Free tools are great when you’re testing out teaching English online but when you have a growing team, a growing number of students or competitors on your heels, you need to step up and take your business to the next level.
A patchy system starts becomes too expensive very quickly when you’ve a growing business. The marginal cost per user per month for a professional software is a fraction of what a missed sale, unhappy customer or wasted teacher time.
Every breakdown can cost you $30 - $100 for every hour of wasted time. If your patchwork let you down 2 x per week, that could cost your business $280 - $800 per month.
These are the 10 most common problems with managing so many different systems:
Wasting teaching time with setup problems
While many students are tech savvy enough to download an external plugin like Skype, many get stuck with other out-dated third-party software like Adobe Flash.
As a school owner, you’re probably familiar with the unfortunate habit of many students to wait until the last minute to get setup for the class.
If you have one student that is holding up the class because they panic and can’t download the required software, this could waste your time, waste the time of all the other students. What’s the cost to you, the teacher and the students every time there is a technical hiccup?
Complicated whiteboard
Most students these days expect solutions and tools to be elegant, easy to understand and intuitive. With that in mind, you’d be surprised how many schools use complicated, ugly or outdated online whiteboards for their teachers to explain ideas.
The user experience is so important for keeping existing customers and attracting new customers. So is a free software worth losing a customer for?
Brand inconsistency
For established ESL schools the biggest threat is not technology, but the growing wave of solopreneur / tutors who use free online tools to compete on price and service. Free tools provide functionality but are not for professionals.
One way for ESL schools to keep ahead and stand out is to bring all these services under a streamlined, branded service that they can charge a premium for.
So how valuable is your brand?
Too many video and audio problems (student technical problems)
Hard to control group classes with difficult students
With so many different systems open, it’s hard to be an effective teacher
Systems slowing down ability to teach and run the business
Hard to track teacher late to class, no-shows and student satisfaction
Disorganised (no central admin, class scheduling or student sign-on)
Difficult to train new staff and teachers on so many systems as you grow
Frustrated trying to pay teachers for hours worked (and keeping oversight)
Wasting money and missing opportunities by managing payments manually.
LearnCube is a professional solution designed specifically for the needs of teaching languages online, it includes:
- Class scheduling
- Proficiency tests
- Virtual Classrooms
- Online Whiteboards
- Online Courses
