Ok, the post title isn’t exactly an announcement for my upcoming new feature. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Recently, I was chatting with a satisfied customer and she asked me why SmileTutor does not display its tutor profiles publicly so that parents & students can browse through the profiles and book the tutors themselves?
When I first heard her question, I found it interesting and wanted to find out more, so I posed a question back at her, “Ah, Mdm Wong (not her real name), can you tell me more about this feature you’re talking about?”
She started to explain how she was fascinated with this so-and-so new tuition agency website, where she could browse through thousands of tutor profiles, which displayed the tutor profile and information and allowed her to shortlist tutors she liked.
As she related her experiences, I probed further, “Ah! That sounds like an awesomely cool feature. And what did you do with that feature? What did you like about it?”
“There were fanciful pictures, logos, and lots of tutor information!” She exclaimed with excitement.
Then came the killer question.
“So, have you engaged any tutors using this method from other agencies so far?”
Then it hit her… Nope, she hadn’t.
In that instant, she realized that spending those hours browsing through hundreds of tutors profiles did not ultimately help her achieve her objective: To find home tutors for your child.
I did not ultimately answer her question, but I’ll answer it here.
Sure, parents may be impressed by nifty websites and cool features such as being able to browse through tutor profiles, seeing their profile photos, qualifications, and resumes.
It may sound great in theory to shortlist 3-10 of your favourite tutors (after scouring for an hour or two) and submitting your tutor request.
But does it work? No, it doesn’t.
I say this simply because of our experience and how we work at SmileTutor.
1) Understanding your needs
We speak personally to every single one of our customers, because home tuition is not a commodity, it’s a relationship. We need to get to know you and all your requirements before our experienced coordinators can source for the right tutor.
2) Reaching wide
After we’ve understood your requirements in detail, we use our in-house tutor-matching algorithm to select at least the top 100 tutors out of our massive database that fits your preferences in all areas: Gender, race, subject, level, timings, budget, start date, tutor category, experience, and the list goes on.
3) Going deep
We then go through a stringent selection process organized by our tuition coordinator in charge of your case, who will speak individually with the interested tutors to find out who is the best match.
As you can see, the number of tutors we reach scales down from over 10,000 to 100 to 5 and finally, to 1 (your chosen tutor).
If only it were that easy, but it’s not. There are no “shortcuts” to the tuition coordinating process.
We have only one mission – to improve Singaporean students’ education by being the most reliable source of home tutors in Singapore.
The most easy, efficient, and effective way to find good home tutors? Send us your home tutor request. No gimmicks.
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