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I’m struggling with last-minute cancellations – what should my policy be? (All Teachers)
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Hey Lewis,
I’ve had a look at your T&Cs :). Here are my thoughts:
1. It’s very wordy. And still quite formal. The sheer wordiness of it has a chance of scaring people off! “Lessons will take place at the times and dates agreed between the teacher and the pupil (or parent/guardian) before each block of lessons” could just be “lessons will take place at an agreed time”. Or, on the basis that this would be assumed (when else would they take place?), you could just write: “lessons are paid for in blocks of four and are taught on a weekly basis. Lessons usually take place in the home of the student, unless a different venue has been agreed on.”
Note: I find it interesting that you’re teaching at THEIR house. Don’t you lose a lot of time (and therefore money) this way? I’d be interested to know why you chose this. Also I can imagine this might factor into why people don’t want to sign up for lessons indefinitely? Saying you’re willing to welcome a relative stranger into your home weekly for the foreseeable future, with no recourse to refunds if say there is an emergency in the home (illness/instability for example), could be pretty intense. Just some things to think about.
2. I’ve never seen 72 hours before! You’re really stepping out with that one! And “only one holiday will be acceptable”! Woah there. And one whole week’s notice for rescheduling! I’m not saying these are bad ideas, but have a think about how it would make you feel reading this as a new student, trying some scary brand new hobby for the first time, and all of a sudden you have to deal with only being able to take one holiday every so often.
3. If you wanted to make it even less formal (which I would urge you to think about; these are people you want to develop quick and friendly rapport with, after all), you could stop using third person to refer to yourself and/or your client. For example, you can use the word me, I or myself instead of “the teacher”. Also the word “invoice” could come across a bit icky. You’re trying to make this look like you’re offering a beautiful, homely encouraging service to people, not just a business transaction. Perhaps “payment reminder” or something along these lines is better. Also “ratified” is terrifying. This word is for UN protocols, not sole traders.
I could go on, but I’ve kind of already gone to town on your T&Cs. Sorry about this. I come from a family of academic editors, so it runs in the veins. The TL;DR is 1. Make it shorter 2. Consider whether YOU would take up lessons with someone who imposed these rules, and consider your target market (the reality is that if you teach all kids vs. uni students vs. adults, you need to be tailoring your policies so that THAT group of people will feel empathy and connection and safety towards your business). 3. Change the wording so that it’s more like you’re just having a conversation with a new student.
There’s the gist:)
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Well said, Kat. Was an interesting read though Lewis, makes me think I should write up an agreement a little more formally, although people seem to respect what’s already in place and has been for 3 years now. In fact, I do have the policy outlined in the invoice, but also most recently featured in a little more detail in my new Welcome Pack.. right at the end of the warm welcome! And it’s short and informal. With a little strictness of course.. here it is if it’s any help:
Cancellation Policy
I have a 48 hour cancellation policy in place for all booked lessons. Due to the nature of my business, it’s important that I keep to this rule in order to enable the smooth-running of the business. When students come on board, they are assigned a slot that is theirs every week/fortnight. Lessons are paid for upfront monthly, preferably by bank transfer.Terms & Conditions
Payment must be made 48 hours before the start of the next batch of lessons. Cancellations and rescheduling must be made 48 hours in advance of the lesson, with no exception; otherwise the full price of the lesson has to be paid. This cancelled lesson will be deducted from one of your prepaid lessons. For any cancellations made by your teacher, that lesson would be carried over to the next scheduled appointment. In the case of a lesson being rescheduled by the teacher, which is then cancelled by the student, the 48 hour cancellation policy applies to the second rescheduled lesson. -
Just an update on the things I implemented earlier in the year:
I’m happy to say I went from a 24 hour to a 48 hour policy and it was no problem at all.
I’m also happy to say my welcome pack pdf has been a huge success! People who come to lessons know how professional it is, and are far more understanding and far more likely to offer to pay if they haven’t already, when they cancel. It’s single-handedly made business SO MUCH EASIER. Would highly recommend it:) -
I know this is a hot topic. I am thinking of implementing a ONE WEEK cancellation policy. This is about valuing my self worth. Realistically slots that have been cancelled can never normally be filled even 72 hours in advance. Hotels have a one week cancellation policy and so do business coaches. This is our livelihood and our clients must respect that. Also the one week cancellation policy encourages commitment. I am puturbed by flakey clients that put work or other things before their commitment our agreement. If they have to cancel, fine but they have to pay. Since most of us work from home clients think that we can just get on with something else or that it won’t matter because we don’t have any overheads… well the room that we are working in is an overhead. If I didn’t work from home, I’d be living in a 1 bed flat, not a two bed flat.
Up until now I’ve been flexible with my clients, but with the cost of living rising and the fact that there is so much competition for singing teachers in Brighton, I feel I need to up my game, value myself and get serious with them. The one week cancellation policy is standard practice throughout the hotel industry, I think something needs to be done within the music teaching profession to make the one week cancellation policy standard practice too. Musicians are generally too nice. Let’s get serious. Matthew can you help?
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Great to see this developing into a really interesting and valuable thread. Lots of interesting ideas here – personally I would agree a lot with Mark Palmer’s points above, in the sense that from my experience of teaching how you explain what it means to book a lesson to a student can impact the way they perceive that commitment and the way Mark describes it above is a very professional approach to that.
To respond to a few other teacher’s:
@Lewis Leeming, as mentioned in my email, it might be worth looking into a pay one in advance model during the first two months with new students – this gives you some guarantees for attendance & money in the bank should they cancel, while keeping the upfront costs for the students quite low (I have often found with new students and beginners they are reluctant to commit financially until they have got used to a teacher & know that they really want to play guitar). After two months moving students to a 4-week block-booking model is much easier as they know they like the lessons and the teacher. This is from experience with working with teachers from across the UK, as well as my own teaching – enabling the students to slowly buy into financial commitment, which ultimately makes the teacher more money even though earlier on it leads the teacher a little more exposed in terms of potential no shows etc. early on.
I have some very interesting examples of how a payment model can effect the revenue generated by a teacher. Specifically I worked with a very good guitar teacher in Sheffield during 2013, his policy was that all students had to book a 5 lesson block booking for £120 – this was the only option & students had to make that booking upon their first lesson. The conversion of enquiries to students was non-existant, despite high levels of enquiries. As this was early on in the business I was interesting in exploring the impact of changing the student payment model with him and I convinced him to reduce this initial commitment to 3 lessons for £75 – again the conversion of enquiries to students was absolutely minimal. After a few months of evidence that this high financial commitment model on the students behalf wasn’t working I re-approached the teacher with evidence from across the UK that a more flexible financial model for students actually generates the teacher far more money (he was in need of students and time slots he wanted to fill but was determined not to be “messed around by them”). Ultimately as this teacher wasn’t interested in moving to a more flexible approach to the student’s payment model I stopped working with him and appointed a new guitar teacher in Sheffield who had a more flexible approach to payments. This teacher is now one of the leading guitar teachers from across the UK in terms of student numbers and lessons taught per month and reaffirmed my understanding that creating the right payment model for our clients, in this case students, is absolutely critical to ensuring that as a music teacher you generate the revenue needed to continuing being a music teacher.
However, there is a very fine line to ensure that by offering less up front financial commitment clients don’t take advantage of that by cancelling or wasting your time. My advice for this (A) cancellation policies are vital in reducing the losses caused by “no shows”, but cannot entirely alleviate their occurrence (B) that the visibility of cancellation policies can impact the effectiveness of their existence – I would recommend all teachers to have their cancellation policy in the footer of all email communications to students (a strategy that has worked well across the UK), as well as on the wall in direct line of sight in your lesson room (something Amanda Pike’s singing studio in Sheffield does very well); (C) the communication of what it means to book a lesson to a student very early on, as well as when they “cancel a lesson” is very important – I always think of one teacher’s comments that “in a very loving way I explain that they have booked my time, reserving that slot preventing me from generating income from any other source during that hour” – (D) dramatically varying the the model from the payment of either a single lesson on “pay as you go”, or a lesson in advance or a deposit based system – all three of which have been proven to work across the UK – does not bring in the results desired and ultimately reduces the teacher’s income as it tends not to suit the clients. This excludes block bookings, which I think fulfil a different role whereby students who know that they are committed seek to gain a reduction in the lesson price by booking lessons on mass – this is also to the advantage of the teacher in the sense that they therefore have the arrangement pre-paid for, this is dramatically different to the majority of individuals commencing lessons who are not yet necessarily committed to learning the instrument or indeed learning it with that teacher.
@Sally thanks so much for you thoughts and getting involved with the thread. My personal thoughts in regard to your post are two fold (A) often it is not the cancellation policy that is the challenge but gaining the money from the client for a lesson missed, rather than them going MIA never to be heard from again. The length of your cancellation policy therefore might be less important than the process alongside it that needs to be implemented to ensure that clients that does miss a lesson both pays for that lesson and continue to return for lessons thereafter – my question to you would be if I cancelled within the 7 days what are you next steps as a teacher to ensure I make payment & come back for lessons?
(B) business models evolve, I know you mentioned that hotels have a one week cancellation policy – however, many have 24 hour cancelation policies as it suits a different kind of client. In an area that is getting more competitive re-analysising what makes you different from your competitors is increasingly important – this is not to suggest you should be promoting your services on account of a flexible cancelation policy – but rather a continued and evolving look at how you are shaping the service that you are looking to sell to people in the form of 1-2-1 music lessons so that you both generate the highest level of income from it possible within a framework that you feel comfortable with as a teacher. For me increased competition should lead to increased innovation and flexibility on the businesses part to cater better for the clients that are more finite on account of more competition.
Ultimately my person view is that businesses succeed over the long term by continually ensuring that they cater for their clients in the most effective way, despite this at times leaving the business open to a degree of risk. I know in this thread we have talked about what is most beneficial for us, as teachers, to have in place in regard to student cancellations – but if we were students what could we reasonably expect from our music teachers?
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