nothing, or not anything particularly useful?
Because the (potential) market for such an online tutoring scam is so great, it might pay off for a long time...

[Christian Stapfer]

What about offering the first few hours at a reduced price instead of one single hour completely free of charge?
For example, instead of offering one free hour ("worth" $60) you could offer the first three hours at the reduced price of $40.
This would have at least three advantages:
1. It would make the intial three hours more competitive in price.
2. It would eliminate those clients that are not really serious about paying in the long run.
3. Those clients that are not satisfied with your service, for whatever reason, may stop using it before having taken advantage of all three first hours. And you would at least have gained something...

[Gihane Doeman]

thank you for both of your responses. I have read some forums on here and they advise against offering the free hour. Im glad I changed up because before I was going to offer the free hour with "no obligation" to sign up. LOL. Glad I didnt do that! The thing is many people have never heard of online tutoring so it is kinda new to them. So I'm thinking to entice them they can have free tutoring to see if they like it or not. So the skeptical parents can try it out. I offer two types of payment plans. One is payment a month in advance. At at least two sessions per week. The second is payment two weeks at least three sessions weekly. Both options offer one hour of free tutoring for new customers. Not sure if that is a good plan. I plan to charge after the free hour of tutoring. The $60 dollar rate is only for the high level courses (SAT and ACT). NO free hour for that. This special is suppose to apply to the the other topics. What do you guys think? To Christian I think you might be right about the discounted rate. Something like half off, or something like that. That way at least I get my money either way. I get your point, but what do you think of my plan? Excuse any misspellings.

[Christian Stapfer]

You wrote: "The thing is many people have never heard of online tutoring so it is kinda new to them. So I'm thinking to entice them they can have free tutoring to see if they like it or not."

I can relate to that. The way I try to handle this problem is by putting a video on my website that helps students understand some of the pros and cons of online tutoring. For my free online tutoring, putting up this video does the job (in my opinion). For your commercial online tutoring service it would probably not be such a good idea to reuse a video that is not just demonstrating how online tutoring works, but also advertising a competitor's service at the same time ;-)
Maybe, over time students (and their parents) not knowing how online tutoring works will become less and less of a problem. The question is how long this process will take, however. Since there surely are some relatively low quality offerings of online tutoring out there on the web, this process of getting online tutoring known and adequately appreciated may take longer than we might wish...
I may be mistaken in this, but I read your explanation to mean that your tutees have to pay in advance, and get a single free session only after that. If so, this makes no sense to me at all: Either you offer a free session before the tutees (or their parents) commit any money to the enterprise, or you don't offer a free first session at all: because, I assume, the idea of a free session is to relieve prospective customers from the worry that they might waste some money on something that does not really work (well enough).
Note that not all of my tutees would be willing have two tutoring sessions per week (even though my tutoring is completely free of charge). Of course, there are students that have a large backlog of problems, or who find themselves relatively close to an important and sufficiently threatening exam: so they can easily make use of two sessions per week, maybe even more. But there are others, who just happen to need someone to help them with understanding and applying what they have just encountered during the preceding week: which, for maybe one single subject only, is not really that much. (Also, my students have plenty of other things to do, so that it is quite often just a question of not having the time to do two sessions per week.) But if you can find enough students who are willing to take (and pay for) two sessions a week, that is not a problem for you...

[Gihane Doeman]

thanks again for repling. i have decided that I will offer half off the first two session of tutoring but the parents have to sign up for one of the two packages I listed in my last message. Or I can have half off the first session. Then the parents have the option of signing up for the service if it is satisfatory to them > I just don't wnat to run the risk of people using the service to get through a tough exam and then not sign up at all. Plus I would like to know what is the normal cancelation policy regarding pre-paid services. I put in the contract the client must give seven day notice to cancel the service. I think that is adequate. I think I will make another thread about this. Are clients given the option to cancel anytime. I guess if I do that then I could refund half the money. I think that is standard and fair. What is your imput?

[SHIV AWASTHI]

you say that free session is just to entice the clients..i assume you are a beginner in the fray. not an established tutor. am i right? in that case you need to prove yourself as a excellent tutor.i do not think you can do that without allowing client to using your service and assess the quality.as far as the refund policy is concerned you need to know how fast you are getting the session bookings. suppose you get clients at 24 hr notice then you can safely give 36 hrs pre notice time in contract.i think that would be fair and acceptable.sorry for any errors in message.i shall be happy if this is of any use.

[Scott Palat]

Don't do it!

I tried it and there is officially no value in a free when it comes to tutoring.

Even the few clients that did sign up after our free 1 hour offer, never stayed with us and they just never valued our service.

It's much easier to charge a flat discount fee for a 1 hour session. Then, you can offer monthly tutoring packages after the session. Most parents will sign up with you directly after the first hour long etutoring session.

[Gihane Doeman]

Thanks for the input. I decided to offer 40% for two sessions. Then give the client the option to sign up for the service. I think this will be successful. What do you think Scott?

[Scott Palat]

Focus on the 1 hour session and then only offer monthly packages after the your first etutoring session. This is a proven way to acquire and hold clients for month even years. Of course, you have to take the time to care and consult with the parent on an ongoing basis too.

[Gihane Doeman]

Also I think that my way might seperate the ones that actually want the service in the long run, from those that may just want the two sessions, or what to sign up and cancel in a week. I don't know. I think it will work? ANy other imput?

[Scott Palat]

Testing is always the best option.

It's just my opinion that you might want to focus on maintaining your clients as opposed to having high turn over and allowing your clients to walk away from your online tutoring program. Of course they can if they choose, but once they sign up for a monthly program, they should always want your service unless you don't show sincerity in their child's education.

By consulting with the parent over the phone and providing a top notch 1 on 1 session, there won't be any reason for parent/student to leave your services unless you can't help them with a particular subject.