ziizoo blog

With the recent deployment of the new session interface tool (v2.0), there is an expected incidence of disruption and transitional dissonance because those last few platform bugs need to be fixed and only mass-scale testing can identify them. If these are a given, the main issue at hand is how to best handle initiation requests that don’t work the first time, or how to handle a session that fails early on or midway. Hence, the need to identify and establish best practices for Ziizoo CRM (customer relationship management). I don’t know all the right answers, but I believe this forum can help us tutors pool our insights and develop a strategy and a way of doing things that make sense.

For a startup venture like Ziizoo, CRM is at the very crux of business survival because the cost of catching the attention of a prospective customer can be astronomical. You’re not only wrestling attention from “the powers that be” but also trying to evince some flair among the clutter of online advertising. So once you grab someone’s attention, you’re already in the phase in which you’ve got only a modicum of time to demonstrate what you do AND that you do it well. From the customer’s (student’s) point of view, they want to be confident that they can easily access a tutor who is effective in answering their questions. This requires the harmony of two things: (1) a stable, smooth connection with the tutor, and (2) a dedicated and capable tutor committed to their craft. Ziizoo’s business model is designed to select for the better tutors, but when the connection fails, the tutor needs to mitigate the situation as best as they can, because those customer don’t just potentially belong to Ziizoo; they potentially belong to you as well! And it is this idea of customer “ownership” that should motivate you to salvage and manage a “crisis” when they do occur.

What would I do? First thing is to follow up on the student immediately. Usually, when you first get the session request, you can see the student’s name, so keep that in mind. A simple site search on the name should access their profile, but it’s a bit harder if the search comes up empty (usually if the student just registered on the site). If you’re lucky enough to have had some connection, then you should easily have a link on your account “dashboard” tab which records all successful connections. If not, I’d let the site co-founder Robert Einspruch know (can search his profile) since he can easily pull up the profile link. Once you access their profile, the only way to contact them is to send a message through the messagecenter explaining that there was a connection problem, apologizing for the mishap (which is obviously not your fault but still…), and proposing either of the following: (1) have the student re-initiate the session to see if it works the second time, (2) answer their questions through the messageboard, (3) or for drastic measures, working with them off Ziizoo (either through AIM, MSN, Yahoo or GTalk) hoping to bring them back in once issues are resolved. Sometimes a little goodwill is needed upfront to retain a customer and the goodwill you show is likely to come back to you in the form of the student’s favorable impression of your efforts.

Any thoughts or experiences you guys are willing to share on this issue? ;o)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under Faculty Lounge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.