Tutors and music teachers: scheduling calls, handled

Why the phone rings at 4:15

Between half past three and seven in the evening, a tutor or music teacher is with a student. That's the working day. It's also the only window when parents have finished work, collected the children, and remembered that Saturday's lesson clashes with a swim meet. So the calls come during lessons, every day, and answering one means stopping a lesson that somebody else is paying for.

The practical answer to tutor scheduling is to stop treating those calls as messages you return at nine at night. Have them answered during the lesson by something that knows your schedule, your make-up policy and your fees, takes the details and writes them down. You deal with a short list when teaching ends. Here's what each kind of call needs.

The make-up lesson call

A child is ill, or there's a school trip, and the parent wants to move the lesson. What you need from the call: which child, which lesson, the reason if they offer one, and which other slots could work. Plus the thing parents conveniently forget, which is your policy.

Write the policy in one or two sentences and have it said the same way every time. For example: lessons canceled with a day's notice can be made up within the term, and lessons missed without notice can't. The line reads it from your instructions. It doesn't improvise, and it doesn't cave when a parent sighs.

Then it takes the request, and you confirm the new slot in your own calendar. You're the only one who knows Wednesday at five is free because another family is away.

The recital and exam call

The spring concert, grade exams, practice tests, the summer showcase. Each produces a burst of identical questions. What's the date, when should we arrive, what should she wear, can grandparents come, how long will it go on, is there a rehearsal with the accompanist?

This is the easiest kind to hand over, because the answers are fixed. Put the dates, times, venue and dress notes into the line's instructions and it will answer them all evening. When a question isn't on your sheet (can he play second instead of first, he's nervous) it takes a message for you.

The new student call

The one worth money, and the one voicemail loses. A parent whose child needs algebra help before exams will ring three tutors in an evening, and the first one to have a real conversation usually gets the trial lesson.

The line collects facts, listed below. It doesn't judge whether a child is behind, or ready for an exam. That's what your first lesson is for.

• The student. First name, and age or school year.
• The subject or instrument, and the level. Grade 3 piano, second-year algebra, a complete beginner on guitar.
• What they're aiming at. An exam and its date, catching up, an audition, or playing for fun.
• Where and when. Your studio, their home or online, and which afternoons are possible.
• The parent. Name, number and email address.

The fees call

Parents ask about fees more readily on the phone than in writing. How much is a term? Is it paid up front? Is there a sibling rate? What about the exam entry fee? Do you charge over the summer?

Give the line your fee sheet and let it quote from that and nothing else. If a parent asks for something that isn't on it, a payment plan, say, the line takes the request and you decide. It never takes a card number and never agrees to a charge, so payment stays wherever you collect it now.

When the caller is a student, or a stranger

Teenagers ring too, usually to say the bus is late. The line takes the message like any other.

Think about strangers as well. Families you know can be marked as approved contacts. An unknown caller gets a polite assistant that doesn't share your personal details, and we'd add one sentence to your instructions in plain words: never tell a caller which student has a lesson, or when.

We keep the written record of a call and not the audio, and what's said on your line is sealed to your line. With children's names involved, put the same question to any provider you look at. Ours is answered on the trust page.

Set it up over the break, not in week three

You need four things written down: your weekly schedule with the slots you're willing to offer, the make-up policy, the term dates and events, and the fee sheet. It's an hour's work, and useful even if you never use a line like ours, since a parent handbook is the same document. There's a template in how to brief an AI receptionist.

Then either give out the line's number as your teaching number, or forward the calls you miss on your mobile to it. The forwarding codes are in how to forward missed calls.

A small test for this week

Before you change anything, keep a tally for five teaching days. Every call that comes in during a lesson gets a mark. Every voicemail actually left gets another. On Friday, look at the gap between the two columns. How many of those silent callers were parents you already teach, who'll text you later anyway? And how many were new families, who won't?

Common questions

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